Gas Stations are Anti-Pedestrian Infrastructure
What happened: On January 9th, a driver hit a pedestrian while leaving a Sunoco gas station. The driver did not stop but was later caught by police. The pedestrian was taken to the hospital in critical condition.
Where it happened: The gas station in questions is located at 310 Cedar Avenue, in front of the North Side Giant Eagle and across from Allegheny Commons. While the sidewalk here is quite generous with a width of about 16 feet, the design of the gas station erases what pedestrians may gain from the wide sidewalk. There are two huge curb cuts onto Cedar Avenue that are each about 40 feet wide (as well as a third smaller one on Canal Street). The entire 16-foot sidewalk slopes down so that the cars gently kiss with road when leaving the gas station with nary a bump, while pedestrians are forced to go down to vehicle-level, making it clear who is prioritized here. The pumps are front and center at the station while the store is at the back, again prioritizing drivers over pedestrians. Many of these design elements are typical of gas stations, and contribute to the idea that pedestrians are second-class citizens and if they get hurt, as in this case, that it is somehow their fault, rather than that of the person navigating the two-ton death machine.
How to fix it: While these designs are fairly typical for a gas station, they are really made for suburban and rural environments, where pedestrians aren’t expected, and should be adapted for urban environments. Let’s take a look at a few urban gas stations and see what we can learn from them.
This gas station at the corner of Calhoun and Meeting Streets in Charleston may not look like much, but it has New Urbanists signing it’s praises when it was built in 2003. While it still has two oversized sloping curb cuts, it has turned they typical gas station around, with the store on the corner and the pumps behind. The store entrance still faces the pumps, but it’s closer to the street and does have a little sidewalk entrance.
When I saw this gas station at the corner of Strandboulevarden and Århusgade in Copenhagen, it blew my mind. It still has two curb cuts, and it still has the store at the back and pumps up front, but obviously, it’s integrated into a mixed-use building, which I can’t remember seeing anywhere in the US. As is typical in Copenhagen, the sidewalks continue at pedestrian level, and drivers have to put up with a small bump when entering or leaving the street, forcing them to slow down and pay better attention to their surroundings. The curb cuts are also much narrower than on its American cousins.
Returning to Pennsylvania, this gas station in Philadelphia does something none of our other examples do: not only it its store located on the street, but its main entrances face the street, suggesting that it is built with pedestrians in mind and not just drivers. It still has multiple wide curb cuts that force pedestrians down to vehicle-level, so it’s not perfect, but while I worry I’ll get in trouble to say anything nice about Wawa (of course Sheetz has better food and a better selection), I will say that for many of their locations in Philadelphia, they make a pedestrian-focused choice not to include gas pumps at all.
Who to call: Curb cuts are controlled by zoning, and administered by both the Department of City Planning (DCP) and the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI). DCP can be reached by phone at (412) 255-2200, and DOMI can be reached at (412) 255-8850. For political support, contact Councilperson Bobby Wilson’s office by email, by phone at (412) 255-2135, or by submitting a District 1 Feedback Form.