A motorist's dash cam caught two cyclists taking the city's new Indego bike share bikes for a daring spin Saturday night on a downtown Philadelphia expressway.
Mervin Choun, 26, said he got on I-676 west at 8th Street in Chinatown about 10 p.m. Saturday night headed toward Ben Franklin Parkway and noticed that other drivers were slowing down. Then, Choun said, he spotted two cyclists riding what he recognized as Indego bikes that are part of a bike-share program recently launched in the city.
In the video captured by Choun's dash cam, the cyclists can be seen riding along the edge of the right lane, hugging the concrete wall. They do not appear to be wearing helmets as a sedan behind them in the right land brakes.
Choun said he recognized the Indego bikes by the lights on them, and that from what he could see as he passed, they appeared to have little interaction with motorists on the expressway.
The speed limit on that stretch of I-676 is 50 mph. Pennsylvania law prohibits bicycles on freeways.
Denise Goren, director of policy and planning in the Mayor's Office of Transportation and Utilities, told NBC10's Drew Smith that the city is aware of the incident. She said the cyclists' trip on I-676 was clearly a dangerous situation, and that the city is trying to promote safe practices for people using the bike-share bicycles.
