Philly Runners Beat Gridlock

Have you ever been stuck in traffic so bad that you could swear it would be faster to get out and just walk? I know that I have. Turns out that you weren’t mistaken when you had that thought.

Could you outrun a SEPTA bus? At least one Philadelphia man can say he did.

Last Friday, a group of Philadelphia runners raced against the evening rush hour traffic to make a point about the importance of carpooling and alternative transportation options for commuters. As the drivers stuck in the traffic jam rolled forward and sat stuck in gridlock, the runners raced forward without stopping. The runners were racing one specific car and a SEPTA bus to a point about six miles outside of the city. In the end, one runner beat the bus and at least a dozen runners beat the car. Runner Ben Nieto beat the SEPTA bus by two minutes, running faster than a six minute mile to do so. It took the bus about 33 minutes to make the drive. The car took eight minutes longer, allowing a bunch of runners to cross the finish line.

The runners took off from the Philadelphia Running store near the University of Pennsylvania out to the Wissahickon Transit Center a little under six miles away. They represented the West Philly Runners Club. The point? To show that running or biking were solid options for commuters sick of sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic every evening. Race organizer Kyle Cassidy said that they were attempting to demonstrate that drivers shouldn’t be going around with just one person in the car. The idea isn’t a new one – in big cities around the world, runners have taken on the New York subway, the London Tube, and the Boston trolley… and won.