Let Us Know Where We Should Advocate for Better Infrastructure!

As part of our Bikeways for Everybody campaign we want your input on where you want better infrastructure as well as other problematic locations you encounter while biking. Raphael, our Mapping and Data Intern, has been developing the online crowdsourcing map below to solicit community input. Over the past four months Raphael has been helping us out with GIS tasks such as analyzing the demographics around proposed protected bike lanes, compiling infrastructure data to create the layer of bike infrastructure on the map below, as well as helping out on Salesforce and WordPress.

Your input will help inform our Bikeways for Everybody campaign, which will identify five key routes that together form a connected network that is safe and comfortable for people of all ages and abilities to bike on. You can provide input by drawing in routes or placing pins at problematic locations using the map below. If you want to have a full page experience, you can click here.

[iframe src=”https://boston-cyclists-union.github.io/bikeways4everybody/” width=”582″ height=”582″]

If you want to bring this tool to your own community, the code and setup instructions are freely available here. Special thanks to CartoDB for free hosting of the data tables.

13 Comments

  1. Rob Arnold on February 17, 2016 at 10:08 pm

    How can somebody suggest a protected bike lane be built on a road that your map automatically avoids selecting (presumably because it’s currently unsafe for cyclists)? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of an interactive advocacy map?

    • Raphael Dumas on February 19, 2016 at 1:26 pm

      Hi Rob,

      As I mentioned in my email to you, but now putting this as a comment for all.

      The route-drawing function uses directions based on data from OpenStreetMap, and specifically walking directions, in order to allow drawing contra-flow and off-street paths. Unfortunately OSM is a volunteer effort, and not all roads have had sidewalks identified!

      I’ve tried to fix those in the underlying map, so hopefully this will be fixed in the BCU map shortly. Feel free to leave any other issues with the map here as a comment.

  2. gregory smith on February 19, 2016 at 1:16 pm

    Dangerous

  3. Joe on February 19, 2016 at 6:25 pm

    I think Western Ave. in Cambridge is now best described as a ‘Cycletrack’. Also, Ames Street in Cambridge is not a Cycletrack but a ‘Buffered’.

  4. CW on February 20, 2016 at 5:25 pm

    I don’t know all the relevant locations across Boston and Cambridge, but if locations where dedicated bike paths cross roads all had stop signs for cars that would increase safety a lot. I have a friend who got in a very bad accident when a car didn’t bother stopping for a crosswalk in Sommerville where the off street bike path crossed a road.

  5. Justin on February 21, 2016 at 4:09 am

    Thank you for this MOST GLORIOUS of services, dear BCU.

  6. Kate on February 21, 2016 at 9:02 pm

    Raphael – this is a wonderful, wonderful tool! One question – I couldn’t figure out when trying to make a comment on a route rather than a point — how do you move from drawing a route to adding a comment about that drawing? I figured out the first part but not the latter.

    • Raphael Dumas on February 22, 2016 at 8:56 am

      Hi Allison and Kate,

      When drawing routes you can end the route by either double-clicking on a point on the route, or by clicking on the “Save” icon in the top left. Once you hit “save input” your route is sent to our database. See the image below.

      Ways to save a route

      If neither of those options appears to be working. Please let me know what browser (and version) you are using and I’ll see what I can do as a fix. I tested the map in Chrome and Firefox.

      -Raphael

  7. Allison on February 22, 2016 at 6:48 am

    How do we submit our map when we’re done?

  8. Jurvis LaSalle on March 23, 2016 at 4:25 pm

    The input field is kinda small. Any chance you could make the field bigger or show the character limit? I have videos demonstrating the harassment I regularly experience on Smith St if it would help make the case…

    • Raphael Dumas on June 16, 2016 at 12:41 pm

      Fixed the size of the input field. Feel free to include links to video evidence!

  9. Marc Baskin on March 28, 2016 at 2:34 pm

    The two tunnels under the Elliot bridge flood with even small amounts of rain and stay flooded. This leads some walkers and cyclist to try and cross Storrow drive directly which is pretty dangerous. These areas just need some drainage.

    The other main area for deep puddles is the area by the Northeasturn U. boat house adjacent to the area where the Boston Latin students keep their crew. Go Wolfpack.

  10. CC on May 10, 2016 at 5:51 pm

    I added info to the map yesterday and it seemed to save at the time, but is not there now. I use Safari on a mac.

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