Proposed bike mapping and planning tool earns grant

Development of a regional bikeway system plan got a boost this year. Transit for Livable Communities awarded the Metropolitan Council $185,000 to fund development of Cycloplan, an extension of the online wiki bike-route mapping tool known as Cyclopath.

This Cyclopath map excerpt shows transportation infrastructure (like roads, bridges and paved trails) near the U of M East Bank campus. The purple segments are where cyclists have entered notes that can be read by map users; the orange segment is a personal bikeability rating entered by, and seen only by, an individual logged-in user. Dark orange means the cyclist finds the route to be excellent.

The enhanced tool will help city and county planners, parks and public works employees to:

Establish and enhance their bikeways data.
Get easy access to regional and public-user data for development of a regional bikeway system.
Respond to issues identified by users of bikeways in their community.

Cyclists build online map of bike routes

Cyclopath is a web-based wiki tool developed by a research team (Group Lens Research) at the University of Minnesota. It gives cyclists in the seven-county metro area the ability to cooperatively build and maintain a comprehensive, up-to-date map of bike routes and landmarks in the region.

“The most immediately useful feature of Cyclopath is its bicycle-specific, route-finding capability,” said Reid Priedhorsky, U of M graduate student and Cyclopath project leader. Users simply enter their starting point and destination, and Cyclopath generates a map of the best route, based on user-identified preferences. Over time, as a user rates bikeways (for example, as excellent, average or impassable), the tool generates maps more tailored to the user’s liking.

Users can also note where road construction requires changes to routes, alter the location of roads and trails and how they connect with each other, and add tags – such as tire pumping locations, bike racks, coffee shops and any other locations deemed important by users – and descriptive information about locations.

Users have made more than 8,000 additions and revisions to the map since it went live in summer 2008, according to Priedhorsky. “There’s a lot of activity on Cyclopath,” he said. “We’re very proud of it.” Each week in spring 2009, more than 100 registered users and several hundred anonymous users accessed the site to plan routes or add to the map.

Cycloplan: Planners enter the conversation

“Cyclopath is a communications tool that enables cyclists to communicate more efficiently and effectively with other cyclists,” Priedhorsky said. “Cycloplan will add planners into that conversation.”

Two cyclists on Midtown Greenway Sabo Bridge in Minneapolis

Minneapolis is rated as one of the best cities for bicycling in the nation. Cyclopath and the proposed Cycloplan tool support the community of people who use cycling for commuting and recreation. These cyclists are riding on the Midtown Greenway Sabo Bridge in Minneapolis.

Like regular cyclists do now on Cyclopath, planners will be able to input local bicycle facility data into Cycloplan, and update it as improvements and additions are made to bike trails by communities and counties.

The lack of a comprehensive and accurate inventory of locally planned bicycle facilities has made it difficult to develop a regional plan for bikeway system development, said James Andrew, Council transportation planner. “Cycloplan will help to complete such an inventory, which in turn will allow us at the regional level to identify priorities for improving the bike system.”

Another way that Cycloplan could improve communication is when planners want to gather public input on a proposed bicycle infrastructure improvement, such as a new bike trail, they can identify the route on the wiki map and solicit comments from users on the site. “The context for soliciting input is more natural and familiar to the people you want to reach,” Priedhorsky said.

Planners will test Cycloplan

The Council and GroupLens Research will direct development of Cycloplan, which must be significantly completed by summer 2010. Cycloplan’s features will become accessible as they are developed. Formal input from a forum of an end-user group of agency stakeholders is scheduled at two points during the 12-month development period; the application will be tested by a group of end-users in the last three months of development.