
Mapzen's new OpenStreetMap-powered bike map based on safety - chippy
https://mapzen.com/blog/bike-map/
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loeg
As a cyclist, this is... ok. Not great. Similar information to what e.g. the
city of Seattle publishes itself:
[http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/bikemaps.htm](http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/bikemaps.htm)
("download the map").

Part of the trouble is that street markings do not reflect car traffic or
other special circumstances. In NW Seattle, for example, Fremont Ave (Blue or
"least safe") is one of the best north/south corridors, because car traffic is
light and supposedly has to turn at every major cross street. Bikes ride in
the lane of traffic, reducing unsafe passing.

In comparison, Greenwood Ave (rated Orange, or "ok") has much higher car
traffic and the painted bike lane runs in a door zone.

Anyway, Seattle doesn't really have any "green" bike infrastructure. If it
did, this kind of map might be a lot more useful. In Seattle, I have to choose
between "blue" or "orange." My highest priorities for bike safe routes include
low car traffic and no door-zone bike lanes, and the separate painted lane is
less important.

It seems that a lot of the time, painted lanes are added to the busiest
streets. Especially on the eastside, I wouldn't suggest riding on any of the
marked routes on Mapzen.

~~~
maxerickson
How does Strava's heatmap fair in predicting nicer routes?

[http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/](http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/)

This is also partly a reply to cardamomo's post. I imagine that tracking the
routes commuters actually take is a great way to find the better routes.

~~~
phumbe
That's my go-to reference when looking for new routes. We can really think of
its reliability as a signal-to-noise ratio: inexperienced road cyclists might
cause the map to show significant traffic on bad roads while experienced
cyclists choose good roads. There are presumably fewer cyclists entering the
realm of road cycling than there are experienced road cyclists. The new road
cyclists are likely aware of the dangers of the sport, so in most cases, they
probably seek resources for planning rides (e.g., cycling groups).

That brings up another point: Group rides will generally use good roads, and
there will be multiple cyclists simultaneously contributing to the same route
on the heat map. The boldest paths on the heat map may then very possibly be
routes ridden by group rides, suggesting they're very safe.

~~~
loeg
More experienced cyclists might be more likely to own and use GPS units as
well. Strava's heatmap only has data from users that self-report GPS traces.

~~~
jalessio
Strava has apps for iPhone and Android so the barrier of entry is lower than
owning a dedicated GPS unit: [https://support.strava.com/hc/en-
us/articles/223297187-How-t...](https://support.strava.com/hc/en-
us/articles/223297187-How-to-get-your-Activities-to-Strava#app)

~~~
loeg
Oh, you're right. I totally forgot about that.

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banku_brougham
Green: safe, bike path.

Orange: medium, adjacent bike lane.

Blue: least safe, share lane.

I can think of a change that would improve this color scheme.

~~~
Piskvorrr
Worse, "adjacent bike lane" can in practice mean anything from "safe-to-use
lane" to "extra-wide parking lane with those weird pictures". From my
experience, shared lanes run an even wider gamut from "shared with 0 cars a
minute" to "shared with over 9000 cars a minute" ;)

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kh_hk
Also note that [https://www.opencyclemap.org/](https://www.opencyclemap.org/)
has been available for quite some years, based on OSM data too.

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burritojustice
Hi! Nathaniel and John from Mapzen here.

We thought a lot about the colors for the new bike map. Green is pretty
universal for trails and paths where bicycles are protected from cars. But
colors are less standardized for places where bicycles share the road with
cars – bike lanes, streets with "sharrows", and signed bike routes.

For this first version of the bike map we focused on creating a "warm" map
that complements the basemap and invites the reader to spring into exploring
the bike-friendly ways tagged in OpenStreetMap, the community mapping wiki.

While red draws the eye and is a warning color, we found that it overwhelmed
the map in most cities when used for the least safe routes. If you want to
experiment with colors, you can do so in Tangram! Instructions are at the
bottom of the post. Please let us know what you come up with.

While OpenStreetMap's tags are a great starting point, they aren't a perfect
proxy for safety. We're working on ways to effectively mark greenways, green
waves (timed lights), `living streets`, or even buffered bike lanes.

Seattle is quite well tagged in this regard, and we're working to improve San
Francisco. What will help most is tagging important streets into a `route
relation` in OpenStreetMap (and of course getting your city and state
government to build more protected bike lanes and neighbourhood bike routes).

This map is a first step, and your feedback will help make the next version
even better. Thanks!

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bengotow
This is awesome!

Color scheme is very strange though. I live in SF, and I imagine if you
surveyed folks on the street, everyone would tell you blue is a "safer" color
than orange.

Maybe it could follow the Google Maps standard—green, yellow, red (traffic)?
They may be depicting a different metric more important to cyclists (safety),
but the problem-solving approach is the same: try to take green / yellow
routes and avoid red ones.

