For cyclists, road maps often prove the maxim that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Such maps often omit information on elevation (some hills are prohibitive for novice riders or when grocery shopping), potholes, bike lanes and trails, bike parking, and so on, leading cyclists onto dangerous or circuitous routes. Bicycle maps fill the knowledge void, making cycling more convenient.
Many jurisdictions in the tri-state area offer maps online, including New York City, Rockland County (NY), and Mercer County (NJ). Connecticut even offers a statewide map. Unfortunately, the areas covered by bicycle maps in the tri-state area remain patchy, and many jurisdictions may not have the staff or funding to create bike maps or keep them up-to-date.
Seeking to improve on current maps and fill in areas not yet covered, several community-driven efforts allow users to contribute their personal knowledge of local bicycling conditions in the spirit of Wikipedia. For example, in New Jersey, the West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance maintains interactive online bike and pedestrian maps created with Mappler, an application that incorporates Google Maps and GIS (geographic information systems). The Rutgers University cycling team maintains a map describing biking conditions around RU bus routes. The strength of these maps is the ability for users to highlight and describe specific flaws or amenities in real time, so that a fresh pothole or newly opened bike rack can be tagged and added to the map immediately.
Community mapping can prove a valuable tool for governments as well. Last month Streetsblog reported on the city of Boston’s efforts to create a bike map in part by asking cyclists to map out their routes with Google Maps, providing the city with a huge data set of bicycle usage in the city. For localities that want to do things the old-fashioned way, the Federal Highway Administration provides grants for bike maps under the Surface Transportation Program State and Community Traffic Safety Program component of the 2005 federal transportation legislation (SAFETEA-LU).
Image: Screengrab of one of the West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance’s online maps. The bicycle icons indicate racks; orange lines are non-bikeable roads; dark green lines are bikeable roads; bright green lines indicate bike lanes.
Please check out GoogleMapsBikeThere.org .
Other than a few marked bike lanes and routes, and 2 trails (Bethpage and Jones Beach) there is not much to map out on LI. Of course there are great Mountain Bike trails due to CLIMB too. But we need to get serious about constructing a major east-west 3 county mostly off road recreational trail and then give the maps out everywhere, including on the web of course.
Also check out:
http://www.njbikemap.com/
(digital USGS quad-based maps showing roads by bike suitability, offroad trails, major elevation changes, and points of interest for bikers)
http://www.mapmyride.com/
(allows you to map your own routes using a google map interface–following streets or offroad, gives an elevation profile along the route, allows you to share routes with others and search through others shared routes)
http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/commuter/bike/tours.shtm
(NJDOT bike maps for a variety of “tours”, complete with cue sheets)
http://www.bikemap.com/RBA/
(NJ Statewide Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan)
http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/commuter/bike/bikemaps.shtm
(list of other NJ bike map resources)
http://transalt.org/files/resources/maps.html
(links to online maps, as well as some additional scanned-in bike maps for a variety of NY area locations)
The West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance recently released Bikeability and Walkability maps that allow the public to participate in identifying existing bicycle/pedestrian infrastructure and needed improvements in our community. We will use this information to set priorities and advocate for improvements. Learn more here: http://www.princetonol.com/groups/wwbpa/maps.htm
The Rutgers Cycling Team also has a website of more adventurous bike routes at http://www.mappler.com/bikeru. All of these sites were created by a company called Vertices who makes interactive mapping applications for non-profit and government organizations. Vertices can make maps for any of your businesses as well, just send them an e-mail at wim@vertices.com.