| Techno Crashing... continued
The good news is that this technology is spreading quickly, probably to most major metropolitan areas within the next year or two. For instance, advocates are using the data collected in New York and Pittsburgh to help build cases for intersection improvements, road maintenance and repair, and traffic calming.
And there’s more to the story. This same technology can be used to help bicyclists find the safest route from one destination to another. Information such as accident data, road elevation, road widths, and traffic speed is entered into a database. You can use the service like one that would give you driving directions.
See For Yourself
Here are a few really cool sites for you to check out and see just how this technology is being used:
Crashstat.org – Run by Transportation Alternatives (www.transalt.org) in New York. This site currently compiles bicycle and pedestrian injuries and deaths compiled between 1995 and 2005. When you actually view the data you’ll probably be shocked (unless you’re a NY native) at the raw numbers. Zoom in to see details on a street-by-street basis, or zoom out and begin getting a handle on the trouble spots.
Maphub.com – Hails from Urban Velo’s World Headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally a project that was started at Carnegie Mellon University that grew into a start-up called Deep
Local (the same folks who recently helped put together Pittsburgh’s first commuter bike map in 15 years!), the site allows users to enter their own data as well as see the data that everyone else has contributed. MapHub has grown steadily over the past couple of years, relying heavily on individual users to log everything from bike parking, to crashes, to hazardous road conditions. You can filter through the different layers to find only the bike shops, or only the places where cyclists have crashed, etc. Visit: www.maphub.com (main site) or http://pittsburgh.maphub.com (be sure to click on the “Bike Information” link).
ByCycle.org – Trip planning and route finding service for bicyclists. See:
www.bycycle.org and look for the “Bicycle Trip Planner.” Currently, this service is only available in Milwaukee, WI or Portland, OR. |
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CONTESTED STREETS
Hey! Just how DID New York descend into the congested, car-bound, bicyclist-and-pedestrian-killing-machine that it is today? Last year Cicala Filmworks produced a really, REALLY good documentary on just this very subject. From their website:
“CONTESTED STREETS explores the history and culture of New York City streets from pre-automobile times to the present. This examination allows for an understanding of how the city - though the most well served by mass transit in the United States - has slowly relinquished what was a rich, multi-dimensional conception of the street as public space to a mindset that prioritizes the rapid movement of cars and trucks over all other functions.”
Check out the trailer at: www.contested-
streets.com and get your very own copy through Transportation Alternatives: www.transalt.org
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