Dude, where's my bike path? - Bicycles and Navigable Maps

[Oyez Oyez]

Dude, where's my bike path? - Bicycles and Navigable Maps

par Oyez Oyez » Sam Déc 20, 2008 4:30 pm

Most navigable maps available neglect pedestrian travel, and even more neglected is travel by bicycle. Only very recently has Google added Walking-specific directions, while MapQuest and YahooMaps still only give car-centered point-to-point directions. Many mobile devices, from cell phones to Garmin or Magellan GPS navigation systems have options for pedestrian-friendly routes, but bicycles move differently. So how do we get directions from one place to another that are tailored to our two-wheeled needs?

Mostly, we just use our heads. Why not have a map like the cars do? With so many free services available for cars, using a digital map to find the quickest driving route from point A to point B has become second nature. Patrick Walters fo the Associated Press the rapid rise in demand for bicycle-based point-to-point routing in the United States after the recent spike in gas prices. So many drivers used to the map routing for cars, now frustrated they have to work harder to find a route for their bike!

As the number of cyclists rise, a map that allows new bikers to quickly browse and customize routes that utilize on all the great bike infrastructure we have in Montreal could greatly reduce the learning curve, and spur even greater numbers of cyclists. From an insider perspective I'd like to inform you how to help get our bicycle network added to navigable maps.

Informing the market - changing the direction of navigable maps

Google, like all major map providers, buy data from a map data supplier, such as -  which supplies data to Google and TomTom GPS units - or ,
which supplies data to MapQuest, YahooMaps, and MSN's LiveMaps on the
web, and Garmin, Magellan, Navigon, Nextar GPS units, as well as Nokia
and Blackberry mobile phones.

The main reason Google and others do not offer bike-based
directions? The companies making the maps do not collect or code bike
paths. Yet.

As someone who works for a map supplier,
this subject is close to home. Even though I don't own a car, ride my
bike nearly everyday, and moonlight on this blog, at the mapping
company I work for, about 95% of my time is spent improving the
database of maps available to automobiles. I push towards work that
makes the make better for cyclists and pedestrians in every way I can,
but it's a slow process in such a large company.

This is where you come in. Map-building companies cater to car and truck navigation over pedestrians and bicycles because of the perception that that's where the money is.But is it? Don't you want a navigable bike map? Don't you know several other people who do, too?

With the rise of cell-phone navigation and online map users, as well as
general distaste for automobiles (the latest sign of which is the impending collapse of
car manufacturing in North America), the market for maps is experiencing a
massive demogrpahic shift. As users of their map data, put pressure on
the map-building companies to add the bicycle infrastructure that
exists - tell them there's a big market for pedestrian and bicycle navigation!

Alert someone important about errors in the map

The best way to pressure map companies about missing bicycle info is to tell them there's an "error" in the map.

Here's an example: check out [url=http://maps.yahoo.com/#mvt=m&lat=45.467306&lon=-73.518175&zoom=16&q1=Pont Champlain, ÃŽle des Soeurs, QC H3E, Canada]YahooMaps near the Pont Champlain[/url] in the photo below - see anything missing? How
about the ice breaker bridge! and La Voie Maritime! Who's responsible for this outrage!? See the text in the bottom right corner, "Data © Navteq", well, that's who's responsible. You can channel your anger over this lack of respect for important pedestrian/bicycle infrastructure, into , Navteq's system for tracking user-identified errors. Simply find your area and fill out a Map Report for each and every missing bike paths, bike lanes, pedestrian walkways, or anything else you'd like to see, like your local bike shop! The nice thing about this process is it circumvents local processes and goes straight to the heart of the company. With this in mind, provide as much detail as you can so that someone unfamiliar with Montreal gets a feel for how much information the maps is missing.



Sometimes it's more effectiive to log complaints through the map provider rather than direct to the supplier. For example, if you have a Garmin, follow to log your frustration over not being able to get directions from La Circuit Gilles Villeneuve to Ile des Soeurs that don't go through downtown.

Circumventing the powers that be: Open Source Bike Mapping

The world of open-source mapping shows good progress towards developing a bicycle-friendly naviable networky. (OSM) allows users to indicate different types of bike lanes plus separate bike path geometry, as well as points of interest like bike parking, bike shops, etc. Unfortunately, you can't use this data to try out different routes online, but you can export the map to a separate navigation device like a Garmin. It's a bit of a complicated process, but the neat thing about any open source project is that a lot of people have already worked to make it easier for you. For example, from OSM's wiki gives a step-by-step process for downloading the free map to your Garmin device. It also offers maps others have made for download, including .

Google's MapMaker is another open-source map project. While Google Maps uses data supplied by map vendor, MapMaker allows individuals to create their own maps based on their local knowledge. Google's vision for this project is to map "information needy areas", basically areas of the world that are generally economically poor, and have little market for the kind of detailed maps available in North America. An example? Check [url=http://maps.google.com/maps?q=accra, ghana&ie=UTF8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&z=12&g=accra, ghana&iwloc=addr]Google Maps' data for Accra Ghana[/url], supplied by Europa Technologies, versus, supplied mostly by an individual, the mysterious "Karanja N". How does this relate to bikes? Well, in MapMaker, when you're adding or modifying a road, there's a handy drop-down menu to select which type of bicycle lane/path exists there - everything from separate lane to wide shoulder. What's more, there's even a Bicycle Safety Level feature to mark relative safety of road to cyclists.

We can assume that, given Google's infinite cloud-structure wisdom,
bicycle features will come to GoogleMaps eventually, with other map
providers following suit. However, it may take longer than you'd think.
When you're adding a map from scratch and allowing anyone to edit the
map, it's easy to quickly add or update attributes like bike lanes.
This process is much slower if you're getting your entire base map from
a third party, with all kinds of restrictions for using and editing
that data. While the quality of private map data still far surpasses open-source
map data in many areas, you can expect the map providers to continue
getting data from for-profit map builders.

An army of (potential) customers

Most of these "errors" I hope you start reporting are really just deliberate non-collection of
bike-related data, but the policy around this is starting to change
slowly. You can help push it over the edge. Let's let these companies know there's an army of customers, and potential customers, out there demanding more bicycle info on navigable maps. 

 


Author: Jack Sanford
Category: RoutesInfrastructurewalkingGooglemap
Publish Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 20:00:00 GMT

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