Tag: projects

New site brings together bike crash maps and projects

I just finished creating a website that brings together my original Chicago bike crash map and all of its offshoots created by others. It also includes a more details and updated FAQ page as well as a short history of how the map and data came to be.

Enter the Crash Portal.

Right now it features projects from myself, Francesco Villa, Derek Eder, and George Aye’s students at the School of the Art Institute “Living in a Smart City” class. The site also links to my inspiration: Boston and San Francisco. If you have a related project, email me and I’ll figure out a way to add it to the site.

Screenshot of new Crash Portal

Benefits of bike parking

I’m working on my master’s project about bike parking distribution and equity in Chicago and while working on a section in the paper, I decided to get some help from readers. Many transportation projects are measured on predicted changes like trip travel time savings or trip cost savings (I give two examples below the photo).

My question is this: What are a bike parking installation’s measurable benefits to a traveler or a community?

Photo: Portland has installed 40 on-street bike parking “corrals” since 2004. What does a traveler or community gain from this bike rack installation? Photo by Kyle Gradinger.

To figure equity (fairness) for these project types, you measure these impacts for different groups (often high, medium, and low income), either in the alternatives analysis, or project selection phases. So, converting a lane on a highway to charge tolls for the lane’s users will have a certain benefit for many trips: a lower trip time. A new bus route may be convenient enough for some travelers to switch from driving to taking the bus, possibly reducing their trip cost.