Innovative Tools for Encouraging Bicycling: Online Bicycle Route Mapping Net Conference

On May 20, 2008, Florida’s Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Clearinghouse hosted a lunch and learn net conference on Innovative Tools for Encouraging Bicycling: Online Bicycle Route Mapping.  This 1 hour net conference featured Chris Hagelin, Senior Transportation Planner and Marni Ratzel, Bicycle and Pedestrian Planner of Go Boulder/City of Boulder.

Summary

The use of online mapping tools for driving directions has become ubiquitous in our society, but until recently they have been of little use to the person seeking to use a bicycle instead of an automobile. In response to the needs of bicyclists, the city of Boulder, Colorado has launched GOBikeBoulder.net, an innovative online bicycle route mapping tool designed and implemented through a CMAQ grant in 2007. Go Bike Boulder provides residents, university students, employees, and visitors with turn by turn directions to help navigate Boulder’s 360 mile plus on- and off-road bicycle network.

During the first six months of operation, over 10,000 routes totaling more than 38,000 miles were queried by over 1800 registered users and thousands of guest users. The evaluation of Go Bike Boulder showed that approximately 67 percent of routes queried were bicycled, and on average users biked more and drove less after registering on the site resulting in an average annual Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) reduction of 226 miles per registered user. This presentation summarizes the design, use, evaluation of, and next steps for this unique online bicycle mapping tool.

View Streaming Presentation and download copies of slides (pdf) and the project final report (pdf)