My last post focused on the problems of cycling in London, and how fear and poor cycle routes are two of the key issues preventing a mass uptake of cycling in the capital. The comments echoed these concerns with storys of potholes, fractious cycle lanes and nightmarish conditions. This post is about how we, the passionate cycling community, can start making the improvements required. Consider it an open design blueprint which needs feedback, support, and iteration - all this can be added at the bottom.
Vision
The project aims to collect data on the quality of cycling routes all over the capital. This ranges from hazards, traffic density, surface quality, and usage. This data can then be used to help experienced and new cyclists make safe and convenient route choices. The data can also be used to encourage city planners to fix and improve the most urgent issues with the network. The end vision is to use the data to create the ultimate set of routes in London which can then be properly signposted and marked so that anyone can navigate London by bike using a simplified tube style map.
Problems the “London Cycle Map” aims to solve
Features
Minimum viable product - Because a good product is a quick product.
The Plan - How is all this going to happen?
Help Required - Apply within…
Cycling in London is crap. The roads are congested, the air is polluted, the cycle lanes are a joke, it’s dangerous, and navigation of cycle routes impossible. As a result only 7% of Londoners cycle every day compared to 55% of people in Copenhagen. Londoners are scared to get on their bikes, and no amount of picturesque advertising is going to change that.
But cycling in London could be beautiful. There are plenty of quiet residential roads, it’s flat, we have a temperate climate, and many already have a bike.
So why isn’t everyone cycling?
I’ll begin with a story. My ride to work is about 4 miles from Stockwell to Piccadilly via Vauxhall Bridge and Victoria. My first few attempts were unpleasant gnarly affairs: I got caught in the gyratory at Vauxhall, stuck on a busy two lane stretch into Victoria, and Victoria itself is the third circle of hell with buses, lorries and congestion clogging every churning lane. I’m a hardened cyclist and it was still too much. Determined to improve the experience I studied OpenCycleMap and experimented with different routes (ie deliberately getting lost): since then I’ve found a far more pleasant route which cuts off soon after Vauxhall bridge taking a quieter speed bumped, cycle friendly route towards St James’s Park.
That first trip would have scared off a more casual rider, and fear is the main barrier to cycling in London. Make the whole experience less daunting and you will soon see a cycling revolution.
Lets look at the ideal end vision for cycling in London and where the current approach is falling short. The three essential elements to encourage mass participation of London cycling are:
The Mayor’s current strategy has had limited success on all three fronts. Here are some broad brushstroke stye analysis of efforts in in these categories.
It seems clear that the strategy of the mayor isn’t doing enough to make cycling in London open to all. Only Lycra clad young males brave the streets when we should be seeing young and old, girls and boys, popping to the shops, visiting friends and going to work by bike.
Cyclists need to get organised to make cycling in London work
Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead
London cyclists are a passionate bunch. Cycling to and from work is almost a religion. Whenever I meet another London cyclist, a conversation about bikes, cycling routes and tall stories usually starts. By coordinating this group’s knowledge and dedication, many others can be encouraged to get on their bikes.
I would like to start a community project to trickle down the knowledge of the hardcore cyclists to the casual riders in an easy to use form. This would at first be an iPhone app which hardcore users can use to rate cycle routes, highlight dangers, and use as a convenient cycle map of London. This would then be digested into an easy to use tool which everyone can use to plan the best cycle route in London. The end vision is to use the data to create the ultimate set of routes in London which can then be properly signposted and marked so that anyone can navigate London by bike using a simplified tube style map.
This data could also be used to help the planner make better decisions to improve the cycle network, much like fixmystreet has been doing for street repairs. Aggregated data on the most popular routes and problems would help town planners make the best decisions when upgrading cycle facilities.
Later I’ll post some more thoughts on how this app would function and leverage Londons current cycling community to help everyone onto the road, but first I want to hear your thoughts. Which features would be key? How would you want to use it? Which other problems could this solve? Just add your comments below.
Reading David Allen’s personal productivity manual, Getting Things Done, is fast becoming a rite of passage for young entrepreneurs. Some even go a step further and write up their top implementation tips for a GTD system, others have created software to catalogue each and every to-do. In the spirit of getting this blog going I’d like to share my 2 pages of notes which I think do a fairly good job of wrapping up Allen’s 258 pages - who knows, maybe he started with 2 pages of notes and the publishers felt it needed a bit of padding…
Or if you are impatient/can’t read my scrawl, here are the key insights.
I’ve made sure everything I need doing is captured for quite a while now and can vouch for the piece of mind created by having a feeling of control over your tasks. I’m going to start regularly checking my longer term goals, I’ve sometimes let these slip as I haven’t created actionable items which can fit into the daily actions list.
I’ve still got a long way to go, has anyone (ever) mastered:
