Paper or Pixel?

Back in October of 2007, Bike Pittsburgh released the first commuter-oriented bicycle map of Pittsburgh since Sophie Masloff was mayor, over fifteen years ago. The print map identifies the best routes for cycling, the less-than-ideal (yet unavoidable) “cautionary bike routes,” the trails, bike shops, hill information, and landmarks to help the inevitably lost cyclist in our spaghetti-like street plan.

Since releasing the print map, we’ve given away almost 20,000 of them. We’ve also been at work turning the print map into an interactive online version to supplement the information available on the hand-held version.

In addition to all of the resources on the print map, the online version contains lots of new information laid over a Google Map. We’ve added information about crossing bridges, an expanded notes and landmarks section, the opportunity to view the routes in terrain and satellite mode, and user-submitted crash information. The latter is useful to cyclists so that we can track patterns, learn from others, and communicate about problem areas. We also encourage the City to use this information to help guide them in improving the safety of all of Pittsburgh's road users.

Users of the site also have the choice to learn techniques on how to “be a safe cyclist.” Under this heading, instructions on using the map were built around the comic-style narrative following the life and ride of a bike commuter. Visitors can see several interactive maps in-line with a comic (something rarely seen in the world of so-called map-mashups).

Another feature allows users to download the bike routes and trails and view them in Google Earth, so that they can see the buildings and terrain (especially useful in Pittsburgh) using Google's free software.

This map is an extremely unique and innovative item, and the first of it’s kind to so thoroughly compile and visualize the cycling information of a U.S. city.

Click on the image above to explore the brand new interactive Online Pittsburgh Bike Map.

Thanks to the Heinz Endowments for providing the funding for this project, and to DeepLocal for doing such an excellent job designing our maps!