Fwd: [Streetsblog Network] BikeScore ranking: Minn., PDX, SF top three

[Bob Shanteau]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:     [Streetsblog Network] BikeScore ranking: Minn., PDX, SF top three
Date:     Mon, 14 May 2012 08:45:05 -0700
From:     David Goldberg <david.g...@t4america.org>
To:     Streetsblog Network <streetsbl...@googlegroups.com>

Submit ideas to improve Bike Score.

Curious what you all think of the methodology WalkScore.com chose for their new bikeability score?

http://bit.ly/JOjfW1

Bike Score measures whether a location is good for biking on a scale from 0 - 100 based on four equally weighted components:

• Bike lanes
• Hills
• Destinations and road connectivity
• Bike commuting mode share

Like Walk Score and Transit Score, our goal with Bike Score is to provide an easy way to evaluate bikeability at a specific location.

The Bike Score methodology is based on thousands of votes on hundreds of ideas from the Walk Score community.

Bike Score was developed in collaboration withProfessor Meghan Winters at Simon Fraser University, Professor Michael Brauer and Professor Kay Teschke at UBC under a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

If you'd like to use Bike Score data, see our research pages.

David Goldberg

Communications Director

Transportation for America

office/mobile:  202-412-7930

www.T4America.org

[John Forester]

The methodology appears to consider only very short trips, with 200 meter radii from origin for various characteristics  and places a great deal of emphasis on bikeways. And yet the authors felt that it was important to include data on the amount of cycling (as obtained from commute statistics). Clearly, the physical model does not predict the amount of cycling, as that had to be included as a component. So, what does the scoring system do? What purpose can be made from its scores? I suspect that it is not useful for, say, deciding in which city one will choose to live, for other factors appear to be of far greater importance.

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[Neal]

Hello Bob and All,

 

New idea to me - thanks for posting.

 

I think it will take me awhile to absorb this.

 

On the face of it the information looks like a good presentation of the big picture.

 

http://blog.walkscore.com/page/3/

 

On drilling down I see the advertising for restaurants and apartments etc. - this could be the next Face Book software.

 

With advertising to drive the financing I predict success for this venture - when do you think it will go public?  ........  :)

 

It would be nice to incorporate accident statistics into the grid as another component with the capability to see 'hot' spots (and avoid them) and provide a methodology for city planners to mitigate unsafe areas.   The graphics could be set up to work for police dispatching also.

 

With the graphic it would be possible to visualize pedestrians killed (perhaps red) and injured (prehaps yellow) and cyclists killed (R) and injured (Y) with different colors and intensities and be an additional method of displaying database information.

 

Now that I think about it there are other database programs that display information in this manner but I have not seen any devoted to walking and cycling - with advertising.

 

Looks like I have to keep pedaling all the time just to keep up - and not just on my bicycle.

 

Cheers,

 

Neal

 

+1 mph Faster