Re: Can you help me make a Google contact?

[April Webster]

Hi Eric,

I'm not sure if this will be helpful, but I reached out about a year ago to the researcher from the University of Victoria who developed https://bikemaps.org/.  Dr. Nelson is now with UC Santa Barbara. I reached out again to ask how easy it would be to adapt their tool to crowdsource locations for community requests for better bike infrastructure. I can let you know what I find out. This particular example seems related: https://bikemaps.org/blog/post/january-canadian-bike-infrastructure-mapathon.

Caltrans also recently put out a web map survey - https://survey.catplan.org/Home?sid=4 - to do exactly what you're describing but for Caltrans managed roads. It's since been removed. I reached out to the owner to ask for more info.

I hope this isn't too discouraging, but I've heard it's difficult trying to find someone on the Google Maps product team, and this has been my experience as well. I've tried "cold calling" PMs and other members of their team to advocate for the addition of bike parking as a formal data type/layer. I also chatted with Tim Welsh, Director of Program Development at HUB Cycling (Vancouver, BC), a year ago about his organization's efforts to talk to someone to request changes to Google Map's bike route classification system. They had also hit a bit of a brick wall. Thanks for the reminder - I've circled back with Tim to see if he was able to find someone from Google Maps!

I'll keep you updated on responses.

Cheers.

April

On Tue, May 24, 2022 at 7:39 PM Eric Armstrong <er...@meditatebetter.com> wrote:

I had a good conversation with Kris Zanardi yesterday.

(If nothing else, I'm learning whose jurisdiction covers what. :_)

Immediate Need

One great suggestion that came out of it was to see if you guys
can help me find the right person to talk to at Google. To that end:

1. Do you know anyone at Google who can help us identify
   the right person to talk to? (criteria below) 
   
   
2. Since a cold email out of the blue from someone unknown 
   is liable to hit the dust bin pretty quickly, would one of you
   with some kind of recognizable official standing be willing
   to arrange an introduction? (executive summary below)
   
   
3. If nothing else, we can use the email Kris so kindly provided
   to contact Google's office for government affairs & public policy:
   goo...@politicomlaw.com
   

Contact Criteria
What I'm looking for is:

• A bike-friendly exec who wants to give Google a way to help
  improve the climate--without having to spend any money to do it.
• That exec can then put out a call for a developer or two to spend
  "personal project" Fridays on the proposal below (I'll be happy
  to consult on it, as will others on this list.)
• The developers, in turn, get some high-level exposure, and 
  tacit executive backing for the project they're working on.

If Google wanted to do more than that, I'd be all for it, of course.
But that's a decent low-cost way to get the ball rolling.

The Goal (Executive Summary)

Allow the biking community to map good bike routes and identify
"spot improvements" to improve and connect those routes.

In addition to helping planners collect suggestions from the community,
the built-in crowdsourcing will help to prioritize the suggestions. 

We can develop it as a pilot project here in Mountain View, but the resulting
app will be useful in communities across the country and, indeed, around
the world.. 

Examples

To illustrate what I have in mind, I have:

• A Bikeway Improvement Map for Mtn Vw & W.Sunnyvale, based
  on the current implementation of Google My Maps.
• A list of improvement requests that would make the map more
  useful, even without an additional app.
• Examples of the kind of outputs that could be scraped from
  that kind of map, in the city-specific sections of my local
  BIkeway Connections Proposals.
• A document that describes the ideal features and operation of
  the system: Self Organizing BIkeway Planning.

Conclusion
The ideas aren't totally baked, of course. There are still details to iron out
as we move towards functional specifications. But if we can get this particular
ball rolling, I think it can help a lot of people!

eric
Breathe. Activate. Meditate. Connect.

Eric Armstrong MeditateBetter.com Bench Yoga book Instagram: MeditateBetter Facebook: BetterMeditation.

Yoga Meditation Bench for meditative yoga & "Instant Alignment" 

[April Webster]

One more example of something already out there you could potentially piggyback on. The City of Los Altos is collecting public input map data for their complete streets plan https://losaltos.altaplanning.cloud/#/step-one/

[Eric Armstrong]

Awesome, April. Thanks a ton.

I'm getting the benefit of all the work you've done 'ere now,
and I appreciate the living h*** out of it.

I was thinking that Google had lots of reasons to want to do it,
but a large organization can be an awfully tough nut to crack.

If we can it done in an organization or a business, that's okay, too. 

Maybe Apple or Microsoft will acquire it!

If nothing else, when you and I both have some free time, sometimeA
next decade, we can put our heads together and do a little hacking.
It would be fun, actually. Given the data format, I could definitely do the
map-scraping and output hacks. There are just so many things to do...
:__)

eric
Breathe. Activate. Meditate. Connect.

Eric Armstrong MeditateBetter.com Bench Yoga book Instagram: MeditateBetter Facebook: BetterMeditation.

Yoga Meditation Bench for meditative yoga & "Instant Alignment" 

[Eric Armstrong]

[Kevin Wang]

The fundamental problem is that data itself is very hard to come by. Even if they did create a "bike parking" annotation, where would the data come from? It's not an easy problem, esp "at scale" i.e. for the whole planet.

There are followup questions I have, like

• What constitutes parking?
• somewhere to run a cable lock through? (eye bolt in a wall)
• something sturdy enough to run a U-lock around?
• a fully enclosed box, which frequently requires preparation...
• like Bike Link lockers (must mail-order one of their smart cards to use)
• like "monthly rentable lockers" like the old (unused?) caltrain bike lockers at Sunnyvale station.
• like the locked bike lockers at most strip malls, because they don't want homeless camping in them.
• Or what kind of racks? Will they take...
• a cargo bike? (long)
• a heavy ebike (i.e. too heavy to lift overhead)?
• Let's say you want to use the bike lockers at BART or any other station/parking structure that's large and difficult to navigate; how do you get there? Will the directions send you up stairs instead of a ramp?

   - Kevin

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[Eric Armstrong]

Hi, Kevin. Welcome to the (sporadic) conversation.

The subject of bike parking is an interesting one! I hadn't considered that in my original
proposal. It's a worthy addition. Secure, convenient parking facilites at transit hubs are
particularly important. They can take cars off the road at peak hours, when it matters
most. 

The ability to reach that hub easily and safely is also important. To the degree that both
conditions are met, traffic begins to reduce. That's where my planning-tool proposal comes
in.

The idea is to let the biking community supply the data, by putting data into a custom map.

So bike parking would be identified with a pin, with a description of the facilities. The ideal
route to get there would be added as a path.

Suggestions for parking locations and facilities upgrades would also be added as pins.
Since the pins could collect votes, the places with the greatest need become apparent.

In a nutshell:

1. Crowdsourcing produces data, as described in the Self-Organizing Bikeway Planning 
   proposal.
2. A (Google?) map collects the data, using enhancements described here.
3. An app scrapes the map for details to produce planning documents like
   the city-specific sections of this proposal.
4. The whole project will ideally be an open-source effort, for the reasons
   mentioned here.

Note:
I've taken to calling it the "Pedaler's Planning Tool"--because pedaling (going
to nearby places in normal clothes) is an activity that takes cars off the road.
The more destinations that can be reached easily and safely, the more that happens! 

Breathe. Activate. Meditate. Connect.

Eric Armstrong MeditateBetter.com, Bench Yoga book Meditation & Internal Energy (articles at Medium.com) Instagram: MeditateBetter, Facebook: BetterMeditation

Yoga Meditation Bench for meditative yoga & "Instant Alignment" 

[Eric Armstrong]

Welcoming Brennan Pang, Francisco Munoz, and Sandhya Laddha to 
the conversation.

I met Brennan and Francisco at the SVBC "activism training" session
that Sandhya hosted. 

It was a great session, filled with "campaign planning" tools and info that
I've needed in my tool chest for quite a while. (And in addition to being
interested in the project, both Francisco & Brennan bring useful skills!)

Notes:

   a) There are good reasons to host the project at SVBC or a similar organization
       rather than expecting any limited-jurisdiction organization to implement it,

       so let's identify possible organizations, decision-makers, and influencers!
       (We also need to explore the leads we identified for an app starting point.)

   b. Thanks to Alison, I now understand that many local representatives
       can't very well comment on things, since they're not allowed to 
       "collude" privately, outside the public eye. (One more in a long stream
       of things I did not know and am gradually discovering. :__)
       If you like, give me your thoughts to me privately, and I'll pass them on
       anonymously.

   c. Francisco: There was one mis-impression I didn't get a chance to rectify
       at the meeting. The app won't identify routes automatically. Instead, it 
       will allow people to add them, Strava-style. (Some people at least. The
       interface could be tricky, what with the need to color-code sections of the
       route--like a bike lane that comes to an end 50 feet from a major intersection!

Sandhya, Francisco, and Brennan:

1.  Let's continue the campaign-planning process. I'll set up a Zoom session.
     Let's find a time, and I'll let others know about it.

2. These items illustrate what I've been thinkin about in mind.

• A Bikeway Improvement Map for Mtn Vw & W.Sunnyvale, based
  on the current implementation of Google My Maps.
• A list of improvement requests that would make the map more
  useful, even without an additional app.
• Examples of the kind of outputs that could be scraped from
  that kind of map, in the city-specific sections of my local
  BIkeway Connections Proposals.
• A document that describes the ideal features and operation of
  the system: Self Organizing BIkeway Planning.

Breathe. Activate. Meditate. Connect.

Eric Armstrong

MeditateBetter.com, Bench Yoga book Meditation & Internal Energy (articles at Medium.com) Instagram: MeditateBetter, Facebook: BetterMeditation

Yoga Meditation Bench for meditative yoga & "Instant Alignment"