The Detroit Greenways Coalition is moving forward with plans to make a new printed bike & trails map for Detroit.
Our initial thoughts on what to show on the map include:
- A map of Detroit showing the bike lanes, shared marked routes, and trails. This will include some of the immediate suburbs surrounding Detroit in order to show connections across the city boundaries.
- Major trail information, including length and completion status
- Bike repair station locations (Yes, we’ll have some this year!)
- Bike-related and run-related businesses
- Non-motorized boat launch sites & similar water trail features
It’ll also include general information about the Coalition, Complete Streets, safety information, bicycle locking information, and more.
This effort will build upon some earlier work done by the Challenge Detroit Fellows and Mode Shift. We expect to take the best elements of other city’s maps.
One feature that we probably won’t include is bike rack locations. There are too many within the Greater Downtown. Instead, we’ll be sure to update our existing Detroit bike parking map.
We expect to have these new printed maps available by the North American Bicycle Week at the end of March.
What are your thoughts on what else should be on the either map that would make them more useful?
4 replies on “Creating a new bike & trails map for Detroit”
Maybe something about bicycle-friendly businesses. It is nice to go to a restaurant and have a place to lock up for example. I know you commented on racks, but it is frustrating to go somewhere and have nothing around to lock to, not even a suitable signpost or something. And of course bonus points to those that let you bring your bike inside.
What about suggested places for temporary cover in case of a sudden rainstorm? Big roof overhangs etc.
In areas without restaurants or drinking fountains it might be nice to point out places to get water.
Thanks for doing this! I look forward to seeing it.
Thanks for the feedback, Jon.
The timeframe for getting the map completed prevents us from adding items that might take much research and time. However, we can put those items on an on-line version of the map. I suspect the bike-friendly businesses will be one of those items. Putting them on the map could serve as another incentive for businesses to cater to bicyclists.
Have you considered using Open Street Map, to make this data available for the entire community to use?
I have. I’ve tried in the past adding bike lane information to Open Street Map, but honestly couldn’t figure out how. I need to revisit that. I update Google Maps regularly, but I found Google Map Maker was more intuitive.