Bicycle Network Observations
I've been lucky enough to visit (and live in!) several cities during the past few years. Toronto was the last major city I visited outside of my home in the Boulder/Denver metro area. While walking around Toronto on a normal weekday, I noticed the lack of bicycles - on the streets, at least. I was almost hit by bicyclists several times on crowded sidewalks in the middle of the city. Seeing bicyclists on sidewalks normally causes me to go into fits of rage, but I couldn't see how they could ride safely on the streets. I noticed that many two lane city streets could barely fit two cars, side by side. Buses and street car tracks were everywhere, both giant dangers for cyclists. It made me wonder about the number of designated bike routes in Toronto and how it compared to other cities. So I did a little digging and mapping and came up with a few observations.
Denver:
Toronto:
While looking at Toronto's and Denver's bike networks, I noticed that Toronto is lacking a proper "network" of safe, clearly marked bike lanes and paths that span the entire city. Many of Toronto's bike paths seem to be disconnected or remain as recreational paths (squiggly lines along rivers and parks), where as the Denver bike network is laid out like a grid. It's not uncommon for people out in the Denver area to commute from one end of the city to the other (for example, a person living near downtown Denver and could easily cycle to the Denver Tech Center in the south end). There is even a bike lane directly to/from the airport.
Philadelphia:
I noticed similarities between Philadelphia and Toronto's bike networks. West Philadelphia has a pretty nice bike network (for Drexel/UPenn students?), but Center City is an especially difficult place to bike. Cobblestone streets out east in Old City are a huge pain for cyclists.San Francisco:
Not surprising that the bike-friendly San Francisco has a connected bike network.
Traffic and transportation is a huge issue in any city - where ever you have people, you are going to have cars. Bicycles cut down on the number of cars on the road at any given time, which also frees up parking spaces and traffic for street cars and buses. Cars can even be prohibitively expensive in cities, with extra costs from parking and permits. Unfortunately, cycling can be very dangerous without clearly designated bike routes.
I used Tilemill and Mapbox to handle the plotting and map styling of the project, which can be seen here. You can look at a few other cities, such as Vancouver and New York City and see how they compare.


