Interactive cyclists map thingy

[dellzeqq]

wombling down the road from Sittingbourne to Faversham on Saturday I met my old friend Barry Jordan coming the other way. He told me that there were no trains from Whitstable or Faversham back to London

I rode to Faversham, made inquiries, and resolved to ride to Ashford, and catch a train from there. I then set off down the A251.

Quelle horreure! The A251 is a narrow two-lane road with ups and downs and blind turns, with a lot of traffic. I'll never ride it again.

Now, if we had an interactive map thingummy I could point to the A251 and write 'narrow two-lane road with ups and downs and blind turns, with a lot of traffic. I'll never ride it again'. I could write the same about the A338. And each of us could write what we wanted against whatever road. A24 Ashtead 'beware pedestrians - they're all on drugs'. Or is that the A202 Peckham?

You take my point. Is such a thing possible? And how might we do it? Or is it a silly idea?

Simon

 

[marinyork]

Sounds a bit like the photo section of http://www.cyclestreets.net/photomap/ but diversified out in terms of categories . Anyway it's perfectly possible, it's getting people to use it.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Oh - what an interesting idea. There could be two versions (at least). A sensible version for the education of the rider and a silly one for a bit of a lark. How would I do it? Ask a computer code writer.............

 

[Arch]

Could it be done on a Google map? YACF have one with cafes marked on, and yoy can title a pin, and make comments on it. Those are pin points of course, can you highlight a section of road in a similar way?

It's a good idea. In a strange area, it's very hard to know whether an A road, or even a B road, is rideable, until you get there.

I have used Google Streetview for that - looking at a stretch of road or individual junction can give you some idea. I used it to choose a crossing point on the A1 - a friend suggested one from a map, but looking at Streetview I could see that the A1 is all but a motorway at that point, and waiting for a gap might take months.

 

[gaz]

The problem is accessing it on the move.
Anyone want to code an app for iPhone, Android, blackberry etc...

 

[Arch]

Yup, it's doable - you click on 'draw a line', set a start and end points, and then you can describe the stretch.

http://maps.google.c...TF8&hl=en&msa=2

Zoom in on York to see a couple of highlighted bits.

We just need to set it to be editable by anyone - not sure how that's done? Must be possible, because of the YACF one, I've added points to that.

 

[marinyork]

Could it be done on a Google map? YACF have one with cafes marked on, and yoy can title a pin, and make comments on it. Those are pin points of course, can you highlight a section of road in a similar way?

You can use google maps. IMO things like the openstreetmap (and layers such as the opencyclemap) are much more suitable for cycling and cyclestreets agree. Google API is very easy to deal with.

For example for the A1 crossing I could have edited the actual map to put that there were steps on. Someone is still welcome then to flag it up and say hey there's a problem here there are steps.

 

[Arch]

The problem is accessing it on the move.
Anyone want to code an app for iPhone, Android, blackberry etc...

I guess you can get google maps on a smartphone. The really clever thing would be a satnav/gps that alerted you if you were heading towards a dodgy bit - I guess the info needs to get onto the satnav database for that?

 

[Becs]

wombling down the road from Sittingbourne to Faversham on Saturday I met my old friend Barry Jordan coming the other way. He told me that there were no trains from Whitstable or Faversham back to London

I rode to Faversham, made inquiries, and resolved to ride to Ashford, and catch a train from there. I then set off down the A251.

Quelle horreure! The A251 is a narrow two-lane road with ups and downs and blind turns, with a lot of traffic. I'll never ride it again.

Now, if we had an interactive map thingummy I could point to the A251 and write 'narrow two-lane road with ups and downs and blind turns, with a lot of traffic. I'll never ride it again'. I could write the same about the A338. And each of us could write what we wanted against whatever road. A24 Ashtead 'beware pedestrians - they're all on drugs'. Or is that the A202 Peckham?

You take my point. Is such a thing possible? And how might we do it? Or is it a silly idea?

Simon

sounds like a great idea to me!

 

[Arch]

Ok, I think I've set that Google map test to open collaboration. Could someone try and add a bit, to check?

If it's a goer, we can give it a better title.

 

[Arch]

You can use google maps. IMO things like the openstreetmap (and layers such as the opencyclemap) are much more suitable for cycling and cyclestreets agree. Google API is very easy to deal with.

For example for the A1 crossing I could have edited the actual map to put that there were steps on. Someone is still welcome then to flag it up and say hey there's a problem here there are steps.

I suggested googlemaps just because it's the thing I know - can you create a specific map like this in Openstreetmap easily?

Also, to edit a google map, do you need to be signed up? Since I have a gmail account, I've never tried to edit a map without an account...

 

[DrSquirrel]

The problem is accessing it on the move.
Anyone want to code an app for iPhone, Android, blackberry etc...

Site first, "apps" later.

Though, you can set up "public maps" on google with markers and waypoints and everything - no need to even code anything (using the API) and applications on android and thus already support this usage.


Problem is we use many many sites here and there and who would ever check their route against another site - it would be better to try and get a system like this implemented in another already running site like bikehike etc... (which people actually use to PLAN routes).

 

[Arch]

Problem is we use many many sites here and there and who would ever check their route against another site - it would be better to try and get a system like this implemented in another already running site like bikehike etc... (which people actually use to PLAN routes).

That's a good point. But it might be worth setting up a googlemap for people to add stuff to in the meantime, and maybe someone who understands it all better than me could try and get it taken up by the appropriate site - isn't Bikehike based on googlemaps anyway? If it could be proved that people were adding valuable data...

 

[DrSquirrel]

That's a good point. But it might be worth setting up a googlemap for people to add stuff to in the meantime, and maybe someone who understands it all better than me could try and get it taken up by the appropriate site - isn't Bikehike based on googlemaps anyway? If it could be proved that people were adding valuable data...

Setting your own up "in the meanwhile" will be a waste of time, unless you do decide to port the data across to the newer service.

Bikehike uses google maps API - and could be implemented.


I have an idea of how I personally would do it - but I am not going to dictate or deliberate it with another site owner/developer.

1. Allow users to mark stretches of roads with a rating of say "friendliness", 1-10.
2. Take the average for the section in question to give you an overall figure (and deal with overlapping lines separately etc).
3. Allow when planning a route to "avoid roads rated less than 4" (etc) to automatically go around it, etc etc.

This is a rough idea, and is implementable - lest i'm not going to do it.

 

[Norm]

The problem is accessing it on the move.
Anyone want to code an app for iPhone, Android, blackberry etc...

There are already a couple of cycle-specific iphone apps which allow you to choose quiet roads or cycle paths rather than the usual options of quickest, shortest etc. I read this review of Cyclestreets earlier today, for example, but there are others such as, such as Bike Hub.