planning – GEARs

This week planners at Lane Council of Governments (LCOG), debuted “CycleLane” a free application for iPhone and Android that allows residents of the Eugene-Springfield to help planners better understand bicycle behavior. Users in the area can download and use the application, which sends information about their preferred bicycle route to LCOG data bases for analysis and planning.

The app consists of a GPS interface which tracks a person’s ride from origin to destination. After downloading the application, it asks for a few pieces of information pertaining to the user like frequency riding and age, which are all optional and confidential. Once the ride is completed the user is asked to submit the trip’s purpose and then the trip information is saved on the phone and simultaneously submitted to LCOG. Think of this application as a travel survey that asks where and why you are riding, but automatically maps your route rather than asking you to write it down from memory.

“The key to success will be getting local residents informed about this app and how much it will help local planners”, said Josh Roll a planner leading the effort. With more trips, riders can help inform LCOG which routes are popular for riding and at what time of day, informing the region’s bicycle planning process. Additional demographic information requested upon downloading the application will also inform policymakers of how to best plan for a diverse riding population.

The application may be downloaded for iPhone or Android from their respective markets and more information about the app itself can be found at the Cycle Lane website: http://cyclelane.lcog.org. As an incentive, users that choose to enter their email address will have an opportunity to win a free gift certificate to a local bicycle shop. Josh Roll, stated that identical technology was employed in San Francisco with great success, and they were able to gather 20,0000 unique trips, a treasure trove of data that will greatly inform their bicycle planning processes.

So get out there and use that smart phone for some smart planning help.

We last held an Advocacy Committee Meeting on January 31 to get everyone up to speed on various bike-related issues, and think about initial steps for the committee to make. Now we are going to be having an action meeting, where the intention is to develop distinct actions for the committee to take. The details are:

Monday, February 21
7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Coquille Room, Erb Memorial Union, University of Oregon (near the food court)

The meeting will focus on two items in particular:

1. Developing recommendations for priority bicycling projects for the Eugene and Springfield TSPs.
2. Developing recommendations for potential state legislation dealing with bicycling.

Other groups have already done a lot of analysis and commenting on the above items, and so our deliberations won’t be starting from scratch. Once we have developed some recommendations, they will be taken to the GEARs Board in March so that they can be formally adopted, and then submitted to the cities/legislature. We can also use these as firm footing when we go to Salem for the Active Transportation Summit in March!

As always, let me know if you have any questions by emailing pricearmstrong@gmail.com.