Innertube Edinburgh

[rapunzell]

I don't know how many of you local cyclists/ horseriders/ wheelchair users/ pushchair gallavanters/ cross-country skaters are following this project already, but Innertube is a new project from The Bike Station, which is mapping the pathways in and across Edinburgh.

There will also be an interactive aspect to ensure that temporary and changeable things like potholes, fallen trees, broken glass, fly tipping etc can be reported and flagged straightaway, as well as providing the opportunity to draw attention to much nicer things users have found on journeys like (off the top of my head, not from their website), stretches of blackberry and rosehip bushes, allotment owners offering surplus veggies, shops that will give bowls of water to puggled dogs in summer, or free wifi.

http://www.thebikestation.org.uk/innertube-map/

(Leith - Portobello is the Orange line, and Holyrood - Musselburgh is the green line).

I'm particularly keen on being part of this - not least to have something I can check in advance for quality of crossings and pavement surfaces in the interests of my poor shoogled bones - and somewhere that will include my feedback to help others with wee wheels.

[Bob Jefferson]

Cool. Edinburgh's cycle paths are amazing. Like worm-holes in space, they seem to take you one end of town to another in an unfeasibly short period of time. This map may help me to make more sense of where I am, though I quite enjoy the experience of being more or less permanently lost.

[rapunzell]

I don't think there's a map in existence that will cure my feeling of being more or less permanently lost.

Bob, is there a way of having the map shown on this thread? The one on the Innertube website is small, but becomes big when clicked, and I don't know how to perform that trick. (/luddite)

[Bob Jefferson]

high res version

[SoupDragon]

Mr Soupy cycled out to Ratho yesterday, stopping for a cast or two in the canal, thats the green route
No fish were harmed during the expedition

Clanger2 went all the way to Linlithgow last weekend again on the green route

Not on the map is the pathway up past Craigmillar Castle which ends at the Infirmary, but maybe its excluded as it has steps just before the RIE!
Its a nice walk , entrance in Craigmillar Castle Avenue, to the right of CM Castle Road, up to near the castle, crosses CM Castle rd by pelican crossing , then down to RIE
Mr Soupy prefers cycling from RIE to Cameron Toll then cutting into the Innocent Railway cycle track via the new link- think its through Kings Haugh off Peffermill Road- then through Magdalene and down Hope Lane (at least I think thats the route )
Quicker than the bus anyway.

[rapunzell]

Thanks Bob!

What are the surfaces of those paths like, Soupy? Are they quite cycle-friendly?

[SoupDragon]

Mr Soupy says the green line is a bit cobbled at Fountainbridge but then tarmac out to Wester Hailes, then fine compact gravel for several miles then a bit rougher, sometimes muddy to Ratho.
All on the level

from Mr Soupy

Fountainbridge Basin


start of the track Fountainbridge


BIG frog Wester Hailes

[SoupDragon]

Ratho

[rapunzell]

Mr Soupy is a STAR!!

Guess who gets a bit stuck trying to swerve between those canal path thingies...

[wangi]

Innertube is a new project from The Bike Station, which is mapping the pathways in and across Edinburgh.

Commend their work; but there's a lot of overlap here with other projects - perhaps a missed opportunity for sharing open data that other groups have already captured?

In particular: OpenStreetMap, OpenCycleMap and CycleStreets (each linked to Portobello on the respective maps).

CycleStreets also tries to capture the reality of the paths; e.g.: http://portobello.cyclestreets.net/location/26805/

Saying that there is great benefit to having a schematic diagram of the routes, rather than a geographically accurate map. But the "gaps" between the paths on the Innertube Map make it less useful - they need to fill those in with key on-road sections to link the off-road paths and enable broader use of the map for planning journeys.

(disclaimer: I'm currently adding in Edinburgh's Core Path network to the OpenStreetMap dataset (so used by the three sites above); but hampered by poor accessibility of the digital data which maps out the paths themselves... So a FOI currently being reviewed to hopefully get access to that!)

L/

[rapunzell]

Oh that's interesting, Wangi. Thanks, I'm gonna look into those other projects too now.

[wangi]

An interesting article I came across this morning: http://infranetlab.org/blog/2011/04/cyc ... structure/

In particular the Light Lanes:

Light Lane: Dynamic Lane creation

Recognizing the bike lanes are an effective means of improving safety for everyone involved while simultaneously acknowledging that the cost of such lanes, averaging $50,000 per mile, is currently prohibiting their wide-spread deployment the designers of Light Lane, Alex Tee and Evan Gant (Altitude) have the following objective:
“instead of forcing cyclists to adapt their behavior to the existing infrastructure, the bike lane should adapt to the cyclist”.
The LightLane is a bike accessory that projects a well-defined virtual bike lane onto the surface upon which the bike is moving. Staking out a wider territory is believed to add to rider confidence, making the bike a more viable commuting alternative

And the Copenhagen cycle railings too.

L/

[rapunzell]

I half half wowed by their foresight, and half gnashing with European cyclepath envy.