Edinburgh City Cycleways Innertube map
How do you engage and connect a cycling community in a city they love, in a way that makes it easy for them to do so? Well, this was the question that the guys from The Bike Station, Hillside Agency and Gecko had to answer.
We had the usual constraints - fixed deadline, limited budget and the ever increasing demands of multi-platform accessibility (but as they say - no pressure, no diamonds). The result of this collaboration was a first of a kind project. Hillside came up with the concept based on the London underground, which was the central theme of the part social initiative, part website project.
Led by Tom Allen and The Bike Station, we had twelve volunteer bloggers (or as we say Ambassadors) from all walks of life, offering content and insights along the routes. Due to the mobile nature of the web application and the need to upload images and content, we built the application on the Posterous API and the core technology was ASP.NET MVC. This meant the application was location aware and automatically knew the exact location of the ambassadors when they posted to the site. It works on the iphone, Android apps for Posterous and has a web mobile version.
It's not often that you get to hear about your work in the Scottish Parliament, but we did. MSP Sarah Boyack lodged a motion in the Scottish Parliament to commend the Innertube map and website.
The motion suggests; "That the Parliament welcomes the launch of the Innertube Map online, which highlights and celebrates Edinburgh’s off-street paths and routes for cyclists; considers the map’s design, which is based on the iconic London tube map, to be striking but simple; notes that the website, which can be accessed from http://innertubemap.com, offers a forum for cyclists across Edinburgh to share stories and videos of their cycling adventures and to highlight defects with routes so that action can be taken to fix them."
It also goes on to acknowledge our funders and partners in the project, including the People’s Postcode Lottery, the Bike Station and the Edinburgh & Lothians Greenspace Trust.
Finally, Sarah calls on the Scottish Government "to provide support for cycling to help Scotland toward its target of ensuring that 10% of trips are made by bike by 2020." Many thanks for the support Sarah!
No Yellow Jersey just yet, but we believe we have made a great start. Have a look for yourself at http://www.innertubemap.com.
