* intersection: 14th & Pearl

Beginning Address Not Found. Please try another method of route selection

followed by

Route Not Found./nPlease Try Different Start or End Points

(note “/n” where newline should be; guessing that should be backquote)

From user’s POV, one error alert is enough, and it should be helpful, e.g. “I can’t interpret an intersection. Please enter a complete street address (number and street).”

* When making a guess on non-matching street, there’s no feedback about that, e.g. “Pea” silently interpreted as “Peak”, Pear > Pearl.

If there are a couple of possible matches, it seems sensible to give user a selection choice.

* no origination and destination in one – nice convenience – as in Google Maps:

14th & Pearl to 29th & Canyon

(Google Maps: with default location set, it accepts – and displays correct info – without further prompting for city, ZIP, state)

bycycle.org has been in operation for about two years, offering a similar service.

“As far as we know, this tool is the first of its kind created specifically for bike routing…”

bikemetro.com, though apparently now defunct, was the first tool like this in the US (that I’m aware of). It covered the entire Los Angeles metro area.

There are bicycle route finders covering parts of Europe as well.

Hi Anne,

My name is Larry Ferguson, I work for the City of Boulder GIS Department and I am one of the project team members of the GO Bike Boulder web routing project. Thanks for posting your comments to the Commute by Bike blog site and for your valuable feedback.

1. It is VERY important to us that we get you onboard as a satisfied customer. Our goal is to have a great bike web routing site that is useful for all the citizens of Boulder. In that spirit we’re asking if it works for you, that at your convenience, please contact us so we can best address your experiences using the site.

2. Would it work for you if we discussed your experiences using the site via a phone call? We have found in certain instances, this is a good way to communicate and work through a series of issues. My work phone number is (303) 441-3213 and I would be glad to discuss.

3. Another option could be if you were going to be in downtown Boulder in the near future, we could schedule a meeting at our City GIS Offices (1300 Canyon) and
test routes you ride on our computer routing system. If we met for 30 minutes, we could cover a lot of ground. We have already done this with several citizens and found it a
most valuable way to address their routing experiences and ultimately improve the web site.

Please advise if any of these options work for you or if you have a different preference or idea, and we’ll go from there.

Thanks again for your input and we look forward to hearing from you.

Larry

Laurence Ferguson
City of Boulder Planning and Development Services
Information Resources GIS
PO Box 791 Boulder, CO 80306
303/441.3213 (phone)
303/441.4070 (fax)
FergusonL@bouldercolorado.gov (e-mail)

What I’d like to see would be options for the shortest route or to include pike paths, bike lanes bike routes and other roads as options that you could select. I know, this is a great thing and I am whining about it not being good enough. But perhaps to better illustrate the point…I ride to my piano lesson every week. The total distance is 5.2 miles on one fantastic bike path and a road with wonderful bike lanes, with a little jog through campus in the middle. Keep in mind that the campus is fairly large and that one of the reasons I can get places so quickly on my bike is that I can cut through the roads on campus without going all the way around. (Keep in mind that I am still talking about roads here, but they are often blocked to cars that can’t access them via bike paths. The system doesn’t seem to realize that they are easily and legally accessible by bike).

When I use this site to calculate directions it gives me 35 turns over 7 miles. It increases not only the distance and complexity but also danger, since many of the roads it recommends are one-way, narrow, and/or crowded, and it takes me down the Boulder Creek Path which is perhaps the most dangerous place to ride a bike in Boulder apart from Hwy 36. The Go-Boulder route includes big uphills, traversing town W->E->W->E, whereas my route goes W->E, all downhill.

I *love* the idea, but hope that they add in some features that will make it truly useful. This sort of thing is more useful on a regional basis and I find that the standard bike map is really sufficient for getting around Boulder itself.

My two cents.

Anne