At this week’s Chicago OpenGov Hack Night, Oboi Reed and Steve Vance presented about Slow Roll Chicago and about improving equity in bike infrastructure in the City of Chicago.
Oboi Reed of Slow Roll Chicago talks about their work
Slow Roll Chicago is a community bicycle ride in Chicago founded by Jamal Julien and Olatunji Oboi Reed in 2014. Slow Roll Chicago rides on a regular basis from April to October. The ride meets at various locations & venues and takes a unique route for each ride. Slow Roll is for everyone; all ages, skill levels and types of bikes are welcome. They are called Slow Roll as our their slow riding pace keeps the group safe and gives riders a unique perspective of our great city and its beautiful neighborhoods.
One of Slow Roll Chicago’s major initiatives is advocating for more equitable bike infrastructure in the city of Chicago. Currently, the City of Chicago places bike infrastructure where there are the most bikers. Slow Roll Chicago believes that if you place biking infrastructure in places where none exist, more people from those areas would ride bikes.
To help map out the disparity in biking infrastructure, Slow Roll Chicago worked with Steve Vance and the Transportation Breakout Group at Chicago’s OpenGov Hack Night to build the Chicago Bike Equity Map.
Chicago Bike Equity Map
The map shows current bike lanes overlaid by population density. Clicking on the bike lanes will show you what type of bike lane it is. For example, is it a buffered bike lane or simply a painted one?
You can see from the map that the bulk of the bike infrastructure is on the north side of the city
You can use the map to show different points of interest – including grocery stores. You can download the data that powers this straight right from the site’s menu bar.
The project is open source and uses the Bootleaf as a base. You can view their entire presentation below.
If you’d like to learn more about how data and technology can help solve our city’s transportation problems – you should join the Transportation Breakout Group at OpenGov Hack Night!
