The Chainlink

Velociped.es

Hello fellow cyclists,

I finished another round of improvements to Velociped.es, the Chicago bike routing web application I made. It's totally free. No ads either.

You may now save and share your customized routes. Plan a route one day, review it the next. Share the route with your group riders. Let your parents know the route you're taking to your friend's house and back.

Highlights:

  • Click "Save Route" to receive a unique URL for the route.
  • Click "More" to add one or two stops to your final destination.
  • Click "More" to search for places along the way such as "bike repair" or "coffee".
  • Click the "Help" button on the bottom left to learn more.

I created Velociped.es as a service to my city and to learn new coding skills. I hope you find it useful. Let me know how you use it. Comments, questions, praise, constructive criticism are all welcome. I have a laundry list of future improvements I want to do. Your comments will help me focus on the important ones.

The link: http://velociped.es/

Cheers.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kevin C Dormant on August 25, 2012 at 12:08am

Holy Crap, Tom! This is really nice. Me likey.

Permalink Reply by Tom Kompare on August 25, 2012 at 8:07am

Mr. Chimp,

Oh, It can be really cantankerous at times, giving you a whole bunch of twists and turns. But you can drag and drop routes (on desktops and laptops) to better paths. It respects one way streets too.

The open secret is that it is Google's routing engine in the background. It's possible they have improved their routing since the last time you used it. Or it might be the way I'm utilizing their routing API. But I don't think I can take credit for the improvement. I'm not THAT good of a coder. :-)

Cheers.

Permalink Reply by Tom Kompare on August 28, 2012 at 11:17pm

I just added a few minor interface improvements. Again, any voluntary feedback is welcome and encouraged. Enjoy.

  • Old "Help" button renamed "What Now?"
  • New help button added to the right of the "Route" button.
  • Minor text changes.
  • Minor styling changes.
Permalink Reply by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on August 29, 2012 at 9:14am

This is good!

Permalink Reply by Marc-Paul Lee on September 1, 2012 at 5:33pm
Very nice but how do you compute the best route? Could you add a provision for improving routes? For example, I commute from Evanston to the loop coming down Clark to Wells. The suggested route was about two miles longer than my usual route although it did take me along the North Channel bike path.
Permalink Reply by Tom Kompare on September 1, 2012 at 7:27pm

Marc-Paul,

I'm using Google's bicycle routing. I think they weigh designated bicycle routes heavily in their algorithm. It does not surprise me you ended up getting routed down the North Channel. If you look at your route on a laptop or desktop, you should be able to drag and drop your route line to Clark.

There is a lot of room for improvement in their data. I've taken it upon myself to slowly but surely get all of Chicago's "official" CDOT marked and recommended routes into their data using Google Map Maker. I have mixed feelings about doing so. On the one hand, I'm doing work for free for a major corporation. On the other hand, their routing tools and programming hooks into their data has been pretty easy to use.

Bottom line: All I can do is prioritize your route as the next thing I do when I get time (between work and kids) to enter more routes into Google's data.

On a similar note, I'm thinking of adding a "recommended" routes addition to this Velociped.es. I have to think through what all that means first, before I promise anything. I think it would be very helpful to have a searchable community-recommended route tool.

Thanks so much for taking the time to offer feedback. I really appreciate it. Cheers.

Marc-Paul Lee said:

Very nice but how do you compute the best route? Could you add a provision for improving routes? For example, I commute from Evanston to the loop coming down Clark to Wells. The suggested route was about two miles longer than my usual route although it did take me along the North Channel bike path.
Permalink Reply by Lisa Curcio on September 1, 2012 at 9:34pm

Tom,

Really appreciate your time and effort.

Permalink Reply by Tom Kompare on September 5, 2012 at 11:18pm

Hello again fellow bicyclists,

I've done another round of updates in Velociped.es.

  1. Non-Chicago addresses now work.
  2. Because of #1, you have to also enter city and state, even for Chicago addresses.
  3. When using the "Look For..." search to look for places along your route, when you click on a results marker on the map, you will get a link to the location's Google Places page as well as a clickable telephone number (if available via Google). If you click on the telephone number, you will be able to make a call to the establishment from most smartphones such as an iPhone.

Again, I hope you find this useful. As always, send me your comments or questions. They are most welcome.

Cheers.

Permalink Reply by Bill Savage on September 8, 2012 at 12:42pm

Just FYI, google maps is not wholly accurate, especially on the south side and regarding railroads.  They think that lots of streets that go through/under railroads are dead ends when they are not.  I was mapping a route through and around Pilsen (for a tour I was giving for the Chicago History Museum in August), and googlemaps thinks Blue Island dead-ends at the RR tracks SE of 18th; it doesn't, it's a perfectly fine viaduct (with cool art in it, actually).  Ditto Morgan and a couple of other roads that go through this East-West RR spur.  They also don't acknowledge paths through college campuses that are passable for bikes: you can take Maxwell Street, for instance, eastbound from Racine all the way to Halsted, but a block or two of it is through UIC campus, and so googlemaps will send you all over hell and gone.  But thanks for this work!  If I ever get an Iphone, I'll be sure to use it.

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