This Map Wants To Know Which Transit Stops Need More Bike Parking

Do you bike to a transit station? Would you do it if the station near your house had more bicycle parking? We've got a map that needs your input!

Combining a short bike ride and regional transit (ie, multi-modal commuting) has great potential for helping people avoid the stress of highway gridlock commuting. This commuting strategy doesn't happen in great numbers because of two obstacles:

1. The lack of secure, covered, plentiful bike parking at stations;
2. Gaps in the bikeway network to get you safely to the station.

Improving bike parking at transit stops has been on our radar for some time. Recently, SEPTA asked the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) to study obstacles that prevent more potential customers from using trails to get to transit stops. This seemed like a great opportunity to figure out where the demand for better bike parking and improvements to the local bikeway network exist. If this information could be obtained, it would help inform SEPTA, PATCO, and NJ Transit where to prioritize their resources.

We asked Open Plans to create a crowdsource map to accomplish this goal. We collaborated with DVRPC and the three transit agencies to prepare the survey and Open Plans developed the website with its new software Shareabouts, a tool to crowdsource data in a neighborhood or city.

Here's where you come in: visit the map and tell us which transit stops need better bike facilities! Then share the map with your friends, family, coworkers and others. The more input the map receives, the better the recommendations provided to DVRPC and the transit agencies.  The map will be up until December 1st, 2012 and we encourage you to return to the map to respond or discuss other people's responses.

If you have questions about the project or find issues with the map, direct them to bike@bicyclecoalition.org with the subject line "Bike Parking Map".