I took a class called Maps. In this class, we talked about the way maps can be interested and how they can tell a story. In this class, we went to many different places that relate to the class. One place that we went to that really stood out was google. I loved this FE because it was a really amazing place and we learned about the way they have created maps that have certain agendas such as getting places as quickly as possible and not necessarily enjoying or looking out the window. For this project, we had to make a map with three layers past, present, and future. I am making my map on bike accidents and how we could make them safer. Hopefully you learn something new.
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Key
*= Potholes
.= 2011 bike accidents
.= 2007-2009 bike accidents
-= Current safe bike lanes
-= Green sticks (solution)
Intro.
*= Potholes
.= 2011 bike accidents
.= 2007-2009 bike accidents
-= Current safe bike lanes
-= Green sticks (solution)
For my AP I chose the problem of dangerous bike lanes in the lincoln park area. I chose this problem because, as a cyclist I have to deal with dangerous lanes on a daily basis. We had to make a map that shows the problems and where they occur in the neighborhood. My map was similar to a map made by the city of chicago in the sense that it is designed to be clear and concise. I designed my map after newer maps such as google maps as in it is designed to be clear about certain things, google maps does a good job of highlighting things like your route. That is how I designed my map since I wanted you to be focused on certain aspects. My map has the intent to show the viewer where the dangerous parts of the road are, how they have started deteriorating, current safe routes and the places I plan to implement safety precautions. One thing I didn't want my map to do is to be like the Haussmann situation. Basically what happend was a man named Haussmann changed things in a place without actually thinking about the people who lived there. You may be wondering how I could do that since I am trying to help the community, but there is things like parking, space for delivery trucks to pull over and things like that to account for. All these things came into play when designing my map. I think every community in Chicago has a problem with the bike lanes. For my project I specifically focused on the Lincoln Park area near the Peggy Notebaert Museum.
Map 1
For the first map I focused on current safe routes and potholes. These are two problems that are on the streets. I chose these problems because I felt they would be a perfect starter since they have to do with the next two maps.
I used gold to highlight the safe routes since people like the color gold and it is more eye catching than some other colors. The main reason I pointed out the safe routes is to show how they overlap with the bike related accidents. You may be wondering how I decided to classify safe routes and on the city of chicago website they have a map that shows the bike routes in the city and they are colored differently depending on the way it was constructed. I decided that a safe route is either green, or has a type of barrier (CityOfChicagoBikeMap).
I decided to map the potholes because they could easily could provide a huge threat to cyclists since we are on two wheels instead of four. Also the result of a bike crash can be way more devastating than a car crash since there is no cage around bikers to keep us safe from outside objects. Potholes can catch you off guard and thus need to be treated as soon as possible. If you look at the map there is a pothole that is nearly in the middle of a long road and therefore there aren't many crashes, but all the crashes that are on the straight part of the road are over the pothole. I chose to make the pothole label a star since it would stand out under all the other information.
On this map I also included the street layout. I chose to put the information above directly on the street because I felt that it was concrete information that isn't based on time or per person experience such as the accident data. I also think that it would be the perfect piece for the background of the other maps since the next two maps directly correspond to the data on the first map. The reason I say this is because these are the things that could cause accidents. A cyclist could easily be thrown off a bike straight into the road and ran over by a car. As for the safe lanes the map shows that there aren't enough safe lanes to protect people from cars.
Map 2
This map has data of the accidents that occured on the existing map from 2007-2009. This was a very important step because these were the accidents that are being compared to the accidents from 2011. I chose to make the accidents marked in black dots because they are easy to see and show exactly where things happen. The second reason I chose dots is because it is easy to see where accidents were clumped up since they will become a black puddle. The dots also stand out from the stars that represent potholes. The reason I chose the put this information on map two is because it would look good without the newer accident information on it. I also think that it would transition better if you added more beginning with older information.
A example of someone who was in a accident is Blaine Klingenberg who was struck and killed by a tour bus in the gold coast. He is a example of a witness because he experienced what can happen first hand. We want to eliminate these types of situations. Chicago actually wants to implement a program called vision zero plan which aims to have zero bike fatalities. The Chicago government would be an example of a professional on the topic.
Map three consists of the 2011 bike accidents. 2011 is the newest year that I could find of lincoln park bike accidents. For this data I chose the color purple so that it would stand out from the other colors. I wanted my map to have a lot of data but data that is also easy to read and understand.
Looking at this data overlaid with the older data you can see that the amount of accidents seems to have decreased slightly. I don't think that it has decreased enough. As you can see there still seems to be accidents occurring near the potholes. These are the kinds of things that are important to fix.
While looking at these maps we have to keep into account that many people do not report their accidents or the accidents didn't end badly enough for them to want to report. This is important because we don't know the true scale of the problem but we can assume that we have a scaled down version of the problem.
Another example of a witness would be Francisco Cruz who was struck in a hit and run accident by a white van. A expert in the subject would be Mary Wisniewski from the chicago tribune. Mary had written articles in the problem of biking in Chicago.
Map 4
On map 4 I mapped where I would install the safety barriers. Before I describe the map i'll describe my idea for safety.
The barriers I had in mind are essentially bright green reflective rods that stick up every few feet that separate the bike lane from the road. I think this would be an effective barrier because right now most streets have nothing to keep drivers from driving in the bike lane. The sticks would provide incentive for the drivers not to drive or park in the bike lane.
The reason I chose to put the map of my plans on top is because it is representing what my solution is to the problems before it. I chose the color because it is the exact color of the poles that I hope are one day implemented.
Mary Wisniewski from the Chicago Tribune is also an expert on this part of the problem. She has an article written about the many different problems that involve the cyclist community.
Citations-
“Bike Maps.” City of Chicago :: Bike Maps, www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/cdot/provdrs/bike/svcs/bike_maps.html.
Sobol, Rosemary, and Mary Wisniewski. “Six bicyclists killed in Chicago this year, all involving commercial vehicles.” Chicagotribune.com, Mary Wisniewski, 28 Sept. 2016, www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-woman-struck-killed-while-riding-bike-in-roscoe-village-20160927-story.html.
