Safer bike routes with online mapping tools

October 14, 5:15 PMNY Cycling ExaminerGrace Lichtenstein

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While Google slowly adds a bike route to its maps, Ridethecity.com is miles in front, offering an online mapping tool for bicycle commuters, tourists and recreational riders in New York City and four other urban areas -- Chicago, San Diego, Louisville and Austin.

What's special? Ridethecity.com provides 3 choices when you enter a starting point and a destination -- direct, safe and safer. Sometimes they are the same, but often they are different.

Says the team that built Ridethecity.com: "Like MapQuest, Google Maps, and other mapping applications, Ride the City finds the shortest distance between two points, with a difference. First, RTC avoids roads that aren't meant for biking, like highways and busy arterial streets. Second, RTC tries to steer cyclists toward routes that maximize the use of bike lanes, bike paths, greenways, and other bike-friendly streets."

Although Ride the City is still "in its beta testing phase," I  have found it works just fine and helps me judge the amount of time it takes to get to different places in the five boroughs. You can send a route to your cellphone, too.

The website was launched by Vaidila Kungys and Jordan Anderson, friends who met while enrolled in New York University's urban planning program. They welcome feedback on various routes. So if you are not happy with their suggestions, you can send them an alternative.

There are other choices, including New York City Bike Maps, which shows greenways and bike paths as well as event routes (such as the Transportation Alternative Century and the great North and South County trails in Westchester, just to the north of New York City. Wlhatever tool you use, cycling in NYC gets better and better. Not perfect, not Copenhagen, but better.

For more info and their blog: Visit RTC and NYC Bike Maps