DC bike maps

[Arlingtonrider]

I called DC’s transportation office (202-693-6813) yesterday and found out that new bike maps have been printed. (Their website still says they are out of them.) They kindly offered to mail one to me. I forgot to ask whether this is a reprint of the map that was available earlier this year or if new routes have been added. Does anyone know?

Topic

[Dirt]

I don’t know the timing of the maps, but the routes in DC have certainly changed in the last year. New bike lanes on 15th St and Penn Ave, plus didn’t the Northwest Branch open up in the last month?

Thanks for the info on the new maps. I’ll check them out when I can.

[Arlingtonrider]

I just got my new DC map – and it looks like a number of changes have been made, although a few of them (incl. Pennsylvania Ave) appear to have been drawn in with a sharpie or felt tip. No matter, at least the changes are shown (and why waste maps already printed?) I don’t have my old map with me to do a side by side, but it looks like the backside of the downtown map also has some changes, with a nice big loop in development. Not to denigrate in any way the nice map DC is trying to put out, but I really appreciate the durability of the paper that the Arlington map is printed on. I need to be a little more careful with the DC version. I’m guessing that this is sort of an interim map until DC does a new one, but thanks to their transportation office for updating it in the meantime!

[Tim Kelley]

Arlingtonride – thanks for the kind words on the Arlington Map. We’re pretty happy with it’s durability too.

We will be working on a new redesign at some point in the future and wanted to solicit thoughts on map? Particularly on it’s size, it’s not actually a “standard” brochure size–it’s slightly smaller. Do you think that a slighty larger size would be better? Or is it fine how it is now?

Anyone else have comments?

Here’s a link to the download the map in case you don’t have it in front of you.

[Mark Blacknell]

The question of size has never occurred to me, so I suppose I think it’s fine as is. My primary – and perhaps unrealistic, given the challenges – complaint about area bike maps is that they’re separated into DC proper, Arlington, Alexandria, etc. Very few users of these maps ride solely within each jurisdiction. I’d *love* to see a joint DC metro-wide effort. Even if it couldn’t be printed, I’d love to see something electronic that tied all the various maps together. I’m not a great fan of relying on/handing all things over to Google, but it might be first accomplished as a layer on top of Google maps.

[Tim Kelley]

With the partnership between Arlington and DC on the Capital Bikeshare system, who knows what could happen with future collaborative efforts!?!

[Author]

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