WNJ: DelDOT turns to crowdsourcing to find best bike routes

Piecing together low stress roads is a major challenge in DE.

Featured in the Wilmington News Journal --  Transportation officials are seeking feedback from cyclists to find out where in Delaware the best bike routes are located and where barriers to safe cycling lie.

It is a crowdsourcing effort that will help the Delaware Department of Transportation formulate its statewide bicycle policy plan, officials said.

DelDOT this week published an interactive website online that allows cyclists to draw the location of a preferred bike route and label with a red exclamation mark any obstructions that lie along the path. Users can also view other cyclists' routes, and state whether they agree with listed barriers.

More than two dozen commenters posted notes on the map by Friday morning. Examples included a cyclist who pinned an obstruction on Hercules Road west of Wilmington, stating there is "NO SAFE WAY TO TRAVEL EITHER DIRECTION from RT 41 to Hercules Road."

A Lewes bike rider stated the "Junction & Breakwater Trail under the Freeman Highway overpass has no marking to separate bicycles from street traffic. Also Bikes traveling down hill Northbound on Trail have no warning going into blind corner."

Those kinds of comments will help DelDOT identify problems "and prioritize needs for bicycling, including connections for separated facilities," agency officials said in a statement.

The map will remain online until October. [Cont. Reading ...]

Poster's note: Very important that bicyclists participate in this.