1) What do 'direct route', 'safe route', and 'safer route', actually mean?

2) What does the 'caution' sign mean?

3) Does Ride the City direct cyclists to go against the flow of traffic (i.e. the wrong way) on one-way streets?

4) Ride the City doesn't recognize my address. Why not, and what can I do about it?

5) I know a better/safer/faster route than the one(s) Ride the City suggested. How can I tell you about it?

6) What is the difference between a greenway and a bike lane?

7) Why do the routes that Ride the City generates involve so many steps?

8) Can I search for bike shops along my route?

9) Can Ride the City tell me the best bike route to/from nearby towns that are outside the city?

10) How do I email a results page to one of my friends?

11) I don't live in New York City; does something like Ride the City exist in my town?

12) Where did Ride the City get the data on streets, bike lanes, and greenways?

13) Did you get the idea to create Ride the City from Google Maps 'Bike There'?

14) Is there a mobile version of Ride the City? Can I get directions via text messages?

15) What updates do you have planned for Ride the City in the future?

1) What do 'direct route', 'safe route', and 'safer route', actually mean?

Most routing applications choose the best route based on the distance or time required from start to finish. Ride the City does the same thing, except we factor in street segments with bike facilities.

RTC considers streets with bike lanes to be shorter than they actually are. This is slightly exaggerated on the 'safe route' and more exaggerated on the 'safer route.' The result is that the 'safer route' will direct you out of your way to the nearest greenway, bike lane, or street segment that users have suggested to us.

The 'direct route' is exactly that -- the shortest route we can find. Please use special caution when riding the most direct route as it makes no effort to use bike lanes or greenways -- and makes no effort to steer you clear of busy streets that may have lots of traffic.

2) What does the 'caution' sign mean?

These are street segments that we (or other cyclists) feel warrant extra caution when riding. For NYC, check out Transportation Alternatives' excellent CrashStat website for a sobering look at the most dangerous streets and intersections.

3) Does Ride the City direct cyclists to go against the flow of traffic (i.e. the wrong way) on one-way streets?

No, it doesn't. If you notice an error, please let us know via the feedback form.

4) Ride the City doesn't recognize my address. Why not, and what can I do about it?

First, make sure you enter the city (or in NYC, the borough) along with your street address. Sometimes we can guess this from the context, but not every time because in some cases we cover an area beyond the city limits. If your trouble persists, please let us know via the feedback form.

5) I know a better/safer/faster route than the one(s) Ride the City suggested. How can I tell you about it?

Please use the feedback form. Your input helps Ride the City to evolve into a better service for everyone. We appreciate and rely on your input.

6) What is the difference between a greenway and a bike lane?

Any bike path over a bridge is a greenway. Additionally, any off-street bike path or on-street bike lane that is physically separated from vehicular traffic is a greenway. Any on-street painted route that is not physically separated from vehicular traffic is a bike lane.

7) Why do the routes that Ride the City generates involve so many steps?

Ride the City generates routes with a larger-than-expected number of steps for a few reasons:

1. Safer RTC routes tend to be longer routes as the optimizer tries to steer riders toward greenways, bike lanes and other quiet streets. Those extra blocks can mean a few extra steps.

2. RTC generates an additional step each time a bike lane begins or ends on a street. For example, if a route includes a street that has no bike lane for 4 blocks, a bike lane for 12 blocks, and then no bike lane for 2 blocks, RTC shows three steps.

3. RTC also generates steps when the name of a street changes. Sometimes this can be less-than-useful even when it's correct. For example, a route on W 10th Street that crosses Fifth Avenue will add a step because the street's name changes to E 10th Street.

4. Incorrect street data can also lead to extraneous steps. Our initial data set was inconsistent in its use of abbreviations and street numbers so a route might have three steps on '5 Ave', '5 Av', and '5th Ave' that all describe the same street. Please let us know when you notice this and we'll fix it.

8) Can I search for bike shops along my route?

Yes, you can! On the results page, zoom in on the map and look for the sprocket icons. These denote nearby bike shops. Click on the icon to get the name, address, phone number, and hours for each shop.

9) Can Ride the City tell me the best bike route to/from nearby towns that are outside the city?

Generally, no. Ride the City only covers the five boroughs of New York City: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island (via the Staten Island Ferry), but we're working on Westchester County.

10) How do I email a results page to one of my friends?

Click on 'Copy link to email' under the share menu. Copy the URL (web address) and paste it into an email.

11) I don't live in New York City; does something like Ride the City exist in my town?

Yes, if you live in Portland, Oregon or Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There's a great website called byCycle.org that provides a bike routing service in those cities. You can also check out Google Maps 'Bike There' for other similar initiatives in other cities. Interested in bringing Ride the City to your town? Let's talk. Please contact us at info [at] ridethecity [dot] com.

12) Where did Ride the City get the data on streets, bike lanes, and greenways?

Every time you search Ride the City, we look through hundreds of thousands of records in a database. Most of that data comes from data that is free to the public, such as NYC's LION GIS data. But LION data does not contain bicycle facility data, so we have to request for that from the municipality (sometimes through a Freedom of Information Act request), or we have to create it ourselves by transferring it from a printed bike map to Ride the City. On top of that work, we still have to put in dozens of hours of data cleanup to get everything working more-or-less correctly.

13) Did you get the idea to create Ride the City from Google Maps 'Bike There'?

No. We starting talking about doing this in 2005 and started work on it in the fall of 2007. We fully support the idea of Google adding bike directions to its maps, even if it puts our website out of business!

14) Is there a mobile version of Ride the City? Can I get directions via text messages?

Yes! Under the share menu in the upper right-hand corner, click Send SMS. (Your phone company may charge you, but we won't.)

15) What updates do you have planned for Ride the City in the future?

There are a number of things we wanted to incorporate in the beta release of the site but weren't able to. In the future, we plan to:

• Let you save your favorite routes (and share them with friends)
• Clean up the data further and incorporate users' feedback in recommending even better routes.
• Add bike parking facilities to the map near a trip's starting/ending points.
• Improve support for mobile devices.
• Add support for other cities.