Toronto released a new biking app for the smartphone, which the city hopes would help both the cyclists and the government.
The city government of Toronto paid $20,000 to Brisk Synergies to have the app developed, and it is now available for both Android and iOS devices.
Once installed, the app tracks the path that a cyclist takes around the city, giving the user data regarding his bike route that includes his/her average speed, distance travelled and greenhouse gas offsets.
In addition, to benefit the city government, the app also sends the data anonymously to a database that is managed by government staff. The information collected from the cyclists will be used as the city plans to expand the existing cycling networks that are currently in Toronto.
The plans are pegged for release to council some time next year.
"There are a lot of cyclists that would like to see the city do more for cycling and this is really a chance for you to have some input," Toronto's manager of pedestrian and cycling infrastructure Dan Egan told CP24.com in an interview.
Egan added that by downloading the app, cyclists will provide important information to the city government, which in turn will help them understand the needs of the cyclists for better government service.
In the past, Toronto studied the city's cyclists by sending out teams to do a manual count on the number of cyclists passing through key locations in the city at peak hours. With the app, it will not only be easier to count the number of cyclists going through certain routes at certain times, but it will also allow the city to see the routes that the cyclists take apart from the primary roads where bike lanes have been put up.
"The real advantage of this over other survey work we do is it will give us the actual routes that cyclists use," Egan told CP24.com, highlighting an example of one-way streets in downtown neighborhoods that cyclists may be using heavily for both ways.
By knowing this information, the city government would be able to see if the cyclists can be given a safe and legal route instead of having them go the opposite direction in a one-way street.
Downloads of the app were off to a good start since it was released on Tuesday, and feedback has so far been positive.
For security purposes, the government said that no data can be sent by the app to their database without permissions from the user.
