Water Fountains
Public Restrooms
Public Restrooms with Changing Tables
Playgrounds
Picnic Tables / other Public Lunch-time Seating
Bike Pumps
Dangerous Bollards :)

by Chris Slatt on Sep 11, 2012 10:27 am • link • report

Pitbulls

by Arlington on Sep 11, 2012 10:32 am • link • report

The first thing that came to mind when I read this was specific, hard to find (often ethnic) grocery items. That would take a ton of crowdsourcing and be hard to verify as things go in and out of inventory.

So perhaps a map of ethnic markets and restaurants by ethnicity, so you could check a box for eat-in, take-out, or grocery/market, then select various categories and subcategories like african/ethiopian or latino/argentinian, etc...

by Joe in SS on Sep 11, 2012 10:39 am • link • report

I'd love to see a bike parking map, one that both marks public bike racks (for trip planning purposes), and allows people to request bike racks in "high-need zones", which in DC's case could help DDOT and WABA on their priority list for bike rack installation.

by Jacques on Sep 11, 2012 10:44 am • link • report

Map that lets you draw a boundary around the blocks that you consider part of your neighborhood, and give it a name.

Clicking a city block on the map would drop a polygon, and then user could drag boundary lines and add new vertices, similar to how you can modify a trip route on google maps.

Users could submit demographic info, such as age and number of years living in DC. It would be interesting to see how different people perceive the extent of their territory, and what they call it.

by ruSERIOUSINGme on Sep 11, 2012 10:46 am • link • report

For people who don't have in-unit washer/dryers, I would love to have a map of self-serve laundromats. They're tough to find, since searching for laundry often brings up dry cleaners and other related-but-nonuseful services. This would have really helped me when I lived in San Francisco.

by Dan Miller on Sep 11, 2012 11:00 am • link • report

Indoor public spaces - locations where you can meet people, read a book, or take shelter if it's cold/rainy outside. Libraries, coffee shops, and Smithsonian museums are nice, but they get sparse the further out from downtown you get.

Also, +1 on the public bike parking suggestion. It'd be good to split out covered bike parking as well.

by Peter K on Sep 11, 2012 11:03 am • link • report

School boundaries (elementary, middle, and high). My dream would be able to combine this with available data on school quality that is customizable and weighted for individual parents' preferences (standardized test scores, IB vs AP, foreign language immersion programs, special programs, extracurriculars, etc) to help come a parent pick the ideal neighborhood to live in for school options. I'm not sure how to factor in charter, magnet, or otherwise special school situations, but the neighborhood school data would be a good start.

by alison on Sep 11, 2012 11:10 am • link • report

alison: In DC, school boundaries are on the DC Data Catalog. Not sure about other area jurisdictions.

For DC ones, go to http://data.dc.gov/Main_DataCatalog.aspx and search for "school boundaries" under Brows Catalog.

by David Alpert on Sep 11, 2012 11:18 am • link • report

Total biking infrastructure (bike racks, CaBi, bike paths, trails, bike storage, bike-friendly public transit, etc.)

by Thad on Sep 11, 2012 11:32 am • link • report

This is a bit on the silly side but I've often wondered how one could go about figuring out which beers a bar served (and the price if possible). I don't know about the regulatory hurdles and what not but it'd be nice to know which places are serving what if you're in a particular mood.

A more serious one would maybe be block by block parking restrictions? You could zoom in a see if its resident only, certain hours, metered or what not.

by drumz on Sep 11, 2012 11:36 am • link • report

* Charging stations (for cars)
* Charging stations (for CE devices)
* Open WiFi hot spots (probably already exists)
* Properties for rent (also probably exists)
* Real-time location of Metrobuses

+1 on Drumz's recommendation of beers by bar. I don't see a regulatory obstacle for that.

by Jack Love on Sep 11, 2012 12:36 pm • link • report

Aa a cyclist, I need to live near a bike shop. So, I made a map showing where they are: http://mvjantzen.com/tools/bikeshops.html Later on I added cupcake shops, theatres, bowling, groceries, and also Metro, train stops, airports, and CaBi stations. And, um, then added IKEAs, Apple stores, cinemas, and the Smithsonian museums. (see http://www.mvjantzen.com/blog/?p=1348)

by M.V. Jantzen on Sep 11, 2012 12:39 pm • link • report

How about a map of areas where you feel it's dangerous to be a pedestrian?

This includes stop signs where drivers frequently roll on through without stopping, cross walks that drivers ignore and poorly timed cross walks at stop lights.

This morning I was almost hit 3 times by drivers on may walk to work down 17th street.

by Thomas on Sep 11, 2012 12:41 pm • link • report

For tourists, bicyclists, and anyone else who "needs to go," when not in a retail area, public toilets or at least facilities that allow public use.

by Larslaurent on Sep 11, 2012 1:40 pm • link • report

This is probably more of an issue in the suburbs than DC proper, but worn paths where pedestrians are walking through grass because there is no sidewalk. Suburban peds could send you pictures and you could geocode them.

by CityBeautiful21 on Sep 11, 2012 3:38 pm • link • report

Seconding CityBeautiful's idea to map pedestrian/bike "desire lines." That information could be extremely useful for planners/community advocates who want more permanent, high quality accommodations.

Here's a neat desire line map showing some in the greater London area.

by Matt Caywood on Sep 11, 2012 5:13 pm • link • report

Although at least in well mapped areas, many desire lines are already represented in OpenStreetMap (as paths etc.) so it might just be a matter of tagging the data appropriately, rather than mapping.

by Matt Caywood on Sep 11, 2012 5:19 pm • link • report

-CaBi Stations
-Metro Smartcard kiosks/locations where they can be purchased
-Complete streets elements (curb cuts, adequate sidewalks, street lights, etc)

by Nicole on Sep 12, 2012 9:27 am • link • report

+1 on sidewalks, showing: material & condition (brick, concrete, grass.... well maintained, full of cracks....) width of walkable sidewalk (very useful for baby strollers, wheelchairs, ...), sidewalk walking "impediments" (lamps, tree boxes, bus shelters, miriad of signs/poles, annoying newspaper boxes....)

by RE on Sep 12, 2012 11:05 am • link • report

now that i think about it, there was an article here recently comparing highways with bike paths and pointing out at the lack of standards for different types of bike paths compared with highways. A good mapping of bike paths and side walks may be the first step for that.

My feeling is that sidewalks have some standards for some areas (wide, new, well maintained for commercial areas...poorly maintained, non existent for some others) and it will be very useful to point out at those differences to ensure consistency.

by RE on Sep 12, 2012 11:10 am • link • report

Playgrounds for children and how safe they are for really small children. Some are at intersections and don't have fencing so those when those tiny little feet get moving, they can potentially run out into the street. Others are near dog parks with no fencing and not everyone's dog is children-friendly.

What baffles me are the number of playgrounds where there is a platform for the slide but an open area that a child still learning how to keep his/her balance can potentially fall off. Some slides are extremely hot to exposed skin because there's no shade and the sun bakes it all morning.

by David Gaines on Sep 12, 2012 12:29 pm • link • report

I want to be able to add information on traffic control devices and bicycle level of service. By this I mean characteristics of roadways that would allow for improved trip-planning algorithms. For example, bikeplanner.org and google maps both provide inaccurate "best routes" because they do not account for the timing of lights.

- traffic light timing
- outside lane width
- prevailing traffic speed (as separate from posted speed limits)

by Jameel Alsalam on Sep 13, 2012 9:54 am • link • report