A portion of Arlington’s existing bike map.

Arlington’s bike planners are designing a new bike map that will highlight the most comfortable routes, instead of focusing strictly on infrastructure. They want your help, to figure out the most important things to show on the map.

Most bike maps focus on infrastructure, with separate symbols for things like bike lanes, cycletracks, and trails. But another school of thought suggests they should focus on rider comfort, putting more emphasis on mixed-traffic roads with slow-speed car traffic, and doing more to call out things like hills.

To help strike the right map balance and illustrate the right things, planners are asking bike riders in the region to take a short survey. The survey has 13 questions and should take less than 5 minutes to complete.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

Dan Malouff is a transportation planner for Arlington and an adjunct professor at George Washington University. He has a degree in urban planning from the University of Colorado and lives in Trinidad, DC. He runs BeyondDC and contributes to the Washington Post. Dan blogs to express personal views, and does not take part in GGWash's political endorsement decisions.