About

The Vancouver Bike Route Planner is inspired by the old UBC Cycle Vancouver trip planning website, which was brought about by research done as part of the Cycling in Cities research program at UBC.

Contact

Vancouver Bike Route Planner and its underlying data updates since 2014 have been built 100% by volunteer effort to-date. Although comments and suggestions are welcome and encouraged, please be patient and understanding! You can contact Melissa Nunes at or follow us on Facebook.

Data:

The data that the new Vancouver Bike Route Planner uses is an updated version of the original UBC Cycle Vancouver bike route data, which was originally based on data obtained from Translink. The original Translink dataset was created using municipal data and periodic cycling network validation studies. The Translink dataset supplied routes that are “designated”, meaning that they include special amenities (e.g., cyclist-activated traffic signals, signage) for the convenience of cyclists, and routes that are “alternate”, meaning routes that are commonly used by bicyclists but do not have any special amenities. The newer Vancouver Bike Route Planner uses both "designated" and "alternate" route types from the original Translink data, however, the algorithm for routing shows no preference for either type of route.

Safer routes

The newer data set attempts to distinguish "safer routes". Safer routes information was included to help people find routes that are appropriate for those of "all ages and abilities". Bike routes physically separated from motor traffic, separated paths, and residential bike routes are deemed as "safer". Routes which are unprotected shoulders of major roads, including painted bike lanes and routes with painted bike stencils on the pavement, are not considered "safer" - even if they are official bike routes.

Currently safer routes information in this data is limited to the City of Vancouver. Some other municipalities' bike route data do not currently contain sufficient detail to be used to define safer routes, so the Vancouver Bike Route Planner focuses on the City of Vancouver. In addition, any bike route data updates since 2014 have focused on the City of Vancouver which has relatively clean easy-to-use and easy-to-access bike route data available through their open data portal.

The safer routes data is intended to be continually improved using local community knowledge. Please contact us if you feel changes are needed to what is or isnt deemed as a "safer route" in our data.

This website uses the following other data:

Disclaimer

By using this website, you acknowledge Vancouver Bike Route Planner's contributors are not responsible for your use of information contained in or linked from this website. Contributors do not guarantee that any information or data provided by this site reflects real-world conditions. Users are expected to use their own judgement and make their own real-world assessments of the existence, quality, and saftey of any bike routes refered to by this website.