Bicycle Route Planning Website Build NBG

The site we choose for Bicycle Route Planning will establish it as the Bicycle Route Planning site for the National Bicycle Greenway and cause many cyclists to pick it over another. It will help them feel that by supporting such a platform they are part of the effort to build our coast to coast bike route.

The Bicycle Route Planning site we choose (there are over 30 of them) will be embedded at BikeRoute.com as well as have a marquis presence at their website. At it, there will be a link to our organization as well as a short description of our vision statement and, of course, a map with our coast to coast route on it. In addition, bolded out text will read, 

“Help us build the National Bicycle Greenway.”  

Under the above graphic, will be the city to city navigation links for which the site we work with will be asking for information. Going East to West, since Washington, DC to Pittsburgh, PA is known in the form of the Great Allegheny Passage/C&O Canal trail, the first line items will read –

East to West: Pittsburgh to Columbus | Columbus to Cincinnati | Cincinnati to Indianapolis | Indianapolis to Chicago | Chicago to Des Moines, etc

All the way to San Francisco. Whereupon the linked text will change to read – 

West to East: San Francisco to Palo Alto | Santa Cruz to San Jose | san Jose to Palo Alto | Palo Alto to Oakland | Oakland to Napa | etc

From either direction, when any of these Anchor City connecting routes are clicked, here is the text that will result – 

“Thank you for your interest in helping us to build America’s first coast-to-coast bicycle highway. In getting from one NBG Anchor City to another, when you click on any of the connecting routes above, the route that appears is what the nonprofit National Bicycle Greenway is suggesting to make this connection. If you can suggest a better travel route, or improvements to the one you see here, you can become a part of the NBG Rock by clicking on any part of the connection you would like to change. 

The page that comes up will be the Google route that you can alter. You can place your cursor on any of the roads you want to change and drag them accordingly. Your changes will be shown in red. There will also be a button you can select to load a completely different route.

Here, there will also be forms you can use to embellish what you are suggesting. It will also be here that you can add comments and pictures as well as any businesses and/or sights to see/places of interest (you can do this for any of our routes). Those interested in helping us flesh any of our routes out with pictures and/or notable stops, can also use these forms and do so without changing the roads. 

It will be any changes you make that will subject them to a vote. Toward that end, at the end of every riding season, if the roads (and/or paths) you propose are seen as more favorable than others, they will get built in to the NBG’s  suggested way to make this connection. 

In the end, on a computer screen, we want our SF to DC route that runs east to west across America to look like the USBR 35 route that travels north to south, up and down Indiana.

This information will be used to mark our route on the actual ground. Once we have validated our route online, we can start announcing our plans, beginning in population centers, to enhance two-block sections every 10 miles. Through community meetings and other means, the landscape architect firms we will have selected will professionally and convincingly, present the possibilities for each ten-mile marker section.

What follows will be shown when <more> is clicked: 

Before any roadway improvements begin, the above is the methodology we will use to get mile-marker posts in the ground well before the upgrades we propose begin. Once posts do get placed, they will give authority to the message our landscape developers will have conveyed. Visualized as handsome, 4-foot tall, steel reinforced concrete posts, like what America’s first coast-to-coast highway, the Lincoln Highway, deployed, their symbolism will be strong. They will communicate the vision of connectivity, economic development, health and fitness, quality of life and how we will, in time, be connecting this alignment to destinations for recreation, historic sites, education, wildlife and adventure as well as internet and infrastructure possibilities. 

As they formalize our route, they will also become revenue generating tools for all the programs they will become a part of, such as – 

On the ground:

NBG Mile Marker logos & renewals
NBG Passports
Greenway route signage
NBG Passport License sales
Corporate sections

On the internet:
Flagpost Map listings
Display Ads on
    Maps
    Anchor City Biking Report Cards
    BikeRoute.com rider blogs
    Mtn Mover Podcasts
    NBG Anchor Cities
BikeRoute.com certificates like Camino de Santiago compostelas riders can use to TransAm spaced over several years

All of these revenue streams will be discussed in NBG Director, Martin Krieg’s, new book about how we will make the National Bicycle Greenway real.

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In terms of our California NBG Anchor cities, we have had a lot of experience with the roads and paths that connect them. As such, these are the ten connections we show on our maps. 

At them, you will see that there are two starting points. San Francisco and Santa Cruz. In the case of San Francisco to Palo Alto, starting at San Francisco City Hall (all routes start and end at City Hall), the route that appears is a bike route through the San Francisco Peninsula cities. Based on the annual rides we used to do between these two NBG Anchors, this is what we feel is the best way to make this connection.

Santa Cruz to San Jose has also been much tested. A former 20-year resident of this ocean side city, I have much explored the many different ways to make this connection. And yet none of the roads and paths that enjoin our Anchor cities are perfect. That is why we are asking the cycling community to help us tweak them..

Alternative routes are also welcome. If someone wanted to ride along the ocean to make the SF to Palo Alto connection, for example, there will be a button they can click to suggest their alternate route. Alternate routes will always appear (with its author) along with the NBG suggested route. On the other side of the Bay, Oakland to Napa can be used to illustrate such variety. There are many routes through the beautiful Oakland hills one can use to make this connection. They all take more time, offer far fewer services and require higher levels of cycling skill, but they can appear as alternate routes on our map.