New Strava Metro Feature Shows Government How Cyclists are Using City Streets

very cool, thanks Strava!

How many regular commuters are using Strava? I dont think this would very useful when planning for everyday commuting for “normal” cyclist…

@Axel – I use Strava for all of my 14-mile commute rides. It helps me track my performance, and more importantly, my overall mileage. If nothing else, it’s nice to see all those short rides adding up to a lot of miles.

This may be the best use for Strava yet!

Axel is right about this skewing to recreational cyclists. I do use the app for commuting, and recreational cyclists are also going to prefer safer roads. I would like to see an official statement from Strava addressing this. I believe they also have an option to flag your ride as a commute. Perhaps they are only using that data or weighting it more heavily.

Strava primarily shows where the spandex clad racer types hang out and the Portland Oregon heat map shows both very little traffic on some heavily used commuter routes and oddities such as a large stationary blob clustered around a gym where people are using their devices as heart rate monitors on stationary bikes.
As Bike Snob would put it, Strava data is most useful for telling you how to avoid Freds.

There’s a little tab when you upload your ride to make it a ‘commute’ assuming they looked at strictly THAT data (and assuming their users use it) it would make for some good info. Agreed it’s but a piece of the puzzle but, hey, we’ve got the technology, let’s use it….

Whats Strava ?

Yes, the data will be skewed. It will highlight the best roads and if someone interprets it wrong, then they will avoid areas where there is no one riding thinking that there is no need when in reality, no one is riding it because its dangerous to ride on it. It will show voids of where infrastructure is non existent but is needed. For example, in my area of Metro Detroit, Telegraph is a very main artery but it would be nearly suicidal to try and ride on it, as its basically an interstate with a slower speed limit and traffic lights. On the other side of town, I275 is an actual highway, but there is a bike path that parallels the road. Its used extensively, and if you see the heat map, the 275 path would glow, but Telegraph would be blank. An urban planner could see this void and try and fill it.

Remember, its one of those whats good for the goose is good for the gander. If you improve the infrastructure for the elite cyclist, your freds, commuters, and those who bike out of necessity not for lux (IE most people on strava) will also use these roads/paths and life will be better for all.

This has been an insightful chain of comments and we really do value all of the feedback. Since the release of this article Strava has launched its public page. If you are interested in hearing more about what we are doing you can visit http://metro.strava.com/faq/

On a personal note, please know that we do take Strava users privacy very seriously and that Strava Metro is built in a very specific way that takes the many and blends it to one. This is not raw data that is being provided back to planning groups but years of well thought out data structure.

I know that by blending all of our efforts together we can make the globe a safer place to ride.

Cheers