The purpose of our project was to survey the current state of bike lane infrastructure in the City of Vancouver and to suggest improvements in order to improve bike ridership and bike safety. To begin analysis, we focused on bike accidents, current bike lane type, school locations, individual income, bike usage, and population density. Analyzing these datasets provided context to where and why accidents were happening in order to improve safety and whether current bike lanes connect to enough schools. We also gained a thorough understanding of any patterns that arose comparing bike accidents to bike usage and population density, and access to bike lanes to those with low individual income.
Our group divided up the work for our report evenly, each taking a section. We each took on preparing a map and doing analysis of the data and using that knowledge to contribute to the final map of recommended bike lane improvements.
Converging creative individual thoughts can be difficult to refine and agree on. In order to move past our first road block and get our project started, it was useful to take a step back and understand what type of data we actually had to work with. Doing this really helped us focus on a topic we could all agree on. This taught me that when conflict arises within a team project it is useful to put aside personal opinions and think of the bigger picture.
Here are some of our final maps:
Comparing bike usage to bike accidents