(Photo © J. Maus)
Wyatt Baldwin, the web programmer who created the bicycle trip-planning tool byCycle.org, has been hired by Portland’s public transit operator TriMet.
The announcement was made by TriMet communications director Carolyn Young during a presentation at the recent Pro Walk/Pro Bike conference in Seattle.
Baldwin starts today and he told me last week that he’ll be working with TriMet’s GIS & Location-Based Services team doing software and Web development. Back in June, TriMet unveiled their latest online trip-planning tool and TriMet developer Bibiana McHugh said she was working with Baldwin to incorporate bike routes.
At this time, TriMet’s trip-planner is not truly multi-modal (meaning it can’t give complete, door-to-door route suggestions if you bike or walk to the transit stop), but perhaps with the addition of Baldwin to their team that goal will come closer to reality.
Baldwin told me last week that, “Working on byCycle directly will not be part of my official duties.” He also added that “there is some interest at TriMet for a multi-modal trip planner, but I wouldn’t want to speculate on that.” (TriMet’s McHugh wasn’t available for comment at press time).
Baldwin sprung onto the bike scene nearly three years ago when he integrated data from Metro’s Bike There! map into his Google-map powered byCycle.org tool. He (and his partner on the project Lauren Donohue) later added a blog/website widget (see it in my sidebar below) and they have been refining the tool and trying to raise money for further development ever since.
So, what will happen to byCycle now?
Baldwin says he’s considering “open-sourcing” the code and “releasing it into the wild”. His hope is to let others take over the main development of the tool and he thinks making byCycle open source “will remove certain barriers and lead to a better product overall.”