New Ride Report app gives ordinary Portlanders the power to evaluate streets

It’s worth noting that Ride Report is not only good for cycling, it’s genuinely cutting edge tech, too. Props to the Knock team on doing it right.

The ride quality data they’ve gathered just with the initial beta testers has been fantastic. Can’t wait to see the map get colored in with good and bad markers as more folks jump in (https://ride.report/map). Good job, guys!

It shows SE Harrison through Ladd’s Addition to be higher stress than SE Clinton? Apparently still has some bugs to be worked out…

every Portlander*

*with an iPhone

I heard every iPhone user here to contact the company and ask them to focus efforts on releasing an Android version. I work in tech, I completely understand why they released an iPhone version first, and from the comments here it’s obvious that they are following the right path for their initial app release. But here’s the important thing;

IPhone users are consistently of a higher income bracket than Android users when aggregated over a large user base. So what this app will provide is a lot of data provided by economically advantaged users. Which is not to say that that data is invaluable. But what’s really valuable is ride data for underserved locations in Portland. Like, oh, say, east of Mount Tabor.

Not trying to throw shade on the overall goals here. More information about cycling stress points is always a good thing. But if you like the app, and you care about cycling in Portland overall, I’d say it would behoove you to push the developers to let people who can’t afford an iPhone into the party. Even if you’re not one of those people.

Perhaps a little more effort but likely to help a lot more bicyclists is to update data on Google Mapmaker and make roads good for bicycles or ones that bikes should avoid and mark condition https://www.google.com/mapmaker

My only problem (<<<for the lack of a better word) with this app is that those people that are the most likely to download it and use it consistently are more likely to be the ones that are likely predisposed to giving thumbs down.

Again I know what the intent of the app is and I like the idea (I don't ride with GPS and this app won't change that), but if someone is looking at these maps and all they see is orange and red lines (because of the potential bias of it's users I mentioned above) it could also be yet another excuse for those "interested and concerned" to keep from saddling up.

Though over all, I'm a data guy and overall I love more complete data, especially considering how lacking it is for bicycle use over all.

I must confess to being a little stymied by the thought of trying to rate my commute using their system. I come from west side over Cornell Rd. and out to the airport. There’s such a huge variation in the nature of the roads I ride that it’s a little hard to rate them all together. Cornell is always going to be a stressful mess with close calls more often than not. Most of the roads I ride on eastside on the other hand are zero stress. How am I supposed to rate a ride like that? Half of it is awful, half is great. Pretty consistently.
Should I just pick stressful every time? While well deserved for Cornell it’d be extremely unfair to all the roads I take that are empty and lovely.
Just feel really confused.