Editor's note: The audio version of this story will be available soon.
How do you get around safely on a bicycle in areas where there's vehicle traffic?
A project underway to create an updated map of bike lanes in Santa Barbara County is using AI and human input to rate the comfort of different routes.
Melissa Cunningham is a Santa Barbara cyclist who’s involved in what’s called the AI Bike Path and Wayfinding Project.
"It's really nice to have a resource where, whether you come to Santa Barbara to ride a bike, or whether you're local, to be able to have an overview of what facilities exist, and what their comfort levels are," said Cunningham.
The idea was to come up with classifications for bicyclists to rank how they feel about what makes a bike trail safe and comfortable to use.
"This is a new concept for biking, the idea being that we want to display on a map and through online tools what routes are high comfort versus low comfort or medium comfort," said Aaron Bonfilio, who is Director of Multimodal Programs for the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, better known as SBCAG.
"People will have a better sense of what they are getting into when they're getting on their bike, and moving down the road," said Bonfilio. "As they make a turn, where are they headed? Are they headed into a part of town that might be more stressful, or is this going to be a high comfort route all the way through?"
He said they asked the public about characteristics which make a route more comfortable or less comfortable.
"From there, they developed a set of criteria on how to classify each of the roads. We used AI tools to read the data and to tell us initially what routes and what street segments are high comfort, medium comfort, and low comfort."
SBCAG is partnered with UC Santa Barbara and Simon Fraser University on the map development project.
AI was used to apply the high, medium, low, and non-conforming comfort classifications to bike paths and potential biking areas across the county.
"There are a lot of streets and roads that are not necessarily mapped by local jurisdictions for all of the bike facilities that are on them. Sometimes, we don't have a built-out bike route or bike path already there. AI is helping us understand comfortable and calm routes for people to ride. A focus group of cyclists and community members helped us develop the classification model, which is a new concept for biking," said Bonfilio.
Now, bicyclists are being asked to weigh in on the draft of the map.
"The public has an online tool that they can go to, and click on a segment, and put in a comment," said Bonfilio. It's like a Yelp review, which can be used to help fine-tune the map. The research team will use the comments to finalize the map.
Cunningham gives an example of how some popular Santa Barbara streets might be classified. "Cota Street is a buffered bike lane. It's pretty good, but you're still right alongside traffic. Then. you get on the Las Positas Bike Path, and you just feel good, super comfortable."
Caltrans provided the bulk of the funding for the $540,000 project. The state agency thinks the approach is a potential model for mapping bike trails statewide.
Depending on the results, the goal is to scale the project across California.
The new county map will replace an outdated one dating back to 2013.
The goal is to have it done by next summer. It would be online, making it accessible to bicyclists with their phones. The idea is to also create paper hard copies so tourists and others could use them for outings.
