Brandon Martin-Anderson is at it again with a new project – determining the shortest bicycle paths between destinations in Seattle and San Francisco. This video shows the Seattle map being grown. It would be pretty interesting to do this for transit as well.
12 Replies to “Sunday Open Thread: Bicycle Shortest Path Tree”
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How close is this project to being an accessible source of info?
Brandon could probably expand more on this topic, but all of it is open-source: http://bmander.github.com/graphserver/
From Oran’s twitter, RapidPRide:
http://twitpic.com/20irvb
Sound Transit has released a couple more studies about East Link, specifically about 112th alignments and Hospital station options. The ST Board presentation has some renderings as well.
The 2nd Street tunnel portal options Bellevue wanted looked at get generally positive reviews. ST also included a couple of west-running options for 112th that I can’t imagine Surrey Downs liking.
In my opinion, it’s really coming to the point where ST is trying to build the shortest and most expensive tunnel in the entire light rail system. With the new proposals, the downtown tunnel is going to be somewhere around 3 superblocks long (length-wise): up one block along NE 2nd, then two blocks along 110th St to the Bellevue Transit Center. It seems it would be a pretty big hassle to dig out such a short tunnel that keeps winding away at tight corners, thus reducing speed.
I’m guessing it would probably be more cost-effective just to build an elevated or even at-grade system if everyone’s gonna make such a fuss about the tunnel routing.
I don’t know what the shortest path is but if I had the time to do it on my bike I’d take 101 from Seattle to SF.
I rode the 101 from Port Townsend to Florance OR. and a friend of mine rode it from Seattle around the Olympics to San Fran. The worst is that in the summer the RV’s are huge and even though they don’t mean to, they take up the whole lane. Although everyone I met seemed pretty patient being behind a bicycle for a bit until it was clear to pass. Takes about a Month to do the ride if you bike/camp. And it’s very pretty. If I had a choice, I’d do it in September vs June/July/August the weather is nearly the same and the traffic is less.
Yeh, doing it off peak and still getting the benefit of the good weather is great. I drove this route after graduating from HS (a long long time ago). My brother-in-law, a few years older than me, did it by bike.
Open thread item:
Seattle’s sister city Bergen, Norway opened their light rail service this past week (June 22).
Video of testing here:
Website (in Norwegian) here:
http://www.bybanen.no/
Photoblog here:
http://origo.no/-/sandbox/show/39806_bib
Bergen’s Totem pole here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/imflickring/3459917881/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vincentnb87/3202981716/
Bergen also has Trolleybuses and abundant Hydro-electricity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen_trolleybus
Of course Wikipedia has more data:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen_Light_Rail
With Link now running next to the busway, is it necessary for the West Seattle routes that are re-routed for Mariner games to also be on the busway and 1st avenue to get to the Spokane Street bridge? Why not have them get on I-5 at 4th avenue and take the high bridge over? The time “lost” would be made up in never having to wait when the bridge is open.
Anyone know why all the Sounder sets going to Everett are 2 cars only now? There were 2 sets with 3 cars, 1 set with 4 cars and 1 set with 2 cars. I worked the yard the other day and we took off all the extra cars. Never did find out what was going on.