Software Development
There’s no limit to the ways in which tech can serve cycling. BIKESydney’s first steps in this direction was to contribute to the development of the Go!Fix issues-reporting App.
We want to scale our influence by enabling open-source, user-friendly software and apps which will increase our reach and effectiveness and encourage more people to ride.
We’ve listed some ideas below, but you’re the expert so it’s better YOU tell us what YOU think would work. We get better outcomes when we engage YOUR vision, expertise and passion for cycling. If you have ideas around this or would like to contribute, get in touch.
As a guide, here are some apps that we think would greatly assist achieving better cycling outcomes:
Social Rides Portal
We’d like to make it much easier for riders to find regular social and club rides. Imagine there being a centralised, social media-enabled Rides Portal? Currently, rides are advertised on many different websites (facebook, twitter, homepages, meetup.com) and this is a barrier for many riders. Help us create some code that would allow us to “scrape” websites for these social rides so that we can display all rides in a centralised calendar on social media?
Winning Cycling Infrastructure early in the Development Planning Process
A key to winning cycling infrastructure is to call for it early in the planning of urban design and building development. Retro-fitting bike lanes gets us sub-standard outcomes. As you can see from our Submissions page, we petition government agencies (eg. City of Sydney, Planning NSW, and Transport for NSW) to have them include bike paths, parking and other facilities in their development proposals. We need to streamline, scale and automate this process, and that’s where your software development skills could bring massive benefit.
We’re looking to develop software that automatically interrogates (scrapes) agency websites for development applications that sit on either existing or desired cycling corridors. (Eventually, the property owners on the Alexandra Canal will seek development approvals; imagine an uninterrupted, traffic-free canal bike path…). Ideally, we’d also automate the writing of these submissions based on pre-writing guide notes. Notably, we could leverage the existing Planning Alerts website which will automatically alert you to Development Applications in your area. We could match a layer of cycling-relevant sites and corridors against that database to escalate cycling-favourable development. Can you assist?
Online “Issues” pinboard for Community input to BIKESydney’s Submissions
Everyone loves that we petition government and run public campaigns to win cycling outcomes. We need to develop our capacity to do that AND to get the community more involved in both enunciating their wishlist (eg, a bridge over Cooks River) and making their own submission (most often, even just a three-line email would do). The success of both the Darling Harbour A-Maze Garden Installation and Sydney Airport’s Ground Transport Master Plan campaigns resulted from the number of submissions made by community members.
Let us know whether you have other ideas or want to contribute to an existing project.