Strava started as an app to help map your rides. Now, its data is being harnessed to transform the urban landscape. How do you build a case for better bike lanes" Traditionally, urban planners have manually counted cyclists, tracking ridership numbers and identifying routes that might need improvements. But in the age of the smartphone and fitness app, that approach is fast becoming obsolete.
Strava, an app first designed to help runners and bike riders track their routes, is fast becoming a valuable data source for city planners eager to demonstrate the impact of new and improved paths and bike lanes. The company even created a spin-off?Strava Metro?dedicated to mining users? movement data for the benefit of planners and alt transit advocates. In Portland, Oregon, the app?s data supported the instincts of the Department of Transportation when it was looking to build support for a new bridge across the Willamette River. Strava Metro?s maps showed that riders often went a mile or more out of their way to cross the river, which cuts through the middle of the city and separates the established downtown area from an up-and-coming rezoned district. Portland?s Tilikum Crossing bridge opened last year to much fanfare for being the country?s first major bridge projects to ban cars.

Image courtesy of Strava Metro
Portland, Oregon before and after opening the Tilikum Crossing

"Few data approaches have given this amount of visibility to what...