Track your ride

If you ride your bike around town, you can now easily track your routes for yourself and help inform decisions about where new bicycle lanes should be by using the RenoTracks app.

RenoTracks was launched on the Apple App Store on Jan. 24 and is free. It has been recording live data since Jan. 31. The app allows users to track their routes, mark locations of interest—like public restrooms, bike parking or your favorite coffee spot, or issues with things like infrastrure or enforcement—shows the carbon dioxide emissions saved by not driving, estimates calories burned, shows your speed, time and distance, and the data is collected by the Nevada Bicycle Coalition (NBC) to help city officials figure out what needs to be done with bicycling facilities.

NBC president Terry McAfee said that the first thing people ask after a new bike lane has been put in is if anyone is using it, and this app can help to answer that question and others like it.

“The idea is when a lot of bicyclists do it, we’ll get a lot of route information and we’ll be able to find out where bicyclists are riding from a more data-intensive approach,” McAfee said. “From that we’ll be able to tell where a new bike lane might be needed to make them safer, but also when a new bike lane has been put in or another major change in an intersection or when the traffic patterns change, we can actually look to see how bicyclists have changed their patterns in response.”

The app started at Hack4Reno back in October, where RenoTracks took second place in the Live, Work and Play Challenge. Hack4Reno was a weekend-long hackathon meant to develop apps to help the Reno community. The team consisted ofsoftware developer Dylan Kuhn, app developer Brad Hellyar, journalist/marketer Riley Snyder and NBC board member Scott Hall. The app originated from an open source GitHub project called CycleTracks and can be adapted for other places as well.

“If you are familiar with GitHub, since I made the fixes, all others using that code could also update their town’s/city’s version as well,” Hellyar said.

NBC wants to create a strong bicycling network and community in Reno, and McAfee said that one of the main issues in Reno is that the bike lanes are not connected. Hall stated a principal area of concern is connecting the University of Nevada, Reno to Midtown.

Hall believes the biker using RenoTracks can benefit from this app from the improvements on the roads that will come from it.

“Using better data allows decision makers at the city of Reno, Regional Transportation Commission and NDOT [Nevada Department of Transportation] to prioritize bike lanes for sweeping, snow plowing and maintenance,” Hall said. “Federal funding through the Transportation Alternative Program can be directed specifically to projects that show significant numbers of bicycle commuters and recreational riders. These communities of bicyclists benefit from the RenoTracks mapping tool by showing where the most popular routes are for bicyclists such as themselves to travel around the Truckee Meadows.”

Android and southern and rural Nevada versions are expected.