Ride the City has officially launched in the Washington area. Their tool plots bicycle routes, combining map directions and knowledge of bike lanes and trails to recommend safe routes.

“Safe” trip from DC’s Wilson Building to Arlington’s county offices.

It’s all based on open map data. Portions of a route that use bicycle lanes appear in green, while portions on-street appear in purple.

It doesn’t appear to know about the 15th Street bike lane, as a trip from the Reeves Center to Dupont Circle goes a bit out of the way to use 14th instead of 15th. The Ride the City team has now added the 15th Street bike lane.

How are the predictions for your usual bicycle routes?

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.