The City of West Hollywood launched a new website yesterday to help citizens stay involved and informed of efforts to update the Creative City's 2003 Pedestrian and Bicycle Mobility Plan. Walk+Bike WeHo features a news site specific to the plan, a 10 question survey on people's experience walking and bicycling in West Hollywood and a "Shareabout" map developed by OpenPlans. (Yes, THAT OpenPlans.)
The Weho Shareabouts map gathers input by encouraging the public to “pin” their ideas about pedestrian and walking improvements to an interactive map. Shareabouts is a flexible tool for gathering public input and allows the city to track not just what areas are hotspots for improvement, but also what people are most interested in what changes. Shareabouts are open source technology and were used by New York City when selecting kiosk locations for CitiBike, the City of Lousiville when collecting data on historic locations and landmarks throughout the city, and for a park survey in Philadelphia.
"The map is very simple to use - you drop a “pin” on the map to post your idea for walking and/or biking improvements," explains Gerogria Sheridan of West Hollywood's Community Planning and Development Department.
"The map will be up this summer to help identify the hot spots and top issues in WeHo. The feedback will then be used to inform the recommendations for our draft Pedestrian & Bicycle Mobility Plan Update – to be developed this fall."
Not surprisingly, Santa Monica Boulevard is an early hot corridor on the map for bicycle and pedestrian improvements. Some of the comments are generic "this is an uncomfortable place to walk," one commenter writes. Other comments are specific, "Bike lane ends. No signage to direct cyclists on which route to take to continue going west."
For those of you that prefer more traditional chances to provide feedback, West Hollywood will be hosting a walking and biking tour on Saturday, July 20th at 10:30am to look at city streets and sidewalks. A discuss will follow on what it feels like to be a pedestrian and cyclist in WeHo. For more information, visit the Streetsblog L.A. Calendar section.
