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Edinburgh’s cycle path network is to get a ‘London Underground’-style map in February, according to The Guardian.
The innovative map – named the Edinburgh Inner Tube map – will be online, giving local cyclists chance to ‘participate’ with the map, posting pictures, videos or even problems with the route on a blog, all via their phones. Their posts will be geo-tagged to keep the online map fully up to date.
The Inner Tube map will promote off-street cycling and is the brainchild of Mark Sydenham, manager of The Bike Station. Following his proposal for the map, the project won £98,100 from the People’s Postcode Lottery. The Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust has assisting in building the map.
Mark Sydenham told the Guardian: "With this money we’re going to be able to make these paths a much better place to be, to go and to use. Core to the whole project is our brand new Inner Tube Map. It’s based on the London Underground, as the name might suggest.
"One of the key reasons behind doing the map like that is that many of the paths used to be railway lines. As far as we know this is the first time ever there’s been mapping of this style done. We’re quite pleased with the results and everybody will be able to judge for themselves when it comes out in a couple of weeks.
"Most people are unaware, myself included until I started doing the map, that you can get from Cramond to Portobello with only having to go on 200 metres of road. It’s amazing how much of the network there is there.
"My role will be to create a social media version of the map. We’re going to have ten volunteer ambassadors who will each be charged with different routes. I’ll be training them to use social media tools like blogging, tweeting and podcasting and also multimedia tools using a 3G mobile phone.
"They’ll be able to travel around the route taking photos, interviewing people, finding out if there’s junk or rubbish or fly-tipping or blockages. All of those posts will be geo-tagged and will go to a group blog, so you’ll be able to see a timeline of all the different things that are happening on all the cycle routes around the city.”
