Post-Seminar Reflection

Friday, October 25th marked the a successful C-MUS seminar that I had the pleasure of running with my research partner at Aalborg University. The goal of the seminar was to presentation was to present our initial work on a working paper about a new bicycle route in the City of Aalborg--Route 100. The seminar lasted for 2-hours and was held in the Utzon Center on Aalborg's harbor. We spent around 40-minutes speaking and the presentation covered our research process, initial findings, initial analysis, and we ultimately were looking for advice on the next, best steps for our research project. Once we finished presenting our material, we sat down at the table with the attendees and dissected the project. I wish that I could report that the masses flocked to the seminar...but, alas, a Friday afternoon did not yield incredibly high attendance. That said, the post-presentatino discussion was quite fruitful. We received feedback on our approach and work--were applauded for some aspects and told to back away from some areas.

The presentation, in its entirety, is shown below. (Scroll through it on the post, or click on it for a full-screen view.) If you are are interested in a downloadable copy, please feel free to contact me.

Designing the Maps

As I am able to speak and read Danish,  I was responsible for reviewing news paper articles and relevant documents created by Aalborg Kommune (Aalborg Municipality). However, I also quite enjoy graphic design and also took on the task of designing the maps of the facility and presentation slides themselves. While I naturally used my energy researching documents, I spent much more time creating and editing the maps used within this presentation. These maps were to establish the base and design we will use throughout the project, so I spent countless hours ensuring they were 'perfect'.

To create these area maps around the Route 100 corridor, I had initially planned to use GIS and then export maps to Adobe Illustrator (AI) for the final design effort. That said, I had great difficulty in finding any GIS shapefiles for the City of Aalborg. There is an email address for the GIS and Geodata people at Aalborg Kommune (the Municipality), but I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted and wasn't entirely sure they would send me anything. After facing the difficulty of finding GIS data…I rethought the needs for this project. The need to have planning level data in GIS was a big conversation that my supervisor in Bellevue and I have had. Unlike that project--which was legitimately examining existing conditions in order to rethink the downtown transportation conditions and propose policy--this project is much more conceptual...

Our work may led to recommendations, but a geolocated catalog of this information is likely unnecessary. To that end, I decided that working purely in AI would be a good exercise for me. I have only been working with this program for  around 5-months and have been looking excused to become more exposed to it--although I have used it a great deal since I learned how to work with it. The layers in AI work similarly tho those in GIS, but much less is built into each polygon/line/etc, so there is a different style of organization and attention to detail. To that end, I decided to use the Route 100 project as my 'first go' at using AI exclusively to map a facility and attempt the same level of precision and efficiency I am able to achieve using GIS.

Just as I had difficulties in finding GIS shapefiles, there was no wealth of vector files displaying the City of Aalborg that I could easily and quickly bring into AI--and I certainly could not locate any AI or ESP files that would have been a goldmine to find.  However, one of the features I find incredible about AI is the ability to import PDFs with editable layers. I found a PDF copy of the Aalborg City Map displayed on the city's wayfinding kiosks and ultimately used this as the starting point for our Route 100 maps. After importing this map into AI, all maps elements were editable--including the water, streets, building names, etc. Spending the better part of one week, I labeled all of the map elements and grouped the into organized layers. Then came the step of deciding what was useful to display in our map, adjusted the colors and changed the fonts, and resized all the text labels I wanted to be on our maps. Once this base was finished, I drew layers displaying Route 100 and then drew the routes that my research partner and myself had take on our initial rides.

It was a very long process--one which I am certain there may have been shortcuts to complete that I am not yet aware of--but I am very pleased with the results. The maps did well to help us describe our initial rides and experience along Route 100, and the colors values and line weights I used were clear and easy to see. The only thing I plan to adjust now, after seeing the maps projected, is to increase the font size of street and building labels to make them slightly more legible.

Recommended Next Steps

As mentioned, the main purpose of this seminar and presentation was to receive feedback on our work thus far. The following are the main topics we discussed and will now begin to focus in this project.

User Interviews

We believe that most users of this facility are somehow connected to the university--students, faculty, staff. Part of our presentation comments on the fact that students associated with different departments at the university likely have different experiences on and opinions of Route 100. For example, planning and design students are likely to think about and critique the facility with in a different way than those studying international business economics or medical biotechnology. Led by my research partner, the next major step in our project is interacting with a variety of users through a web-based survey and face-to-face interviews. The impending winter months will most certainly result in fewer riders on the route, and therefore fewer potential interview subjects and survey respondents, the goal is to act fact toward this next step. Over the next week or so, we aim to establish our research questions--some of which will be based on/expand upon those asked in a survey given by the municipality last year--and determine how, exactly, we will implement our interaction with route users.

Media Interviews

Within all of the municipal documents I have reviewed, Route 100 is described explicitly as a bicycle commuter route. Yet, the region's local newspaper Nord Jyske describes the facility as "motorvej" (highway) for bicyclists in more than several articles. This reference almost implies that Route 100 is associated with Denmark's planned bicycle super highways, which have been implemented in over 20 municipalities. However, Aalborg is not associated with this project and it is only in these news paper articles that we have found any evidence of it being referred to as a 'highway for bicycles'. We wound up spending time considering whether this was/should be considered a super highway in our research--in part due to the language used by the media. It could be a political move or it could be to bolster excitement about this route and the other existing and planned bicycle commuter routes. Regardless of the reason, we are very interested in sitting down with the authors of these articles and find out why they decided to use this language, instead of always calling it the bicycle commuter route that it is considered by the municipality.

Kommune Interviews

As the research team member with proficiency in the Danish language, I am in charge or reviewing and understanding the planning documents behind the implementation of Route 100. In my review of the municipality's website and documentation, Route 100 is one of several existing "bicycle commuter routes" connecting the city center to other nodes in the city. I have found very limited resources referring directly to this particular route. Furthermore, I have found no documents clearly spelling out what was implemented to upgrade this route to a "bicycle commuter route" or how it the facility was planned. There are new signs on the ground, bicycle air pumps, bicycle counters, and bicycle-friendly infrastructure. So there must be some documentation of this project..

We would like to reach out to and speak directly with the planners, traffic engineers, designers, or other officials who worked on the Route 100 project. Tentatively, these are some questions I know I would like to know and talk to them about...

• Are there plans or other reports they have, documenting this project?
• Do they have specifications of the route infrastructure they could share?
• How were the upgrades along the route funded?
• Why did Aalborg choose not to implement bicycle super highways?
• How was the network of bicycle commuter routes and bicycle lanes designed?
• How was the route alignment chosen? Were there any restrictions or conflicts?
• Is there a design manual or rules and requirements for wayfinding signage and/or bicycle infrastructure in Denmark?

Talk to AAU Faculty

We understand that there are members of faculty at Aalborg University who have worked in some capacity with the municipality. Before we try to figure out who we may want to speak with at the municipality, we hope to make inquires with AAU faculty members who may help steer us to the right people. Additionally, there are faculty members who research topics similar or related to bicycle facilities design who could possibly provide useful insight for us to consider in our research.

In the coming weeks, we plan to get a list of potential sources at AAU from our supervisors and start scheduling time with individuals who may help us connect with the best staff at the municipality and refine our research.

More Data Collection

Part of the seminar discussion went down the road of what information may be interesting or useful to our research project. Here is a list of what we will need to gather while we are planning our interviews and meetings with users, municipality staff, and faculty members at the university.

• The municipality allows individuals to download the bicycle count statistics recorded by the bicycle counters installed along Route 100. I will be downloading this data, mapping it and determining where and how it will be useful and interesting to our research.
• We should think more about the lighting along the route. We know that they have installed lighting along the path, but we are not entirely sure what its purpose is. Moreover, considering what street lighting is providing along the route will help us further a discussion about the 24-hour access and use of Route 100.
• It will also be important to map where the wayfinding signs on Route 100, and those signs leading to the route are located. As I am particularly interested in the sign type and placement--see my post on my initial ride for some of my commentary--, I think having a map of wayfinding will be beneficial to our research and our critiques.
• Additionally, we plan to map out where different types of bicycle infrastructure are provide along the route--i.e., where there are shared roadways, bicycle lanes, grade-seperated bicycle lanes, off-street paths, etc. Part of our initial work was learning that there is not one consistent infrastructure provided along from the start to end of Route 100. Mapping the diversity in infrastructure type will add a useful and interesting and useful layer to our discussions of existing wayfinding, lighting facilities, and user experiences that we learn from our interviews.

And of course there is more (such as typography along the route, nodes of activity  accident data, location of route facilities, etc)...but this existing 'list of next steps' is fairly substantial and will keep us busy for the time being.