Togoparts bike trails forum is always full of questions about how to get from A to B and how to avoid hazardous places. I for one have always wished there was a good bicycle map for Singapore, like there are for so many other cities around the world, such as London.
So a few cycling enthusiasts here in Singapore have been discussing the idea of mapping routes here in order to create our own map! We have come up with some preliminary drafts to share. NOW WE WANT YOUR HELP. You will also see lots of question marks on the draft maps. We want feedback from all you cyclists out there. Are these useful. Are they correct? The routes are colour coded according to our rough assessment of stress level/danger level. Do you agree with our assessments? Do you know of other short cuts that we have not marked? Do you want to help create more similar maps?
Here are the maps we have so far and a very rough legend. We hope to gradually expand on these and improve them, with your help. Just click this link to view the sketch maps of the Clementi, Kent Ridge, Holland, Alexandra, Newton and River Valley areas.
WARNING: These are REALLY rough and they are not tested. They are rough drafts lah! If you use them then please be careful. Use at your own risk! Let us know about any problems you find.
Update (2008) - Bikely.com for cycling routes.
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12 comments:
Mandai route is pretty popular with cyclist too.
thnx fer the ifo
How about bikely.com , they have a nifty interface for making routes
We are a group of 8 cycler from Indonesia.We plan in conjunction with Asiabike to have touring by folding bike around the city from the 10- 13 April. Can somebody advice us, where to have a nice route.Thank you
my only comment here would be that traffic varies on the time of day. so some red lines may vary, I wouldn't agree with some of the red lines. for example I ride to and from west coast to down town everyday. by leaving for work at 9.30am and following the west coast highway under the underpass i never have any issues. There are 3-4 lanes most of the way, and i find i have less close calls than going backstreets. I find the 3 most common problems here are. 1. drivers don't respect you and expect you stop for them because they are bigger, this usually happens in the form of them pulling out in front of you, crossing a light in front of you, change lanes, stop to pick up passengers, turn a corner cut you off. For some reason it is common for drivers to beep and that makes it ok. or they wait for eye contact then pull out in front of you causing you to slam on your breaks. 2. blinkers and blindspot. Blinkers are just so rarely used they are an optional accessory here this build s on point 1, but just makes it so much worse when your cycling average speed is 30-40 kmph. Blindspot, it is bad practise to cycle in any vehicles blindspot. but even still it can happen, when a car is changing lanes with out a blinker and doesn't check their blindspot that is cause for serious evasive actions. The motorists seem to shrug it off, when you swear at them. 3. lanes lines, double parking, general disobeying the road rules. Cars here tend to not stick in their lane, they swerve and cut across lanes, and I have seen police cars see cars do this and do nothing. It is acceptable here and is very dangerous if you are on a shoulder, or on a curve especially. Cars / trucks parking in illegal places is so common here it is unbelievable. The amazing thing is that if the road is marked like that is probably for a reason. Worst cases I see are on the west coast highway, double parked into the second lane with hazards on. Hazards is like honking before trying to kill the cyclist. hazards means it must be ok. haha.
Seriously a large majority of drivers here cannot drive period. I blame the police for not enforcing the road rules.
Another pet hate of mine is cyclist coming up the wrong way on the street. As if you don't have enough to be paying attention too, than oncoming bicycle riders!
I have digressed a little. But basically I find less of the above obsticles on the high way than backstreets. Okay there are trucks and they are going faster, but in general they usually give you a good distance if you ride the correct distance from the curb.
Just my thoughts. On a postive note, the roads here are of very high quality IMHO, which is one less thing to fret over :)
I'm an exchange student about to travel to NUS from America. I bike casually to get from A to B and am considering a folding bike. The info is really valuable. Keep up the great work.
Jon, please note that NUS @ Kent Ridge, as the word "ridge" implies, has a hilly terain. Thus, and furthermore, the roads are bi-directional with narrow single lane, and have frequent free internal shuttle busses traveling on them. Conclusion, almost none cycle within the NUS compound :)
I hope you are not planning to cycle within the campus.
dclh and jon: you need to note the legend. it shows most of the NUS campus roads in orange, for the reasons dclh mentions. Orange means they are OK if you are skilled at cycling in traffic.
Note that since this (defunct) mapping project was posted here, the www.bikely.com service has come online. It is gradually building up a good number of Singapore routes.
I provided an update here: Bikely.com for cycling routes.
why not use mapmyride.com?
it follows sg roads (pretty accurately) and has elevation profile. anything more than 10% ascent or descent can be tough for beginers.
i used it to construct my 40 km custom 'easy' route..
Hey all, my bike route application now works for Singapore. The routing engine is from MapQuest, and cycleway data comes from OpenStreetMap project, so if there are mistakes or shortcomings, users can fix the map info directly and quickly.
Here's an example of a route from east to west.
Not bad, but it seems to know only one way to enter/exit Toa Payoh. Can teach it to use non-road paths?
I have put up some on bikely.com http://www.bikely.com/listpaths/srchkey/TOA+PAYOH
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