 Portland's biking infrastructure is widely emulated. With 300 miles of bike lanes, the city is carefully laid out for cyclists. But the lack of bike data stands in the way of perfection. So the Oregon Department of Transportation recently collaborated with Strava, a popular biking app, in an attempt to make the city better and safer for cyclists. Going through many meetings through the Oregon Department of Transportation and sitting in meetings, we were having conversations of, well, what is the level of service for bicycles and what is the level of service for pedestrians? We really just don't have any good data for that. It's very hard to plan for a multimodal agency when you lack bike data. So with that problem in mind and going to meetings, I was joining a ride with friends and I realized that everyone was pulling out their cell phones before the ride and using an app. And there's a couple different apps there, but in particular, an app that's popular in Portland is called Strava. Strava is a software company based in San Francisco. We developed mobile apps and a website for cyclists, runners, endurance athletes to track their workouts, have a social experience, get motivated and hopefully help make people enjoy cycling and running more. So all of a sudden I thought to myself, well, where is that data going? All these people are recording their rides. Why can't we use that data? From two points of view, we recognized there was a need here. There was an opportunity to work together with Oregon to try to build that the Strava data set for this purpose. It's really interesting to use Strava data, but I think that I would push ODOT to try to actually look at who's biking and where the demand for bicycling is rather than where the existing people who are kind of tapped into the system already are. I mean, I think ODOT has a lot of resources at its disposal, but it also, it's like the people who work at ODOT are not necessarily going to be attuned to the needs of people who live along Southeast Howell today or who need to cross it every day or who would ride a bike except that that street is impassable. It's like a wall. Bicycles are increasingly visible in Portland. Since 2001, overall bike traffic is up 211%. In recent years, over 300 miles of bike lanes have been laid out across the city to encourage cyclists. Hawthorne Bridge, one of the many bike-friendly bridges in the city, supports an average of 1.7 million bike trips a year. With buying this data, we are unable to control sample bias. There's a certain amount of users that use Strava. They may not be a complete subset of the population. So knowing that, we had to kind of work out those issues internally and both with my peers and colleagues to say we recognize that the sample size may not be perfect, but don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. This is a lot of good data. I think there's a bike movement happening around the country and even around the world. It takes on a bunch of different forms, but there is a rising tide right now for bicycle transportation to become a real normal part of daily life in a lot of communities. And one thing that I've been seeing happen is that Portland is a model of that, and I wish that we would do it better because I see other people copying this model and achieving the same benefits as we have, but also making the same mistakes as we have. And one of the mistakes that we've made in Portland is we've really left out large parts of the population. Unfortunately, that's often correlated to class and race. So let's take that debate, let's hear the both sides of that debate right now. So the people who are on the side of Strava data is not representative are guessing that we have mostly elite cyclists who tend to go out for pleasure rides or go out for training rides, not commuters inside Strava. That's a myth, first of all. So when we look at the data in metro regions, about 50 percent of the activities that are uploaded to Strava are commutes. So Strava is being used by commuters. There's another argument because we charge for our service, it's not affordable by people with less economic means. And that again is a myth. Our service is free. You can upgrade to premium if you choose to, but it's not required to participate in Strava. You can be on free as long as you like. I think that big data is really something that public agencies need to embrace, and it's new to all of us because again we can't control the data set, but big data or app data is the future. There's so many people using apps, there's so many people using phones, so we have to continue to be innovative and think outside of the box and reach out to all of these app companies and start forming these partnerships. We both can benefit from learning from each other and sharing the data if we figure out the right partnerships and the right agreements to move forward and build better cities and better places to travel.
 Portland's biking infrastructure is widely emulated. With 300 miles of bike lanes, the
 city is carefully laid out for cyclists. But the lack of bike data stands in the way of
 perfection. So the Oregon Department of Transportation recently collaborated with Strava, a popular
 biking app, in an attempt to make the city better and safer for cyclists. Going through
 many meetings through the Oregon Department of Transportation and sitting in meetings,
 we were having conversations of, well, what is the level of service for bicycles and what
 is the level of service for pedestrians? We really just don't have any good data for that.
 It's very hard to plan for a multimodal agency when you lack bike data. So with that problem
 in mind and going to meetings, I was joining a ride with friends and I realized that everyone
 was pulling out their cell phones before the ride and using an app. And there's a couple
 different apps there, but in particular, an app that's popular in Portland is called Strava.
 Strava is a software company based in San Francisco. We developed mobile apps and a
 website for cyclists, runners, endurance athletes to track their workouts, have a social experience,
 get motivated and hopefully help make people enjoy cycling and running more. So all of
 a sudden I thought to myself, well, where is that data going? All these people are recording
 their rides. Why can't we use that data? From two points of view, we recognized there was
 a need here. There was an opportunity to work together with Oregon to try to build that
 the Strava data set for this purpose. It's really interesting to use Strava data, but
 I think that I would push ODOT to try to actually look at who's biking and where the demand
 for bicycling is rather than where the existing people who are kind of tapped into the system
 already are. I mean, I think ODOT has a lot of resources at its disposal, but it also,
 it's like the people who work at ODOT are not necessarily going to be attuned to the
 needs of people who live along Southeast Howell today or who need to cross it every day or
 who would ride a bike except that that street is impassable. It's like a wall. Bicycles
 are increasingly visible in Portland. Since 2001, overall bike traffic is up 211%. In
 recent years, over 300 miles of bike lanes have been laid out across the city to encourage
 cyclists. Hawthorne Bridge, one of the many bike-friendly bridges in the city, supports
 an average of 1.7 million bike trips a year. With buying this data, we are unable to control
 sample bias. There's a certain amount of users that use Strava. They may not be a complete
 subset of the population. So knowing that, we had to kind of work out those issues internally
 and both with my peers and colleagues to say we recognize that the sample size may not
 be perfect, but don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. This is a lot of good data.
 I think there's a bike movement happening around the country and even around the world.
 It takes on a bunch of different forms, but there is a rising tide right now for bicycle
 transportation to become a real normal part of daily life in a lot of communities. And
 one thing that I've been seeing happen is that Portland is a model of that, and I wish
 that we would do it better because I see other people copying this model and achieving the
 same benefits as we have, but also making the same mistakes as we have. And one of the
 mistakes that we've made in Portland is we've really left out large parts of the population.
 Unfortunately, that's often correlated to class and race.
 So let's take that debate, let's hear the both sides of that debate right now. So the
 people who are on the side of Strava data is not representative are guessing that we
 have mostly elite cyclists who tend to go out for pleasure rides or go out for training
 rides, not commuters inside Strava. That's a myth, first of all. So when we look at the
 data in metro regions, about 50 percent of the activities that are uploaded to Strava
 are commutes. So Strava is being used by commuters. There's another argument because we charge
 for our service, it's not affordable by people with less economic means. And that again is
 a myth. Our service is free. You can upgrade to premium if you choose to, but it's not
 required to participate in Strava. You can be on free as long as you like.
 I think that big data is really something that public agencies need to embrace, and
 it's new to all of us because again we can't control the data set, but big data or app
 data is the future. There's so many people using apps, there's so many people using
 phones, so we have to continue to be innovative and think outside of the box and reach out
 to all of these app companies and start forming these partnerships. We both can benefit from
 learning from each other and sharing the data if we figure out the right partnerships and
 the right agreements to move forward and build better cities and better places to travel.