SACPA Special Session - How can the ‘BikeMaps.org’ project improve your bike riding experience?

Thu, Jun 22, 2017 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm

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The Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA) presents a special session featuring Karen Laberee, the Executive Director of BikeMaps.org.

How can the ‘BikeMaps.org’ project improve your bike riding experience?

Date:          Thursday, June 22, 2017
Time:           7 - 9 p.m.
Venue:        Lethbridge Public Library Community Room, Main Branch, 810 – 5th Ave. South
Free admission, everyone is welcome.

BikeMaps.org is a project that collects reports about cycling collisions and related data and presents the information on an interactive online map and through visualized data (bar charts). More importantly, it also provides information about near-misses, hazards and bicycle thefts.

What makes BikeMaps.org so interesting is that, in addition to official police reports, it collects information provided by cyclists themselves. This is valuable because the data provided by police reports is often very limited and doesn’t show everything happening on the roads and trails.

BikeMaps.org began at the University of Victoria in October 2014. In partnership with the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF), BikeMaps.org received $930,000 from the Public Health Agency of Canada to bring the project to more Canadian cities. It wants to help government planning and infrastructure development for cycling, and it also hopes to encourage more people to get on their bicycles.

The speaker will give perspective to how this project works and the almost endless possibilities it may realize for bicycle commuters and recreational riders alike.

Speaker: Karen Laberee

Karen Laberee is the Executive Director of BikeMaps.org and has been part of the team since the project began in 2014. She has managed many aspects of the project and has been heavily involved in community outreach and engagement. Prior to the creation of BikeMaps.org, Karen worked at the Spatial Pattern Analysis and Research (SPAR) lab in the Department of Geography at the University of Victoria on a wide variety of research projects.

In her personal life, Karen has gained considerable experience volunteering on numerous boards that support amateur sports or community initiatives. In addition to being mom to a bike-crazy family, Karen can be found running the trails around Victoria.

Moderator: Tyler Stewart

Many thanks to BikeBridge Cycling Association, Lethbridge for helping arrange this presentation.