Crowdsourcing Maps

by Mikhil Masli

As an avid cyclist living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, I regularly ride the bike trail that runs by the Hiawatha Light Rail Transit line near downtown. To reach this trail during rush hour, I use a parking lot to cut diagonally across a rectangular city block instead of using the bounding streets, which at that time are often bustling with motor traffic. In the past, I often found myself unable to describe this route to friends because a parking lot isn’t technically a street and hence isn’t indicated on popular Web-based resources like Google Maps (even on their bicycling layer) and MapQuest. Fortunately, a new technology has emerged — the geowiki — that lets cyclists themselves mark and maintain such informal pathways. READ FULL ARTICLE (login required) »