What can LAPD records and Google Maps data tell us about the safety of Los Angeles' bicycle routes? That's what a new interactive map of the city's 2,043 bicycle collisions from the year 2012 seeks to answer.
Pairing each reported crash site with Google Street View imagery, the map reveals potential flaws in street design that might encourage conflict between cyclists and motorists. It also breaks down the reported incidents by street. The worst offenders? Olympic Boulevard (72 crashes), Venice Boulevard (63), and Sunset Boulevard (55).
It's one of the first installments in You Are Here, an ambitious project to visualize the smaller facts of urban life—traffic hazards, tree canopy cover, the "walkingsheds" of independent coffee houses—through a new city map each day over the next year. Eventually, the Social Computing Group at the MIT Media Lab hopes to create 100 different maps of 100 different cities.
We'll look forward to more interactive maps of the Southland as the You Are Here project continues. [MIT Media Lab]