Our team spends a lot of time talking to people about biking: discussing how to get started, what trails are their favorite to ride, and what are their biggest concerns. One concern that comes up over and over again is, “How do I know how to get from A to B by bike?” and “Where should I ride?”

What is the Tool?

Enter the BikeArlington Customized Route tool. This simple tool combines the best of modern and classic customer service. It’s an online request form that collects your information in a standardized and easy way, so that our team can create each route by hand (no artificial intelligence here!) to best suit your needs.

How It Works

Anyone riding a bike to, from, or through Arlington can use this tool to get customized bike route planning assistance. All you need to do is enter your email address (so we can send you back your route), your starting and ending location, and a little bit about your preferred ways to ride so that we don’t send you on a more advanced route if you’re a beginner or vice versa. Then we use our extensive biking knowledge of Arlington to create a great, comfortable route for you which we send back to you as a map and with GPS directions – plus an overview of the route and guidance if there are any tricky spots.

The Results

We’ve helped hundreds of people find routes to ride, which is something we’re really proud of – more people biking more often is what we’re all about. We asked Mobility Lab to help us understand more about what the greatest needs were from the people who requested routes, and here are some of their findings from our first 6 months of the Customized Route tool.

Trails are more comfortable: More respondents are comfortable on trails (60%) than streets (40%). Mobility Lab found that the less you bike, the more you prefer trails – this makes sense to us, as trails are separated from vehicular traffic.

Significant number of requesters are completely new to biking: 11% said that in a typical month, they never bike for transportation or for exercise/leisure.

The reasons for requesting a route vary:

About 20% of riders who were asked about COVID-19 said that it was why they requested a route, with 8% indicating biking is the safest mode during the pandemic and 12% reporting that their usual mode is no longer safe or available.

15% of requestors need a route for a new commute.

19% are getting back into biking after a long time.

15% needed help navigating through a tricky spot or gap in the bike network.

Share the Bike Love

If you or someone you know needs help planning a route, or is new to biking and could use some encouragement to ride to the nearest trail or park, request a route with us.