Orange County, Ca., Bikeways Website

Those of us who live in Orange County know that many streets have Bike Lanes, and that there are many Class 1, Off Road, Bike Trails here.

A question worth asking is this one:

Did you know that the Orange County Transit Agency has for years produced a free map, and even has a website for the Bike Map?

If you ride the bus, you won't see ads for it, and the Bus book gives no clue either.

In 1999 I picked up a 1998 edition of the map at OCTA Headquarters, and in 2002 picked up the 2001 edition the same way.

This year I discovered the website when I added the agency to my Bike Friendly Mass Transit list of links.

With this post I wish to share my thoughts on the website.

The Introduction page says there are over 800 miles of on-road, and off-road bikeways available to ride on as of August 2001

That's all fine and dandy, but then, in what seems an attempt to cover their behinds concerning the accuracy of the map there is the following:

While every effort has been made to provide accurate and up-to-date information, please keep in mind that the bikeway routes portrayed on this map are intended for informational purposes only. No guarantee is made by the preparers of this map as to the safety of any individual bikeway at any given time. The bicyclist is expected to use good judgment and is responsible for his or her own safety when using the bikeways.

While I have no quarrel with the last part, I do have problems with the first, and when you see the map you will understand why.

The info they used may have been up to date, but whether the descriptions on the map are accurate is seriously in question.

More on that further down.

The Bike Laws page provides a nice summary of the bicycle section of the California Vehicle Code.

The Bike Tips page provides useful information on gear, rules of the road, and making right, and left turns, and crossing intersections.

The Commuting page provides useful tips, and a list of some park-and-ride lots in Orange County that provide bike racks, and locations of Bike Lockers.

The Bikes and Busses page provides useful information about loading and unloading your bike on, and off OCTA Busses.

The 2001 Bikeways Strategic Plan is offered in PDF FORMAT, in 6 Chapters, and 11 more PDF'S present the EXISTING Bicycle Facilities, while 11 more present PROPOSED Bicycle Facilities in all the cities of the county.

This is something I will check out further, and report back.

All these various pages can be printed out in a printer friendly format.

Now to the map.

To utilize it as intended you must download the ZOOMABLE MAP PDF, which you read using Adobe Acrobat.

Using the ZOOM Tool, in Adobe, you can zoom in on any section of the map to better read a route.

The difficulty is that you will have the same problem with this map that you would the paper map: Whle many of the Class 2 Bike Lanes are easily teamed with the streets they are on, many of the Off-road Routes, and even Class 3 Routes are hard to pinpoint where either end of the route begins/ends.

One example of this is a ride I took thru Santa Ana wherein I had to ride 6 blocks from the bus stop, with directions from a passerby, after going in circles, and not finding the trail on my own.

I took this ride a couple of weeks ago, and will be describing it in my next entry.

If you are expecting the detail of Mapquest on the map you can forget it.

I prefer the 1998 paper map to the latest version because it gave the streets in a more extensive manner.

The maps should not only better label streets, but list Class 1 route
locations as well.

I have it in mind to check, and verify, all of the Class 1 Off -Road routes, letting people know where EXACTLY they are, or even if they exist, and the conditons on the trails.

I want to know why the only place you can get the maps, other than online, is at the Transit headquarters, or its Transit Store, next door, and why there are no maps available on the busses, or advertising about where to get them.

One can only hope that the next edition of the map will be better detailed, and planned out.

Orange County Bikeways.