We're busy on various updates to Cyclescape.

As discussed on our mailing list, the current priorities are as follows; we've included a link to further details on each:

• Ability to set a Google Street View location as a reply type (#78)
• Enabling the planning applications integration to go live (#76 and code branch)
• Improvements to make the integrated collision data much more obvious in the user interface (#34)
• Improvements to privacy controls, which will particularly benefit groups who wish to enforce a real-names policy (#218)
• Set the creation of an Issue to prompt for Thread creation (#43)
• Improving the discoverability of enabling receipt of discussions by e-mail (#198)

Much of this work has been funded thanks to the Polden-Puckham grant.

We are also grateful to Cambridge Cycling Campaign and a personal donor for funding a few of the objectives above most important to them.

We'd like to take the opportunity to welcome a new contributor to the code, Nikolai Berkoff. (Naturally, others remain very welcome to get involved too!)

The Cyclescape website is now running rather faster than before, thanks to a hardware upgrade completed today.

The change has seen the site move to a dedicated server. Previously, it was on a virtual machine on a server shared with one of the CycleStreets journey planner servers. The change was part of a larger set of moves being worked on over the coming two months being undertaken by us (CycleStreets, the organisation running Cyclescape). There has been a noticeable and much-needed performance boost.

For those of a technical bent, we have also taken the opportunity to resolve various other things:

• Upgraded the operating system
• Upgraded the webserving software and database software
• Removed old legacy references throughout the code dating from before the 'Cyclescape' name was chosen

Thanks to Andy, our developer, for some of the work to migrate the code to enable these various changes.

Part of the hosting upgrade cost has come from the Polden-Puckham grant.

The upgrade has been also contributed to by our hosts, Mythic Beasts, who have kindly waived the server management fee which helps ensure we run a professional and properly-monitored service. Naturally, the site hosting also has redundancy and regular backup. We remain grateful to our friends at Mythic Beasts for their support.

We are delighted to announce that Cyclescape has been successfully awarded a grant from the Polden-Puckham Charitable Foundation for the next phase of development on Cyclescape.

The grant covers £10,000 of development work this year, and £8,000 in 2015-16.

The Polden-Puckham Charitable Foundation (PPCF) is a grant-giving trust with Quaker family roots in the United Kingdom. It aims to contribute to the development of a just society based on a commitment to nonviolence and environmental sustainability.

Key things that we want to work on, which the funding will contribute towards, are:

• Launching the automated planning applications integration - changes when datasource finalised (see previous blog post)
• Show Google Street View at any location automatically
• Membership management system for delegated groups
• Ability to invite decision-makers and others into specific discussions
• Enhancement of the Library system, which enables key resources to be shared nationally
• Subscription on the basis of themes (e.g. cycle parking) rather than only defined areas
• Private messaging system
• Much better search
• Deadline reminders
• Show photos in nearby area automatically
• ... and more.

You can see many of these within the list of outstanding issues in our public bug-tracker.

We are currently looking for a developer to work on Cyclescape using the funding from this grant - which is open-source code written in Ruby on Rails. Do get in touch if you may be interested.

We've set up a new mailing list for anyone interested in helping maintain and develop the Cyclescape code. Do join if you want to get involved, want to discuss the development of Cyclescape, or have any questions or ideas.

The list is public and open, and you can subscribe to the list.

We've also created a list of key developer resources via a new 'Help with the code' page on this blog.

We hope these will help get new developers involved. We're very happy to help give advice on getting you going - just post to the new list.

It's very pleasing to see that some of the earliest issues submitted to Cyclescape, and discussed heavily on the site, are now seeing real improvements on the ground as a result.

Several big issues first lodged on the site in around 2011-12, and with hundreds of postings on Cyclescape since to advance the issue, have seen major breakthroughs since.

This blog post features three issues from Cambridge, currently the most active group on Cyclescape.

For instance, there has long been a shortage of cycle parking at Cambridge station, and a new cycle park was proposed. Members have been campaigning and discussing the cycle park, and its design. Construction is about to begin.

Another great example is the problem of cycle parking in Cambridge city centre. Since a user posted this as an issue in February 2012, members have been discussing it using Cyclescape, and this pressure resulted in a project to allocate over 600 spaces in the area.

You can see some more photographs of the results of this successful Cyclescape-backed campaigning on our sister website, CycleStreets.

Here is one more issue from Cambridge - the need for space for cycling on key roads in Cambridge. Huntingdon Road is one such location, and local campaigning, using Cyclescape to enable the group's members to discuss proposals, is about to see the scheme built.

Obviously, cycle campaigning is a mixture of campaigner pressure, as well as agreement from the authorities. We hope that Cyclescape will increasingly be seen as the solution of choice to help facilitate the first of these.

Have a browse through more of the issues in Cambridge and beyond, and get involved!

Over the last few years since our beta went live, the over 1,000 issues logged on Cyclescape, and being discussed by members of the site, contain a wide range of concerns. It's interesting to see the kinds of issues that act as a barrier to greater cycling around the UK.

Common things include lack of cycle parking, dangerous roads, collision-prone junctions, missing links, scrutiny of new cycleway proposals, and new residential/commercial developments that will affect cycling.

The last of these examples - planning applications, are interesting as they often represent both dangers and opportunities for cycling.

For instance, a major new housing development could result in a lot of new traffic on an already congested roads. However, there could also be an opportunity, as councils are able to negotiate "planning gain", known as Section 106 agreements (or Community Infrastructure Levy), where public infrastructure nearby is improved - such as a new cycle route, cycle parking, or traffic calming measures.

However, it is crucial that cycle campaigners know about planning applications as soon as possible, to maximise the chances of pursuading the local council to negotiate Section 106 proposals, and to give more time to look through often lengthy and complex documents for potential problems. Planning application websites are often hard to use, fail to provide a proper map view, and in general are not orientated towards monitoring of cross-cutting concerns like cycling.

Discussing a planning application relies on someone actually knowing about a planning application (that might have effects on cycling) in the first place. Of course, Cyclescape enables people to add planning applications as an issue like any other. 

However, we think there is a better way - having planning applications automatically appear on the map as a potential issue. So we've been working on a way to automate this. Using data from Openly Local, we plan to add a new tab to the overview page, so that any member of the site can 'promote' a planning application that looks like it might be of interest to an issue automatically.

Here are some screenshots of the work in progress:

Accessing any link on this page, gives a button in the corner:

This creates a new issue page, but with all the details pre-filled in, so it can be quickly reviewed/adjusted and submitted in the usual way as with any issue:

We think that automated listings of planning applications will be a powerful new feature of the site.

The motivation for this has come from Cambridge, which is a considerable growth area, and where the local cycling campaign spends a lot of time scrutinising planning applications. The vast majority of planning applications on the Cyclescape site are indeed from Cambridge. This work for Cambridge has been gratefully funded by Cambridge Sustainable City who awarded a grant for Cambridge Cyclescape.

If you're interested to help develop the code, any contributions would be very welcome, on the 'planning' branch. We now have completed the integration and user interface code, but are awaiting availability of the data, which will come from Openly Local.

Cyclescape has now had over 1,000 issues submitted to it. Issue 1,000 was submitted in Ipswich.

The rate at which new issues are being added is increasing, as more groups and users start using Cyclescape. We're getting good feedback on what the top priorities for development are.

Now that various groups are using Cyclescape, and adding members, we've created a new Guide for new users.

The Guide gives an overview of Cyclescape, getting you set up, and some of the features that we have available.

Over time, we hope the need for the Guide will go away as we improve some of the remaining usability improvements, as programmer time and funding becomes available.

Guide for new users

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As we gear up to show off Cyclescape to the Cyclenation/CTC conference next week, we've created a leaflet about Cyclescape. We'll have printed copies at the conference.

Thanks to Ayesha for her great design work on this!

Click on the image for a full-size PDF version.

We've submitted our Final report to GeoVation, which describes the work we've been able to undertake with this funding.

It outlines what we've been able to achieve to get Cyclescape as a working site, what remains to be done in advance of our national launch in October, and the challenges that we've faced and overcome.

Stay tuned for news shortly on the latest updates on development. We've been making steady progress with ticking off the remainining areas needing work to finish.

We would like to thank everyone involved in GeoVation for enabling this project to go ahead. We are excited to have been able to deliver it, and are very encouraged by its potential.

A screenshot from Cyclescape, showing the interface for adding an issue