Seeking Bike Map Sponsorships
UPDATE #2: Fundraising is done!
UPDATE: Sponsors so far include the Haile Foundation, Steve Magas, the UC Geography Department, UrbanCincy, Frank Henson, REI Cincinnati, Urban Sites, James Braye, Jack & Lyn Martin, and Gaslight.
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The Cincinnati Bike Map, now so nearly complete, seeks sponsors to help finish the work and get the project to print.
Here’s the basic idea: Most bicyclists, most of the time, are using the streets. They’re using the streets for increasingly diverse ends in fact, from training for a race to picking up groceries. Such diverse users, each with their own ends and abilities, must have objective information on the conditions of the roadway, most notably of their potential relation to it’s automotive traffic, if they are to make informed decisions when planning their trips or finding their way.
Beyond this navigational goal, the map is also an advocacy tool, showing objectively what someone might expect were they to try riding a bike. This role emphasizes the importance of a tangible, printed map, as opposed to a shifting, digital one, in conveying a reliable, secure reality that people can learn to understand and depend on; a security they must feel if they are to try something they are unused to1.
Concretely, the map will measure 24″x31″, fold down to a pocket-size 4″x5.16″, and take in 210 square miles of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky at a 1:28,000 scale. 10,000 copies will be printed locally and distributed for free through a variety of outlets targeting cyclists and potential cyclists. All data and work will be available, freely under an open license2.
Your sponsorship supports this work and gets your name on the map.
Sponsorship Levels:
- Individual: $50 — get a thank-you shout-out on the map, and as many copies as you can use/distribute mailed to your home address.
- Silver Level: $200 — The above and your organization’s logo on the map.
- Gold Level: $500 — The above and two lines of text next to your logo such as a url, address or coordinate location on the map
If you’re interested in sponsoring, please send me an email with your information. You can and use the button below to donate through paypal or I can give you an address to send a check.
I’m shooting for publication in Late July or Early August.
Thanks to a very generous grant from the Haile Foundation, we’re most of the way to our goal of $7,000 for production and printing.
(UPDATE:
Raised already: $6,800
Left to go: $200 )
What the money will be used for:
About 80% of the money will go directly to printing and distribution costs. The rest will help me keep a roof over my head while I finish the project since I have no real income over the summer. That’s right, about $1,400 to pay a highly educated cartographer for a couple month’s hard work. I live pretty cheap ;-)
What still needs done:
- There are a few places I know I need to ground-truth the OpenStreetMap data and make updates and corrections, notably the West Side and parts of NKY. I’m sure this involves at least three days on a bike, riding around checking speed limits, verifying the existence of water fountains and traffic lights, one-way streets and various other things.
- I need to finish thinking through the necessary contents of a couple inset maps, pull those together and fit them into the layout.
- Several over-all stylistic choices need to be made still, including the final colour-contours for the elevation layer which still aren’t totally satisfying.
- Once the data and layout are completely finalized, the map needs detailed annotation and careful labelling of the more detailed features.
- Then finally, distribution, which I expect will take a couple weeks on and off.
I thank you heartily and preemptively for your support.