Utah is using your social-media data to make roads safer for bikers and pedestrians

In a state replete with access to world-class biking trails, Redwood Road between Saratoga Springs and Bluffdale might, in comparison, be seen as a barren wasteland for bicyclists. But thanks to data it started gathering from app users this year, the Utah Department of Transportation now knows that corridor is a popular place to ride on two wheels — and can make it a safer and easier route to take.

Nearly 58,000 cyclists and 43,000 runners, walkers, hikers and joggers use the Strava app to track and share their activities in Utah — both on and off roads. UDOT in April signed a two-year deal with Strava for all that data, which can help them pinpoint popular routes, busy commute times and more.

UDOT and other Utah organizations are using that data to set priorities for everything from street sweepings and snow removal in the winter to where new trailheads need to be built.

“The more we can safely navigate people through intersections, the more safely we can keep Utah moving,” UDOT active transportation manager Heidi Goedhart said.

“We can tell you how many cars are on I-15, but we can’t tell you where people are walking and biking,” Goedhart said. “We have this need for quantitative data rather than qualitative.”

UDOT data obtained by The Tribune showed nearly 899,000 activities were recorded by Strava users from January through the end of September.

That data shows what roads people are accessing, and precisely when — information that’s essential for planners to “push through a decision to prioritize a bike or pedestrian investment,” said Strava’s sales and marketing lead Brian Devaney.

Utah is one of 125 cities and organizations around the world using the tool to supplement their own measured data and lobby for better infrastructure, Devaney said. The Strava app has over 11 million activities uploaded every week and adds a million new users every 40 days.

However, the data is still limited in Utah. For example, a counter test in downtown Salt Lake City last summer found that only 2 percent of people passing through on bikes were using Strava at the time — the others likely biking as commuters rather than tracking their activity.

Additionally, the app’s data is skewed to a wealthier group instead of those with economic disadvantages — “the people that need to walk or bike the most,” Goedhart said.

“Sometimes these people don’t have the scope, the initial time, the money or even have a mobile device to upload their activities to Strava,” she said.

Still, the baseline data can be bolstered and calibrated by UDOT’s other technology — like radar and bluetooth — to help transportation planners make decisions. For example, using Strava data that measured the speed and route of bicyclists coming down City Creek Canyon to determine if paths for hikers versus bikers need to be rethought.

UDOT is also offering the Strava data to other organizations around the state to get a more holistic traffic picture and prevent conflict between bicyclists and drivers.

UDOT has an option to extend the program in spring 2018 for five years to continue gathering quarterly data and is still in the early stages of understanding what it means and how it can be applied to streamline the bigger traffic picture in the state.

The facts and figures provided by Strava will become more valuable over time as the number of users in the state increases — and will hopefully lead to commuters considering more options to get from place to place, Goedhart said.

“The more people that we can get walking, biking and using transit, the better,” Goedhart said. “If we can help provide for them by using data, that’s great.”