Improve the Citi Bike Map
Problem: In the Citi Bike map (in the app) it is almost impossible to tell traffic flow direction for streets when browsing the map, an arguably important piece of information when biking in NYC. Similarly, reading street names is just as hard with them only appearing if you zoom in almost all the way!
The green bike lane lines cover the street arrows which indicate the direction of traffic (I've circled two arrows that are being covered). Also, only two street name labels are showing here:
Suggestions:
- Make it easier to see the traffic flow arrows by either making the direction arrows easier to see (change color, size, etc) or allow users to toggle the green bike lane overlay on the map on and off
- Make it easier to see/read street names and prioritize them over places of interest
- Add a toggle to show/hide places of interest on the map (restaurants, hotels, stores, etc)
Lastly, an argument against improving the current experience might be to user the "directions" feature which will give you a correct route but to that I say that sometimes we just want to do an ad-hoc bike ride. Secondly, bike angels (like me) would love to better see street names and traffic flow directions I don't really use the directions feature because there's no way to simply put a pin on the map or tap on a station as your start and end address; we must type in the address which is time-consuming.
