Data

Welcome to the CDOT Bicycle Program's Data page.

The CDOT Bicycle Program generates, collects, and manipulates a lot of data. We use these data for planning and development. On this page, we're going to share a little bit of it with you.

Also on this page we'll post interesting things that have to do with biking and technology. Most of this data is compiled elsewhere on City servers for public consumption, but this page shows what's useful to the Bicycle Program and gathers it all in one place.

• Keyhole Markup Language (KML) feeds
• Data provided: "All bike racks in Chicago" and "All bike racks on Clark Street."
• We are willing to work with interested parties who have creative ideas on repackaging these data. Please contact Steven Vance.
• Currently, EveryBlock Chicago subscribes to our bike rack installation feed to incorporate new bike rack installations into neighborhood news pages.
• Access our KML files and learn what KML files are.
• Geographic Information System (GIS) shapefile
• Data provided: GIS shapefile showing all installed bike lanes, marked-shared lanes, recommended routes, off-street trails, and access trails (usually viaducts to access the Lakefront Trail).
• Data maintained by the Chicago Department of Innovation and Technology's GIS division; data from 2006. Additionally, you can convert this information to a KML file by using Shp2Kml.
• Download ZIP file
• Contact Steven Vance for up-to-date GIS data.
• Geographic Positioning System (GPS)
• Data provided: None
• Two websites allow users to upload (import), or share (export) GPS-device compatible files (the most common format is GPX). We don't have any routes or data to share in this regard at this time, but something may come up.
• The following websites allow you to upload and share your own GPS tracks:
  • Bikely.com
  • MapMyRide.com
  • BikeMap.net
• Public Transit information
• Data provided: Detailed lists of Metra and CTA stations
• Metra stations in Chicago - geocoded with latitude and longitude coordinates; street addresses are missing or guessed using reverse geocoding; mostly compiled manually; may be incomplete if any stations were added in 2007 or later - Used on our Bike Parking website
• CTA stations in Chicago - geocoded with latitude and longitude coordinates; street addresses are the ones CTA uses; geographic coordinates represent the street addresses, and not the train platform or station entrance/fare gates - Used on our Bike Parking website
• Community Information
• Data provided: Detailed list of Ward and Alderman information, list of Community Areas
• Wards (Microsoft Excel, CSV) - Find Alderman names, contact information, local office addresses, emails and website addresses where available; geocoded with latitude and longitude coordinates. City Council current as of August 28th, 2008. There are 50 wards.
• Community Areas (Microsoft Excel, CSV) - Community areas are non-political fixed districts in Chicago, devised by social researchers at the University of Chicago in the 1950s. They are primarily used for statistical and demographical comparisons over time. There are 77 community areas.
• External Links:
  • CivicFootprint.org, a tool from the Center for Neighborhood Technology, gives users political and community information about any address in Chicago. Unfortunately, the website is highly unreliable and will not always return the desired information.
  • EveryBlock.com, a service now owned by MSNBC.com, mines data from multiple sources for many American cities to provide a unique look at the news and activity surrounding your street and block.
  • Chicago City Clerk's Office - Find the Ward number for any address in the Clerk's Office's geocoder.
• Geocoding
• Data provided: Links to geocoding information. Geocoding is the process of finding the geographic coordinates of a location, usually a street address.
• Geocoding providers:
  • BatchGeocode.com - This website excels at geocoding multiple addresses at once, including a list of addresses from a text or Excel document. It can also geocode a single address.
  • Geocoder.us - This website geocodes single addresses, also offers a commercial service to geocode thousands of addresses at one time. Provides an API for non-commercial uses.
  • University of Southern California - Provides its free, geocoding via standard web form or API to build into custom applications. Data returned includes Census Tract and Block, as well as FIPS codes for states, counties, and places (like statistical areas).
  • Google and Yahoo! - Google and Yahoo! both offer free geocoding functions through their maps and API products. The Bike Parking website uses Google Maps to display address, and the Yahoo! Maps API to geocode addresses.