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Bikewise is a national site; it launched less than two weeks ago and so far has only really caught on in Seattle, where the founders are based. Chicago has only two points plotted so far–one crash and one hazard–but once it logs more reports it looks to be a useful tool for avoiding dangerous routes. It’s nice that the reports are detailed, so you can decide for yourself whether a crash involving a cyclist riding with no lights on a rainy night means the route’s unsafe or the theft of an unlocked bike means a neighborhood’s unsavory.
Ride the City has been around for a while in New York, but the Chicago version only officially launched on Monday (it started up about a month ago in “testing” mode). Its promise of finding the safest bike ride between two points sounds–well, promising–but based on my experiments with it so far I’m a little leery of its routes. The site has a tendency to send me along roads I usually avoid on a bike at all costs, like Ashland or Michigan Avenue. And when I looked to it for help getting from River North to McCormick Place, a route that recently gave me trouble, it advised me to bike through the building.
