Ride the City helps bicyclists find safe bike routes in major cities.

Like MapQuest, Google Maps, and other mapping applications, Ride the City finds the shortest distance between two points, with a difference. First, Ride the City avoids roads that aren't meant for biking, like highways and busy arterial streets. Second, Ride the City tries to steer cyclists toward routes that maximize the use of bike lanes, bike paths, greenways, and other bike-friendly streets.

In addition to steering cyclists to safer streets, Ride the City is aware of changes in elevation, and attempts to send cyclists along a flatter route (if one is available, and not too much farther or more dangerous). The application then reports the amount of climbing a rider can anticipate on the given route.

Ride the City shows and links to bike shops, providing contact information and hours of operation.

Ride the City allows users to save their favorite routes and rate individual street segments for "bike-ability," and then takes users' preferences into account when it generates future routes.

For mobile use, Ride the City is formatted for use on Mobile Safari (the iPhone's browser) and can send turn-by-turn directions to any mobile phone. A standalone iPhone app is under development.

We've been live in New York since 2008 and have generated more than 238,000 bike routes for New Yorkers. In that time we've received and responded to about 600 suggestions (via our rate the route feature) to make better routing suggestions.

Ride the City is also live in Chicago, Austin, San Diego, Seattle and Louisville. Other cities are underway.