{"id":673,"date":"2015-06-23T09:22:30","date_gmt":"2015-06-23T16:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/?p=673"},"modified":"2021-05-22T21:56:44","modified_gmt":"2021-05-23T04:56:44","slug":"eye-in-the-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/eye-in-the-sky.html","title":{"rendered":"Eye in the Sky"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Washington Bike Law is helping a new company called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.placemeter.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Placemeter<\/a> get accurate traffic counts that can not only specify bikes, people, cars, buses, but track their speeds and directions as well.\u00a0 It can even count crashes and close-calls.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/photo-info.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-677\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/photo-info.jpg?resize=640%2C387\" alt=\"photo info\" width=\"640\" height=\"387\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/photo-info.jpg?w=640&amp;ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/photo-info.jpg?resize=300%2C181&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Today&#8217;s new technology post has a soundtrack&#8230; from 1982 (it sounds better than I remember and seems to be on-point here):<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Alan Parsons Project- Eye in the Sky\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NNiie_zmSr8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">How is Washington Bike Law helping?\u00a0 It&#8217;s not by coding I assure you!\u00a0 Our office is merely a test location for one of the Placementer sensors&#8230; we&#8217;ve been monitoring the intersection of Second and Cherry for a few months now, including traffic on the Second Avenue Bike Lane.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/data.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-679\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/data.jpg?resize=640%2C372\" alt=\"data\" width=\"640\" height=\"372\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/data.jpg?w=640&amp;ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/data.jpg?resize=300%2C174&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">This new technology is starting to get press.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2015\/06\/23\/placemeter-smart-cities\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fortune magazine<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcoexist.com\/3047697\/this-computer-vision-company-is-tracking-all-the-people-moving-through-cities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fast Company<\/a> just did stories on it and&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/15_minutes_of_fame\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">15 Minutes of Fame<\/a>&#8230; our view over Second and Cherry is in both articles.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/2nd-and-cherry.png\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-680\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/2nd-and-cherry.png?resize=840%2C485\" alt=\"2nd and cherry\" width=\"840\" height=\"485\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/2nd-and-cherry.png?w=840&amp;ssl=1 840w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/2nd-and-cherry.png?resize=300%2C173&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">What about privacy?\u00a0 Is the &#8220;eye in the sky&#8221; &#8220;<em><strong>The Man<\/strong><\/em>&#8220;?\u00a0 Not really.\u00a0 According to the Fast Company article, Placemeter &#8220;won\u2019t use facial recognition to pinpoint individuals, nor will any people watch the video feeds. It is purposefully staying away from any security-related applications or customers &#8230; and couldn\u2019t, say, help with a police search even if it wanted to.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Who cares then?\u00a0 We do.\u00a0 Bike people.\u00a0 Fast Company quotes Placemeter&#8217;s CEO Alex Winters as saying that bike activists interested in making the case for bike lanes could find it useful. &#8220;Typically, that kind of data has been out of reach for most community groups&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Now how might more data be helpful in Seattle, land of process and little action?\u00a0 Consider this recent PI headline:<\/p>\n<h1 class=\"headline entry-title\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.seattlepi.com\/local\/article\/Superyacht-marina-owner-sues-to-block-Seattle-6342581.php\">Superyacht marina ownerclaims Seattle cycle track may threaten environment<\/a><\/h1>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The Yachties assert that the Westlake Cycletrack \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.seattlepi.com\/local\/article\/Superyacht-marina-owner-sues-to-block-Seattle-6342581.php\">will create unsafe conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists and commercial business traffic<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Having easy access to accurate data might help.\u00a0 We don&#8217;t want more endless litigation like with the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.king5.com\/story\/news\/local\/seattle\/2015\/06\/17\/seattle-presenting-3-options-for-burke-gilman-trail-missing-link\/28906077\/\">Missing Link<\/a>&#8221; stopping <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/working-to-make-vision-zero-a-reality.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">transportation improvements<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Perhaps it&#8217;s naive to think that facts could help resolve conflicts, but I am hopeful.\u00a0 And, hey, right now &#8220;I am the eye in the sky&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington Bike Law is helping a new company called Placemeter get accurate traffic counts that can not only specify bikes, people, cars, buses, but track their speeds and directions as well.\u00a0 It can even count crashes and close-calls. Today&#8217;s new technology post has a soundtrack&#8230; from 1982 (it sounds better than I remember and seems [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bicycle-advocates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/2nd-and-cherry.png?fit=840%2C485&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1173,"href":"https:\/\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673\/revisions\/1173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.washingtonbikelaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}