About the Edinburgh Innertube Map
Welcome to the Edinburgh Innertube map and blog.
This is the place to come to find stories about the city's amazing network of off-street paths and cycle routes.
This blog and unique interactive map were created to help make people more aware of the routes, to celebrate what is good about them, and to help sort out the problems.
You'll find all kinds of stories here, from all kinds of people. We have a team of volunteer ambassadors who live right across the city. They're equipped with smart phones to blog, tweet and podcast about what they see on the routes – about problems that need solving, about events, community groups - and to take photos, write stories and interview people.
This is also where you can share your stories, photos and suggestions with us, so that we can keep people informed about all the things that are happening on the routes.
What is the Innertube Map?
The Innertube map was created by Mark Sydenham of The Bike Station, and designed by Martin Baillie of the Hillside Agency.
The idea was to create a simple but striking visualisation of Edinburgh's many off-street pathways, which are used by thousands of cyclists and pedestrians every day. Based on the iconic London Tube Map, the design gives a quick visual hit of the surprising extent of the routes.
So far, nearly 30,000 copies of the maps have been distributed throughout Edinburgh.
Read more about the background to the map on the bike station website
The interactive map and blog were devised by Tom Allan, and created by Gecko New Media and the Hillside Agency.
Inflating the Innertube
At the start of 2011 The Bike Station and Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust won funding from The People's Postcode Lottery Dream Fund for a project called "Inflating the Innertube."
The idea was to both spread the work about the Innertube network, to get more people using it, and to improve the routes.
The project can be spit into three different strands.
- A program of physical conservation work on some of the routes in North Edinburgh, coordinated by Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust.
- The creation of clear, colour coded signage that relates to the Innertube Map design for an exemplar route; again in the North of the city.
- A social media project, with a team of volunteer Innertube Ambassadors blogging about events, stories and problems across the network.
You can follow all the progress on the project right here on the interactive map and website.
