RideAllSLC

Riding all of Salt Lake City's streets by bicycle.

Table of Contents:

Inspiration
The Rider
Methodology
Stats
The Map
Detailed Ride Log

Inspiration

To put it simply, I've always wanted to try and ride all of the streets in Salt Lake City! However, it was always more of a transient goal that never got to the "Okay, but how would I actually do this," stage. That changed when I came across /u/brheath's post on the /r/SaltLakeCity sub-reddit "Just finished up running every street of Salt Lake City!"

Bryant's write-up of his methodology proved to be all the inspiration I needed to start! On January 1, 2021 I started the journey with my first ride in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Next Section: The Rider

The Rider

Just to give you an idea of who I am. My name is Bryan and I've been riding bicycles essentially my whole life but started really "seriously" riding and commuting in 2012. I typically ride around ~100 miles a week and I'm a huge proponent of all forms of active transportation and making our streets equitable for all users! I race bicycles with SaltCycle-Kestrel Wellness. Part of the appeal of doing this project was to explore even more of Salt Lake City than I already have been blessed enough to do so on two wheels.

If you want to follow any of my social medias for the occasional bicycle or cat photo, or my Strava for my constant City Creek Canyon rides...

Instagram Strava Twitter

Next Section: Methodology

Methodology

Bryant laid most of the ground work of the methodology that I followed for accomplishing this project. This consisted of:

Record bike ride with GPS. I used Strava's iPhone app so I would have quick access to a live map of my ride to check for completion and missing streets. I opted for this approach rather than my Garmin computer or watch.
Download GPX file of ride. Once the ride was finished and uploaded to Strava, I downloaded a copy of the .GPX file.
Create a map with GPSVisualizer.com Initially I was compiling all of my GPX files into one rolling master file. However, I hit the filesize limit on GPSVisualizer after around 30 rides. After that I started creating an individual map for each ride and compiling them into a single map.
Identifiy missing areas, go for a ride, and repeat! Early on it was easy to just "go out and start riding" and know that I have plenty of ground to cover. Once I started making significant progress it became necessary to start planning rides more deliberately, especially in high traffic, poor bike infrastructure areas.

I received a master map of Salt Lake City's streets (thanks Tom) that I overlaid on my working map in order to triple check that I wasn't missing anything. This highlighted the many inconsistencies that occur between different map sources and platforms.

For example, Bishop Place off 300 West between 400 & 500 North. It appears on the master map. It appears on Google Maps. But, it does not appear on OpenStreetsMap. So... Does it exist? "Sort of." The street is fenced off and appears to be slated for some sort of construction. Therefore, a skip!

For the sake of my sanity I relied on the provided master map and OpenStreetsMap as the basis of "what I needed to get." I did not attempt to try and do this as efficiently as possible. I also didn't try to avoid repeating streets, or doing both directions on parkways. If I went down the street one way or another, I counted it. I also did not include alleyways or other minor "right-of-ways" as part of the project.

With all that being said... My strategy of starting high and east and working west into the valley was maybe not the best strategy.

If I were to do this again I would start at the farthest reaches of the city in all directions and work towards the center. This way it would be easier to frame in sections to work on in the interior of the city as well as not repeating so many streets in order to get out to the areas I needed to work on. I started every ride (with the exception of my final ride) from my house which would also lend itself to an "outside-in" approach much better.

Next Section: Stats

Stats

RideAllSLC Project Totals (49 Rides)

Elapsed Time:
108 Hours, 27 Minutes, 56 Seconds

Total Distance:
1,382 Miles

Total Elevation Gain:
62,953 Feet

RideAllSLC Individual Averages

Average Ride Time:
2 Hours, 12 Minutes, 49 Seconds

Average Ride Distance:
28.2 Miles

Average Ride Elevation:
1,285 Feet

Next Section: The Map

The Map

First and foremost, big thank you to GPSVisualizer.com which allowed me to build the map that I used to keep track of progress and to be able to share! The first map shows the entire project from Ride 1 through 49 as individual tracks so you can see how the tapestry was made. The second map has the master map from Salt Lake City GIS shown underneath in blue so you can see some of the differences and discrepencies that exist out there.

Animated Map Video:

Naturally, I wasn't able to get every single road for a variety of reasons. It may be of some interest to list the streets that I was unable to obtain:

2000 E Quail Estates Way (Private)
Forest Park Ct (Private)
Harvard Oaks Circle (Private)
1700 S Bambrough Place (Private)
Carrigan Canyon Drive (Private)
Soldier Cr & Pollock Road (No Public Access/Ft. Douglas Base)
New Bonneville Pl (Private)
F St North of 14th Ave (Private)
Oak Forest Road (Private)
800 W Everett Ave (Private)
1800 N Dexter St (Private)
De-Icing Facility Rd off 4000 W (No Public Access)
Hidden Villa Rd (Private)
Motor Avenue (Fairgrounds Parking Lot)
Sun Arbor Terrace (Private)
Dubei Court (Consturction)
Major St. (Closed)
Woodbine St. (Closed)
Gale Street (Construction)
Arnold Place, 300 E between 200 S & 300 S (Construction)
Terminal Road (Not Brave Enough)

Next Section: Detailed Ride Log

Ride Log

Here is the log of every single ride I did in order to accomplish "RideALLSLC." I've included any notes that I wrote down from the ride and any pictures that I may have taken. Unfortunately, I didn't take a lot of photos (though I should have in retrospect) but there are a few here and there.