A bit more than a year ago I bought an electric longboard. At that time I
could not imagine how much this device would change my way of interacting with the city. This e-Board has become my main way of transportation - for me it’s the mix of adrenaline, pleasure, sport and care for the environment.
However, among the 550,000 people living in my city, only one moves on an electric longboard - me.Perhaps, it’s because most people perceive it as a joke or toy rather than away of transportation.
I’ve been wondering why people think so. And one of the main reasons, to my mind, is the condition of roads in my city. Indeed, people look at the broken sidewalks and can’t believe that it’s possible to ride such kind of transport with small wheels on them.
At the same time, moving around the city in this way, I noticed that most of the roads with bad surface are on the main streets. But if you drive into the yard, there is a high probability to find the perfect asphalt.
So I began to explore the city - each time moving from work to home, I chose different routes, drove into the alleys, which had never seen before. And in the end, my little research yielded results: my usual route to work took about 25-30 minutes on foot; by car - around 10 minutes. And on the longboard it takes only 7-8. And for all the time of movement I don’thave to get off the Board. It was a breakthrough that inspired me and I continued.
With the help of this principle I’m exploring the rest of the city. I marked routes from the central area to all other districts. On my map there are routes to the most popular places, such as shopping centers, theaters, temples, supermarkets, etc. If you look at the map closer , you can see that the routes often do not coincide with the shortest ones by car and often depart from the main streets. However,riding a longboard or scooter is the fastest way around the city - I checked every meter of it.
Map link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=17sV0nuniwiHYd6Zb6P8jNsWkyVnHGA3O&usp=sharing
I hope that this map will encourage people to use electric vehicles on a permanent basis, which in turn will relieve traffic congestion, improve the environment and help people stay in good physical shape.
Thank you!