streetmix

A fun, web-based street section builder, inspired by Blockee.

Streetmix has had a total development time of about five hours, so it is a:

• proof of concept
• work in progress
• pre-release alpha

We appreciate all the feedback and excitement we've received on our project so far, so we'll continue working on it here at Code for America Labs to get all the features we want to include! To join the conversation, please check out our GitHub issue tracker or shoot an e-mail to our project team at streetmix@codeforamerica.org.

About

What are street sections?

A "section" is shortened way of saying "cross-section view", a type of 2D non-perspectival drawing commonly used in engineering and architecture to show what something looks like when you slice it in two pieces and then look at one slice head-on, to see how it is (or should be) assembled. Similarly, a street section is a cross section view of a street, showing the widths and placement of vehicle lanes, bike lanes, sidewalks, trees, street furniture or accessories (like benches or street lamps), as well as engineering information like how the road is sloped to facilitate drainage, or the locations of underground utilities. Although sections can be simplified line drawings, urban designers and landscape architects have created very colorful illustrative street sections, removing most of the engineering particulars to communicate how a street could be designed to feel safe, walkable or habitable.

Why does Streetmix exist?

In community meetings, one engagement activity is to create cut-out sheets of paper depicting different street components (like bike lanes, sidewalks, trees, etc.) and allow community members to reassemble them into their desired street structure. Planners and city officials can then take this feedback to determine a course of action for future plans. By creating an web-based version of this activity, planners can reach a wider audience than they could at meetings alone, and allow community members to share and edit each other's creations.

In addition, one of the goals of Streetmix is to be part of the national conversation around Complete Streets, or the Project for Public Spaces' Rightsizing Streets Guide.

Why the name "Streetmix"?

"Streets" + "remix" :-)

How did this project start?

Streetmix was started as a Code for America hackathon project in January 2013. The team comprised of 2013 Code for America fellows Ans Bradford, Lou Huang, Katie Lewis, Ezra Spier and Marcin Wichary.

Screenshot

Demo

You can see a running version of the application at http://streetmix.net/

Development Setup

On Mac OS X 10

First-time setup

1. Download and install Node.js.

2. Clone this remote repository to a folder on your computer. The rest of these instructions will refer to this folder as $PROJECT_ROOT.

   git clone $REMOTE_REPOSITORY_URL $PROJECT_ROOT

3. Install project dependencies.

   cd $PROJECT_ROOT npm install

Every time you sync $PROJECT_ROOT with this remote repository.

1. Update project dependencies.

   cd $PROJECT_ROOT npm install

HOWTO: Start the application

1. Start the web server.

   cd $PROJECT_ROOT node server.js

2. Load the application in your web browser.

   open http://localhost:8000

Usage

TODO

Contributing

In the spirit of free software, everyone is encouraged to help improve this project.

Here are some ways you can contribute:

• by using alpha, beta, and prerelease versions
• by reporting bugs
• by suggesting new features
• by translating to a new language
• by writing or editing documentation
• by writing specifications
• by writing code (no patch is too small: fix typos, add comments, clean up inconsistent whitespace)
• by refactoring code
• by closing issues
• by reviewing patches
• financially

Submitting an Issue

We use the GitHub issue tracker to track bugs and features. Before submitting a bug report or feature request, check to make sure it hasn't already been submitted. You can indicate support for an existing issue by voting it up. When submitting a bug report, please include a Gist that includes a stack trace and any details that may be necessary to reproduce the bug, including your gem version, Ruby version, and operating system. Ideally, a bug report should include a pull request with failing specs.

Submitting a Pull Request

1. Fork the project.
2. Create a topic branch.
3. Implement your feature or bug fix.
4. Add tests for your feature or bug fix.
5. Run bundle exec rake test. If your changes are not 100% covered, go back to step 4.
6. Commit and push your changes.
7. Submit a pull request. Please do not include changes to the gemspec or version file. (If you want to create your own version for some reason, please do so in a separate commit.)

Copyright

Copyright (c) 2013 Code for America. See LICENSE for details.