The Digital Curb debuts in five new cities across North America – Coord

October 24, 2019

We’re five steps closer to supporting over 100 cities across the globe by 2021 as we welcome the curbs of Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver and our first Canadian city Vancouver to our platform

This past June, we announced our goal of supporting over 100 cities across the globe by 2021. At the same time, with the help of our engineering firm partners and municipalities, we added support for Austin, Miami, Philadelphia, San Diego and Washington D.C. to Coord, continuing our mission to help cities manage their streets, starting with the curb.

We are excited to expand access to the curb in five additional North American cities in our Coord Toolkit. This means curb users like mobility and logistics companies can now leverage data and analytics for these cities to optimizing vehicle routing to loading zones, improve safety for their users, reduce parking tickets and tows, and so much more.

Having a digital record of city curbs is crucial for cities — particularly as the ways people and goods get from point A to point B continue to rapidly evolve. Whether it’s new busways, a la New York City, the continued rise in micro-mobility options like scooter or increased packages and on-demand services, curb space is an increasingly scarce resource. So, in order to help cities adopt new curb management practices to better serve current and future needs of their communities, it’s important to start with an accurate record of their curbs today. A historically overlooked piece of infrastructure separating where we work, sleep and play, from how we get deliveries to how we get around by car, bus, or bike — the curb is quickly becoming the gateway to the city.

The Coord Toolkit helps cities digitize, analyze, & reimagine curb use. By being able to integrate curb data alongside parking meter transactions, citation information, permit allocations etc. cities can begin to put together a bigger picture for better planning and communication within their communities. By helping cities share data through our API we also help curb users such as mobility and logistics providers be more efficient, compliant, and safe along the curb. Among a variety of potential uses, this means companies can leverage the curb data for better routing, improving congestion as well as safety for drivers and passengers.

What’s new?

Just a few months ago, we announced support for nine major cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Austin, Miami, Philadelphia, San Diego and Washington D.C. Today, five new cities have been mapped for the Digital Curb revolution! We are so excited to welcome the curbs of Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver and Vancouver to the Coord family.

Now let’s dig into these new cities:

In Boston, we partnered with engineering firm Stantec to survey the historic cobblestone ways of the North End and Beacon Hill, to the hustling new streets of Downtown Crossing, Back Bay, and the Financial District. In four days, surveyors tracked 95 miles of Beantown curbs.

In Chicago, we partnered with leading traffic and transportation planning and engineering firm, Sam Schwartz, to survey the most heavily populated neighborhoods of the Windy City. From The Loop, River North, Streeterville, Gold Coast, Magnificent Mile and near West Side, surveyors tracked 122 miles of curbs over just seven days!

In Atlanta, in seven days, surveyors from NDS (National Data and Surveying Services) collected 94 miles of curbs. After this week of surveying, we learned that Downtown Atlanta has a lot of curbs where you can’t park or stop! 38% of the curb space in downtown Atlanta on an average weekday is allocated to no parking, with another 27% allocated to no standing and 10% allocated to no stopping.

In Denver, we worked with IDAX to digitize 90 miles of curbs in six days across the neighborhoods of Highland, LoDo, Ballpark, Five Points, Capitol Hill, and City Park West. The team of 5-6 people collected this data in six days!

In Vancouver, we partnered with AECOM to survey 107 miles of curbs across the city. In Coord’s first-ever Canadian city and large scale survey outside of the U.S., surveyors spent seven days traversing the streets of Gastown, Downtown, Coal Harbour, West End, Mt. Pleasant and Fairview. Interestingly, Vancouver has very minimalist, symbol-based signage, more so than anywhere else we’ve surveyed.

Not only are we expanding geographically; we have also added new product features to help cities better understand curb use. We recently released support for the collection and analysis of curb occupancy and turnover. We are building products to help cities better manage their curbs and help connect curb regulations to the private sector.

Interested in bringing the digital curb to your city?

We are on a mission to help cities manage their streets, starting with the curb. If you work for a city agency, transportation provider, or engineering consulting firm and want to want to learn more about Digital Curb, drop us a line at partners@coord.co to ‘get ahead of the curb.’