Jake Coppinger

  • Preliminary analysis of Better Intersections data

    These are a collection of charts picking apart the Better Intersections dataset. They provide multiple avenues to find further patterns in complex and incomplete date, but also as a tool for communicating and demonstrating improvement over time (or perhaps lack thereof).

  • Better Streets submission to the North Bondi Shops and Bus Terminus Upgrade

    This is a lightly edited version of a submission I wrote on behalf of Better Streets for the public comment opportunity regarding the North Bondi Shops and Bus Terminus Upgrade.

  • Which Australian councils are building the most cycleways?

    Australian Cycleway Stats is a dashboard that provides an in-depth look at the kilometres of cycleways and safe streets in every Australian council, encompassing current, under-construction, and proposed projects, as well as international benchmarks.

  • Contraflow streets in the City of Sydney

    The City of Sydney has recently approved 159 suitable streets across 24 suburbs, which will greatly improve the network of legal cycling routes in inner city Sydney. This blog post is a proposal of additional streets which may be suitable for basic contraflow cycling infrastructure that the council could install in future, with a focus…

  • Shining a Light on the Traffic Signals of Sydney

    This blog post provides an overview of traffic signal operation in Sydney (focusing on the inner city), based on technical documentation, conversations with government & industry experts and data I’ve collected after building Better Intersections.

  • Mapping pedestrian traffic light timing in Sydney, Australia

    Better Intersections is a tool to record and visualise timing details for pedestrian and bicycle signals. In the absence of traffic light timing data, and as we hold hope for it to become publicly available; the aim of Better Intersections is to crowdsource measurements and inform where positive changes could be made.

  • Kyoto International Conference Centre

    This building was designed by Sachio Otani and completed in 1966. The Kyoto Protocol emissions treaty of 1997 was signed in this building (COP3). It’s a rare remaining example of the Metabolism architecture movement in Japan.

  • Subterranean Sydney: A cross-section of Town Hall Station made with iPhone LiDAR

    Using just an iPhone with LiDAR to create a cross-section 3D model and image of Town Hall Station with the LiDAR sensor on an iPhone.

  • Canada Bay Council plans to remove Heath St cycleway due to a misleading traffic report

    Canada Bay Council plans to remove the cycleway it received $7m of state funding for. In this analysis I outline errors and flaws in the engineering report recommending the removal (which has now been hidden from the Canada Bay Council website).

  • Generating aerial imagery with your iPhone’s LiDAR sensor

    This technical guide details how you can create your own aerial imagery and 3D models of streets with the built in iPhone LiDAR sensor and open source tools in the OpenDroneMap package.

  • Lane-accurate street maps with OpenStreetMap – writing a vector tileserver for osm2streets

    I’ve built safecyclingmap.com, an open-source proof of concept map that renders cycleways and streets down to the individual lanes, to assist cyclists picking safe routes in cities with little dedicated cycling infrastructure.

  • Swimming in the Sydney CBD – Marrinawi Cove

    Today Marrinawi Cove at Barangaroo opened for legal swimming after one final check of the shark net integrity. Sydney Morning Herald broke the story and the ABC wrote shortly after. According to the NSW state government it is the first new harbour swimming spot to open west of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in more than…

  • Sydney CBD is bringing back pedestrian “beg buttons”

    TfNSW have recently installed these around the Sydney CBD – a sticker on top of a pedestrian “beg button” explaining the button is redundant before 6am and after 10pm.

  • Creating aerial imagery with a bike helmet camera (GoPro) and OpenDroneMap

    This technical guide details how you can create your own orthorectified (aka satellite view/bird mode) imagery, point clouds and 3D models of streets with nothing but a 360 degree camera mounted on bicycle helmet, and the open source photogrammetry software OpenDroneMap.

  • Observations from Australia’s first Micromobility Conference

    Over the weekend I attended Australia’s first micromobility conference. The sessions were organised into themes reflecting the challenges Australia faces in transitioning it’s transport network and urban planning – from car and highway dominated streets to a safer, lower emission and more pleasant city permitting cycling, walking and other journeys.

  • Visualising Sydney bus congestion with Marey charts

    As a side project I built Sydney Transit Graph – a visualisation of real-time Sydney bus congestion. Each line on the graph (a Marey chart) represents a bus completing its route (percentage) over time.

  • Lunar Eclipse above the Opera house

    Cycled over to the opera house and got these shots last night. It’s always wonderful when people want to come and watch the camera LCD to get a better view! Shot on a Canon 5D IV, Signal 100-600mm zoom.

  • Mapping Sydney Billboards: Every QMS advertising panel in Sydney

    Map live at SydneyAdvertisingMap.com. See also: Max Bo’s analysis of how many placed next to Telstra telephones: https://observablehq.com/@mjbo/sydney-qms-panel-public-telephone-pairings If you live in Sydney you will have seen them – the 86 inch advertising screens in the City of Sydney Council. These advertising panels are known as communication pylons in the language of the developer approvals.…

  • The Drying Green opening – a new Green Square park

    On Saturday the 15th of October, Clover Moore (Lord Mayor of the City of Sydney) opened The Drying Green, the new centerpiece park of Green Square. It’s been in construction since March 2018 and includes areas of grass, wetlands which filter stormwater before it enters the wider system, and a barbecue and seating area. It…

  • How I helped ~6,000 Australians find a vaccine appointment

    In mid 2021 Australia had an acute vaccine shortage for various reasons, which meant vaccine appointments were extremely hard to come by – NSW had just declared a national emergency. To help Australia increase it’s vaccination rate ASAP I built GPVaccineSearch.com over a few weekends in July/August, an open-source vaccine appointment search engine, as a…