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Recently, volunteers collected over 5,000 signatures from registered Lansing voters asking the City to adopt a comprehensive non-motorized plan that completes the streets.  These signatures will be presented to city council where they will have a short window of time (up to 30 days) to adopt the petition language. 
To learn more visit: www.walkbikelansing.com.

Photos taken in Lansing and submitted to the Flickr group will be sorted by ward number and presented to the corresponding city council member.  The goal is to submit compelling photos of why Lansing needs a Complete Streets policy.  This includes photos of roads with inadequate sidewalks, bike lanes, bus stops, etc.  (Examples: sidewalks that abruptly end, lack of bike lanes or bike lanes that end in the middle of traffic, bus stops with no or limited accessibility, curb cuts that are not wheelchair assessable, etc.)  Please make sure to highlight examples of properly designed facilities as well.

Where
City of Lansing

When
ASAP!  Although this is an ongoing project throughout the state, Lansing has an urgent need to collect images within the next few weeks in order to present them to City Council during public comment period prior to voting.  

FAQ
How can I participate? 
Just grab your camera and start photographing the roads in your community.  Then tag and upload them to the Flickr group page at: www.flickr.com/groups/micompletestreets.  Point, shoot, tag and upload – it’s that simple!

Where should I take pictures?
There are four wards in Lansing and we need photos in all of them. You are encouraged to take photos where you live, work, shop and play.  If you would like a more active role in the project or would like to be assigned a specific area to photograph please contact John Lindenmayer at john@LMB.org or 517-334-9100.
Download detailed Lansing ward maps at: www.LMB.org/lansingwardmaps.html.

What photos should I submit?
Submit photos of roadways of incomplete streets such as sidewalks that abruptly end, busy roads without bike lanes, dangerous intersections, non wheelchair assessable curbs, etc.  Please make sure to highlight examples of properly designed facilities as well.

See examples at: www.flickr.com/groups/micompletestreets.

If possible, try to capture people in your photos such as pedestrians, bicyclists, parents with a stroller, young and old people, people with disabilities, etc.

How do I submit my photos?
You will need to join the Michigan Complete Streets Group on Flickr by clicking the “Join This Group” link at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/micompletestreets.  If you do not already have a free Flickr account you will need to set up a Yahoo!/Flickr ID to log in first.  The process is fairly straightforward.

NOTE: If you get the following pop up error message when you try to add your photos to the group, it is most likely because you have not geotagged your photos. Under the Batch Organizer you will need to click the Map Tab and then drag your photos from the bottom horizontal preview bar directly onto the map at to their proper location. See more info below about geotagging under "What are the requirements for submitting photos?."

EXAMPLE ERROR MESSAGE:

That item is either already in the Michigan Complete Streets pool, is already in too many groups, or violates the pool restrictions.

* Accepted media types:
o Photos
o Video
* Accepted content types:
o Photos / Videos
* Accepted safety levels:
o Safe
* Content must have geo information:
o Yes

What is Flickr and how do I use it?
Flickr is a photo-sharing website - all users in the Michigan Complete Streets Group are able to upload their photos to a single group page that is visible to the public.  Take the informative quick tour at: http://www.flickr.com/tour/. Another great how to on Flickr basics can be found at: http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-use-flickr-basics-and-beyond.

What if I don’t want to set up a Flickr account?
We strongly encourage you to set up your own account. Flickr is a fun, creative, easy and a very useful way to share your photos. Having numerous contributors to our group collection makes a stronger impact and makes it easier to complete a comprehensive audit of all Lansing roadways. 

If you have technical problems or do not wish to set up your own account but still want to submit photos, you can drop off a CD or flash drive of your edited photos with corresponding descriptions to John Lindenmayer at the League of Michigan Bicyclists' office located at 416 S. Cedar St (corner of Kalmazoo and Cedar).

Should I edit my photos?
YES – ABSOLUTELY!  Please edit your photos down to just your very best images before uploading them to the group page.  This will help us maintain a high quality database and also prevent you from exceeding your upload limit (see NOTE below). With that being said, many situations warrant multiple images showing different angles, directions or zoom levels, so if one image doesn’t tell the whole story feel free to upload multiples (if you upload multiple images of one scene, make sure to put “Also see images [image names]” at the bottom of your description.)

NOTE: With a free Flickr account, you can upload photos up to 10MB in sizeand only 100MB total per month, so please make sure to edit your images and be conscious of overly large file sizes.  LMB has a Pro account with unlimited upload capacity so if you run into space limitations, we can upload images for you. (see "Who Can I Contact If I Have Questions")

What are the requirements for submitting photos?
The purpose of this project is to comprehensively document the current state of Lansing roadways.  While a picture is worth a thousand words — words are important too!  We ask that all photos have appropriate Tags, Titles and Descriptions.  We also need the exact location of each photo, so we also require that you Geotag the location of your images on our group map.  Lastly, we encourage you post your images under a Creative Commons License.  More on all this below:

Tags:
Tagging is very important because it forms the basis of Flickr's powerful search features. Tags are like keywords or labels that you add to describe your photo to help make it easier to find later. You can tag a photo with phrases like “bike lanes,” “sidewalk,” “bus stop,” etc.  Later, if we want to look for pictures of bike lanes, you can just click that tag and get all photos that have been tagged that way.  While the uploading tools offer tagging features, you can also add tags later by clicking the "Add a Tag" link on the photo page.

HINT:  Photos can have multiple tags, however multiple word tags (i.e. bike lanes) must be written between quotes as “bike lanes”.

NOTE:  All Lansing photos must be tagged with "Complete Streets" and the Ward number of where the photograph was taken as either “Lansing Ward 1”, “Lansing Ward 2”, “Lansing Ward 3”, or “Lansing Ward 4”.  Again, make sure to put mulit-word Tags inside of quotation marks. To aid you in determining which ward you are photographing in, please download detailed ward maps at: www.LMB.org/lansingwardmaps.html

You are free to create your own Tags.  Here are some to get you started that are already being used by other group members:

Titles:
Keep in mind that when you take a photo, your camera gives it a name — perhaps something like “img_24.” If you don't change this name, Flickr will use it as the title. Needless to say, titles like this are not very useful.  You are encouraged to give each image a more descriptive title.

Geotag Mapping:
Flickr allows you to literally put your photos on a map — or search public photos based on location — using geotags consisting of the latitude and longitude codes for where the photo was taken.  All photos submitting to the Michigan Complete Streets Group must be placed on the group map.  Geotags are required in order to make the information collected during our photo audits of greatest use for Complete Streets advocates.  Geotags will also help City planners and politicians know were problems exist so they can expedite fixing the problem areas.
See the Lansing Complete Streets group map at: http://tinyurl.com/mowkvo

NOTE: If you get the following pop up error message when you try to add your photos to the group, it is most likely because you have not geotagged your photos. Under the Batch Organizer you will need to click the Map Tab and then drag your photos from the bottom horizontal preview bar directly onto the map at to their proper location. See more info below about geotagging under "What are the requirements for submitting photos?."

EXAMPLE ERROR MESSAGE:

That item is either already in the Michigan Complete Streets pool, is already in too many groups, or violates the pool restrictions.

* Accepted media types:
o Photos
o Video
* Accepted content types:
o Photos / Videos
* Accepted safety levels:
o Safe
* Content must have geo information:
o Yes

HINT:  Jot down the exact location of each photo you take so you remember later when uploading them.  You can also take a photo of the street corner for later reference (just remember not to upload your reference photos!)

HINT:  When you are on the mapping page, just type in the address or street intersection in the search bar on the top right to quickly zoom into an area (i.e. Waverly and Michigan, Lansing)

Flickr's Mapping Features FAQ (http://www.flickr.com/help/map/) will bring you up to speed pretty quickly, and if you are a visual learner, check out these screencasts:
http://www.flickr.com/help/screencasts/vol1/
http://www.flickr.com/help/screencasts/vol2

Descriptions:
The description field lets you add text to your photo.  Please include the following in each description:

* Location (closest street crossing)
* Detailed problem or praise of roadway
* Direction image is facing (i.e. northwest corner, looking south, etc)
* Reference to other image names if you are posting multiple photos of one scene

NOTE: Please write in complete sentences.  This will make it easier and more professional when we present the images to City Council.

Creative Commons Licensing
In most parts of the world, you are automatically granted a copyright on your photos.  Yet what if you'd like to allow others to use or modify your photos as with the Michigan Complete Streets Photo Sharing Project?  Flickr provides a unique feature that allows anyone to do just that, by giving you the option to post your photos under a Creative Commons license.

The default license for all Flickr photos is All Rights Reserved, meaning that others cannot use them unless given permission by the author. You can change your default license to any one of the Creative Commons licenses that will be applied to any public photos you upload. Alternately, you can select a license for a specific picture by clicking the "Change" link next to your current photo license near the bottom of your photo page.

If you use a Creative Commons license on your photos, they can be downloaded by anyone. Please make sure all photos you submit to the Group page have a Creative Commons license so we can more easily use them to help complete the streets.

Where can I learn more about Complete Streets?
Local - www.walkbikelansing.com
State - www.michigancompletestreets.org
National - www.completestreets.org

Who can I contact if I have questions?
If you have questions, comments or have trouble uploading your photos to Flickr, please contact John Lindenmayer at john@LMB.org or 517-334-9100. 

Have Fun and Be Safe!