Walk Score tells you how walkable a neighborhood is. Bike Score tells you how bikeable it is. Neither tells you whether an adult tricycle rider can actually get around — because trikes fail in places bikes and pedestrians don't.
Why trikes are different
- No curb climbing. Every crossing needs a real ramp or a flush curb — a bike can hop what a trike can't.
- Grade matters more. A hill or bridge a cyclist shrugs off can be an unrideable slog on three wheels.
- Wind is a routing constraint, not weather. A slope that's fine with the wind at your back can be impassable riding the other direction — same segment, two different scores depending on conditions.
- Width matters. Narrow passages that work for a bike may not fit a trike at all.
These constraints mean a usable trike network is a real subset of the bike network — smaller, and shaped differently — especially in hilly or poorly-ramped cities.
First data set: Ilhéus, Brazil
The map below is a live OpenStreetMap route — daily streets, a shared bayside path, and a segregated cycleway, traced and tagged by hand, rendered here through CyclOSM.
This is a proof of concept, not a product
There's no scoring algorithm yet, no other cities, no app. What exists is a working method: hand-mapped trike routes in OpenStreetMap, tagged with the details that matter (curb type, incline, surface, segregation) and renderable today with existing tools.
If you're a trike or mobility-scooter rider, an accessibility advocate, a city planner, or just think this is worth building further — get in touch.
alan@alanhalley.com