Tag Archives: Cartography

DC Photo Map

A couple of blogs today (GGW, DCist) featured this fantastic map of DC and environs from Flickr user Eric Fischer.

Fischer has a set of similar maps from various cities around the world. Fischer’s methodology takes data from the images and the user accounts to determine the location of the photo (via geotagging), as well as the time and date and the type of user (tourist, local, or unknown). Tourist photos are in red, locals in blue, and unknown data in yellow. Each dot represents a photo. Photos taken in succession by the same user within 10 minutes of each other are connected by a line.

Fischer also has maps of cities that do not discern between tourists and locals.

Parking, Census, & Maps

Some cool map-related items:

San Francisco’s Parking Census – with one of those ideas that’s so obvious that no one ever thought of it before, San Francisco has completed the first known census of all the publicly available parking spaces in an American city. The census found 441,541 spaces in the city, just 280,000 of which are on-street spaces – occupying an area comparable to the city’s Golden Gate Park.

The release of the public parking space census coincides with the redesign of the website for SFPark, an occupancy-based parking management trial funded with a $19.8 million federal congestion mitigation grant, which among many objectives, seeks to manage the supply of parking by adjusting the cost to match demand. To put that in laymen’s terms, if SFPark works well, there should be enough parking at the curb so that drivers don’t have to circle the block endlessly searching for that elusive space. By gradually adjusting the price of parking up or down in the pilot areas, the city expects to create roughly one or two free spaces per block face at any time, the original purpose of parking meters when they were introduced in the 1930s.

Jay Primus, who directs the SFPark trial for the MTA, said the parking census was the first step toward a better understanding of how parking works in San Francisco, filling a void where city planners could only make rough estimates previously. “If you can’t manage what you can’t count, doing a careful survey and documenting all publicly available parking was a critical first step for the MTA for how we manage parking more intelligently,” he said.

The importance of this data, especially to this level of detail, cannot be understated. Applying this type of information to performance pricing systems is just one potential application. The study’s accompanying PDF map shows just how detailed and granular the data is:

Each dot along the streets represents a meter, the larger circles within blocks represent off-street parking. Garages and non-metered street spaces with less than 25 spaces per block aren’t even shown.

The real Census also has some cool maps – the Census Bureau’s Take 10 map allows you to see real time (relatively speaking) response rates by census tract for DC:

Currently, DC’s response rate stands at 44%. Tract 4902, highlighted above, is only at 39%.

Bar Crawl

Two things I like – beer and maps. Maps about booze are even better.

Having grown up in the Midwest – born and raised in Minnesota, with lots of family in Wisconsin, as well as living in Madison and Ann Arbor, it’s no surprise to me that people there like to drink. It’s a part of the culture. Now, we have some maps to prove it.

The blog floating sheep has some great maps of America’s beer belt. First, the total number of bars in various locations across the US, based on Google maps’ directory.

Next, a point of reference – a map showing the relative popularity of bars to grocery stores – red indicates more bars than grocery stores:

Finally, putting Wisconsin’s culture on display, a map of how many Google Maps entries there are for bars, normalizing the data to show the relative popularity of them.

Unsurprisingly, we see all sorts of concentrations of bars that correlate with population density – namely, cities. Wisconsin, however, is punching well above its weight. That well-worn drinking culture shines through. Southern cities, conversely, seem a little thing based on their populations – perhaps a holdover from dry counties and other temperance movements?

Either way, it’s a cool set of maps.

Historic DC Maps

In the same vein as UCLA’s Hypercities maps I’ve discussed previously, I recently ran across some more historical maps from Shannon over at We Love DC. The maps themselves are ok, not nearly as detailed or interesting as the Hypercities maps, taking the historic maps and re-projecting them onto an interactive Google maps interface.

More interesting to me, however, is an older post of Shannon’s that directs you to David Rumsey’s historical map archive, as well as a world-wide index – which includes (unlike the Hypercities site) two DC maps – from 1851 and 1861.

The index page shows you the wide variety of locations covered:

The interface is similar to the hypercities one, allowing you to toggle on a historical map that has been manipulated to match the projection of the underlying Google interface. This allows you to navigate around the environment.

First, the base layer, a current aerial of DC:

Here’s the 1851 map of DC:

And the 1861 map:

You can adjust the opacity to directly compare the current conditions to the map – some interesting details concern the shoreline of the Anacostia, the existence of Hains Point, as well as the evolution of the city’s built environment:

The detail in the 1861 map is fantastic. Extremely detailed, right down to the figure ground of individual buildings – as well as demonstrating how much of L’Enfant’s plan had been built out on the eve of the Civil War.

On the edges of the L’Enfant city, the map shows how historic roads have shaped the current city, such as Columbia Road meeting Connecticut:

Also, the property boundaries outside of the L’Enfant plan influenced the street patterns of later developments. Note how the slightly off-kilter grid of LeDroit Park corresponds to the landholdings of one C. Miller:

Very cool stuff.

Fun with maps

Something you can do to waste time during the snow day – UCLA has a great website with a series of historical maps scaled and overlaid on a contemporary aerial image for select cities around the world. The closest to DC is New York, but this is still a lot of fun to play around with.

Hat tip to Dale for the link.

Some screenshots to give you an example of the interface and how it works:

The Hypercities interface. Note the base aerial photo, various maps to toggle in the right sidebar, other available cities in the upper right map, and the usual Google map interface navigation.

New York, base aerial photo.

New York, with 1766 map overlay

1766 map, with opacity adjusted.

Same as above, with a 1775 map of Lower Manhattan overlay.

There are tons of historical maps and an incredible amount of detail to explore here. I’ve been playing around with it and feel like I’ve only scratched the surface. Very cool stuff.

Again, the URL is hypercities.ats.ucla.edu. Check it out.

Lost? How about a map.

Second Ave Sagas has a great subway-style map of Lost’s fictional universe – in advance of tonight’s season premiere.

This is the creation of John Cabrera, who explains it further here.

Metro’s new board members set the bar…

….and other assorted links

Board games: Greater Greater Washington notes that the Feds have filled two of their four slots on the WMATA board, naming Mort Downey and Marcel Acosta to the positions.

Downey is a former executive for the US DOT under the Clinton Administration and is currently a transportation consultant. Acosta is the Executive Director of the NCPC, and formerly worked for the Chicago Transit Authority. Personally speaking, Downey is a regular commuter and rider on Metro, and Acosta lives car-free in DC.

DCist has some good quotables.

Downey, a consultant who previously served in the Clinton administration and as executive director of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority — and a Vienna native who has ridden Metro for 20 years — has fairly modest aspirations as he takes his seat on the board on Thursday: “The federal government would like its employees to arrive at work on time, fundamentally alive.”

Can’t argue with focusing on your core mission.

Never mind the bollards: Second Ave. Sagas up in New York takes a look at some really horrendous security ‘bollards’ (using that term loosely) surrounding the new Atlantic Ave. LIRR Terminal in Brooklyn. Read up on the new terminal here (City Room, MTA press release).

When the new terminal building at Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn, critics and columnists praised the light and airy nature of the building. Featuring a seemless integration of art and architecture, the new terminal building is representative of the MTA’s current approach toward offering its customers a convenient and mostly state-of-the-art facilities when it opens new structures. Outside, though, the security bollards tell a different story, one of overreaction and blocked sidewalks to a public structure that needs to be able to handle heavy pedestrian flow.

When the new building first opened, attention was focused on the inside, but the security bollards, shown above, drew some warranted criticisms. Gersh Kuntzman in The Brooklyn Paper was particular critical of their appearance and size. He noted the bunker-like mentality of the security measures and called the giant bollards “14 mammoth concrete coffins that give the beautiful new facility the look of an outpost in the Green Zone.”

Atlantic Ave station bollards - CC image from Ben Kabak on flickr.

Yikes. SAS continues:

The specter of terrorism and counterterrorist measures make for uncomfortable subjects. New York City’s subways are notoriously porous, and New Yorkers try not to dwell on the ways our city has become a target for America’s enemies. Still, these bollards do nothing to make a new train terminal accessible or user-friendly. They exacerbate fears about our safety while blocking the city’s sidewalks and its transit access points. There are tasteful ways to guard against terrorism, and then there are these granite blocks, seemingly dropped from a quarry onto Flatbush Ave. with no regard for purpose or appearance.

Here in DC, we have to deal with all of the same terrorism concerns. Clearly, some bollards are better than others in terms of their design and day to day function. We have some well-designed examples here in DC (the paths/retaining walls around the Washington Monument come to mind), some bad ones (the doors at the Capitol Visitors Center that are too heavy to open), and plenty of ‘temporary’ barriers scattered across town.

Fifty Nifty United States: Matt Yglesias links to a James Fallows bit on an idea from Fakeisthenewreal.com to re-draw state lines every so often as a means of ensuring a relatively equal population distribution amongst all 50 states.

Two thoughts – if this seems odd, perhaps it shouldn’t. Each state will be going through this process in the next few years after the collection of the 2010 Census data. Even in DC, we’ll re-evaluate the ward boundaries to ensure that each one has a roughly similar number of people within it.

Also, the proposal reminds me of the 70s era proposal for the 38 states of America.

Political realities would likely stop anything like this from ever happening, but it certainly is an interesting thought experiment. Furthermore, when looking at the political implications, it’s worthwhile to note how the arbitrary political boundaries have real political consequences in Congress.

Streetcars, eh? Planning Pool has a nice audio slideshow (complete with narration in a lovely Canadian accent) of Vancouver’s demonstration streetcar line. The line is using borrowed cars from Brussels, and will be evaluated during the upcoming Olympics for future, permanent installation.

“Olympic Line” Streetcar Demonstration in Vancouver, Canada from Planning Pool on Vimeo.

Perhaps some foreshadowing for DC?

Assorted Portland tidbits

Portland Aerial Tram - image from joseph readdy on flickr

Ah, Portland. Metropolis of planning, bicycling, and all things creative. A couple of things have piled up in my open tabs or in my reader.

Portland hasn’t seen huge shifts in mode share (as noted here previously – hat tip to Jarrett Walker here and here), despite large investments in light rail, streetcars, and even an aerial tram.

Picture perfect? Aaron Renn penned an op-ed piece for the Oregonian, providing a little perspective about Portland’s image as the perfect planning city. Renn doesn’t question Portland’s overall quality, just if the reputation is deserved or not – if the praise matches the performance.

Renn follows his op-ed with a blog post, delving deeper into the stats, comparing hip and cool Portland to the decidedly less cool Indianapolis.

I note as a positive that Portland was clearly ahead of other similar sized cities in understanding the importance of density, transit, bike lanes, etc. But more importantly, that the “Portland model” had a wide influence in America. Perhaps Portland has had a greater influence on America’s urban environments than any other city its relative size in history. That’s an amazing accomplishment if you think about it. And what’s more, that influence has been a good thing.Naturally, they don’t need me to just tell them “It’s all good”. So on the areas for development side I noted their underperforming economy. It’s not so much that Portland is particularly suffering in this recession, though it is, or that it is a failure in an absolute sense, which it is not. No, rather I look at it like diving. There are two aspects: execution and degree of difficulty. Portland has very low degree of difficulty, so we would expect it to perform much better.

Renn’s takeaway is that policy can only do so much. That’s true, to some extent – policy sets the rules in place, and the dynamics of the city have to do the rest. There are also factors well beyond any city’s (or any region’s) control.

Like any data set, it’s wise to look at the limitations of the data.

Putting the emphasis back on Portland’s transportation policies, Jarrett Walker looks at car ownership rates in cities across the US – and Portland doesn’t even crack the top 50. (DC checks in at #4, with a 36.93% of households owning no cars – jurisdictions 1, 2, and 3 are all in Metropolitan NYC). Walker identifies three criteria that correlate with high rates of non-auto households – age of the city’s fabric (with an anecdotal correlation to density and design), poverty, and presence of major universities.

So here’s the question: How long will it take for a city that lacks age, poverty, or dominant universities to achieve the kind of low car ownership that these 50 demonstrate? How soon, for example, will a city be able to create a combination of density, design, and mixture of uses that yields the same performance as an old city that naturally has those features?

Portland is probably the most promising such city in the US, and it’s not on the list. Only 14% of households there don’t have a car, so it’s probably well down in the second 50. Like many cities, Portland has been doing everything it can to build a dense mixed-use urban environment. It’s the sort of city that convinces the Safeway supermarket chain to rebuild their store with townhouses and residential towers on top. But while people are moving into the inner city, they don’t seem to be selling their cars when they do, nor do they seem to be going to work by transit.

For me, the takeaway from this is the long lag time and staying power of transportation infrastructure. Even as older cities, built around walking and transit, have decayed, they remain more car-less than their fellow cities built with the car, to say nothing of cities built for the car.

I recall attending a lecture in grad school (and I cannot for the life of me remember who exactly gave it), noting the staying power of our street networks and other infrastructure patterns. In short, land use changes on a big, extensive scale take a long time to happen. Walker continues:

How much are zero-car households constrained by overly abundant residential parking? It’s still hard to sell a modern tower unit without a parking space included, even though there are many such units in pre-car cities like Manhattan and San Francisco, and many are quite desirable. What would it take to replicate that desirability in new inner cities like Portland’s? Couldn’t it be done at least in the name of affordable housing?

All good questions to ask, even if only asked rhetorically.

Finally, some pretty pictures. Free Association Design has some great planning graphics from Portland. Fun stuff to look at.

Portland's public realm. Image from the City of Portland

Portland's zoning code, graphically depicted w/ height limits and mixed uses (red shading).

Good stuff.

Building partisan cities (?)

Following up on the current Republican assertion that what is urban cannot also be local, there’s been a lot more discussion today concerning cities and their political leanings.

The Overhead Wire asserts that building cities “shouldn’t be a partisan issue.” There’s certainly something to be said for that – as adding density is probably one of the most obvious ways to embrace the free market. Likewise is the recognition that all transportation modes are subsidized, and rail transit is the most effective means of transport in urban areas. There are plenty of things within the urban condition for conservatives to like:

Conversely, Yonah Freemark takes a look at the results from the most recent Presidential race, showing that the voting patterns for people living in more dense areas just don’t show much bi-partisanship:

The contrast is even more remarkable in the counties on the limits of typical density; those that are most urban went overwhelmingly for Mr. Obama, while those that are the most rural went to Mr. McCain with a large majority.

2008 Presidential Election Results in Extreme Low and High Density Counties

Density Total Votes # of Counties Obama Share
McCain Share

0-14 ppl/sq mi 2.5 million 667 38 % 60 %

10,002-57,173 ppl/sq mi 3.7 million 8 81 %
18 %

Since we’re discussing election results, I’ll use this opportunity to show off some of the cool cartograms from Mark Newman at the University of Michigan. Yonah broke down the results by county and by density. County by county results look like this:

2008 Presidential election results by county

And, when you look at the same data in a cartogram that scales county size in proportion to population, graphically displaying the density of the county:

2008 Presidential election by county - scaled by county population

2008 Presidential election results by county - scaled by county population

So, there’s obvious truth to Yonah’s point, as well – America’s big cities are quite blue.

The larger point, however, is that national partisan divides and cleavages don’t apply all that well to local issues. There are numerous politicians that are certainly progressive on national social and economic issues, but wouldn’t be on the forefront of progressive urban policy. Likewise, business-oriented leaders like Mike Bloomberg (regardless of his party affiliation) are certainly progressive at the local level. Guys like Bill Lind (from the video above) and the late Paul Weyrich emphasize the points.

There’s certainly a conservative niche in urban areas that could be carved out, but it’s not clear that Republicans want to do the carving. When Jim Oberstar’s draft transportation bill is labeled as an “exercise in lifestyle modification,” or that transit opponents argue that advocates want to force everyone into Soviet housing, it’s clear that they don’t care to take that step.

City Block

a work in progress…