Tag: audio

Talking about Divvy data with WBEZ’s Afternoon Shift

Audio from 3-4 PM segment. Skip to ~30 minutes in to hear the data portion of the show. 

WBEZ Afternoon Shift host Charlie Meyerson had me on the show Monday to talk with him, Gabe Klein, and some fellows at Data Science for Social Good (DSSG, a University of Chicago-based program) about the trends that Divvy bike sharing data is showing. Here are trends I mentioned or was prepared to mention:

* 31 stations installed since Friday, July 19 (10 days since Monday, July 29), 28 stations installed since I wrote my post on Streetsblog Chicago about 67 memberships per day, so I predict that the daily rate of new annual members has increased.

* Membership enrollment is still concerning to me: From July 22 (when I wrote my post about enrollment rate) to yesterday (Sunday, July 28), membership enrollment rate dropped to 61 memberships per day, even as all these new neighborhood stations emerged. This brings the post-launch average to 66 from 67.

* If you look at Top 10 starting and ending stations, there’s about 90% crossover, meaning the Top 10 starting stations for trips are basically the same as the Top 10 ending stations. There’re slight changes on the weekend, with Lincoln Park (the park) and the Lincoln Park Zoo getting into the Top 10. (See table below.)

* During the week, Union and Ogilvie Metra stations get into the Top 10, and disappear from the Top 10 on the weekend. This may suggest that commuters, not tourists, are making these trips. But people make tourism trips from the suburbs on weekdays as well.

* Trips by member type: 71% are taken by 24 hour pass holders. This is down from 75 to 73, so this means that the share of trips taken by annual member holders is increasing. This is because of two things happening: some people who bought a 24-hour pass to test the system have converted to being an annual member, and others who waited for a station to come to their neighborhood have bought a membership. I’m just hoping that membership enrollment picks up to reach the high rate of installations.

I’m personally interested in the route data. I’m interested in who’s biking where and when. This is information we’ve not collected well in the past. My Streetsblog Chicago partner John Greenfield wrote about other data trends Scott Kubly discussed at last week’s Complete Streets Symposium.

Dock surfing during a Divvy social ride last Thursday. Photo by Jane Healy.

[table id=9 /]

Download this data

Divvy data from May 29 to July 28 (.xls): includes member enrollment, number of trips taken by annual and 24-hour pass holders, and top 10 starting and ending stations.

If you’re looking to contribute your expertise to the “Divvy data project” (okay, such a thing doesn’t really exist), then check out the Divvy Data Document I started after discussing Divvy data at a July OpenGov Hack Night.

Talking about a pedestrian street for Peoria Street on Vocalo

Click on the rendering to enlarge and learn about the main features. 

Ryan Lakes and I took our Peoria Street pedestrian street proposal to the masses by speaking to Molly Adams and Brian Babylon on Tuesday morning’s Morning AMp show on Vocalo, FM89.5

Listen (or download) to the 15 minute interview on SoundCloud

What is the Peoria Street pedestrian street?

We propose creating a gateway connection between the University of Illinois at Chicago’s east campus and the West Loop neighborhood over the Peoria Street bridge by nearly eliminating car traffic, completely eliminating parking, removing curbs, and adding amenities to make this a place to go to instead of through.

The Peoria Street bridge over I-290/Eisenhower expressway, between Van Buren and Harrison Streets, was closed to car traffic in 1965 when a new entrance for the CTA station opened. This entrance of the UIC-Halsted Blue Line station is by far the most used access point to the busy station, as it’s the closest to campus buildings. In fact, according to a CTA letter to IDOT, “weekday passenger volumes at this station entrance exceed 11 of the other 12 total station passenger volumes at the other stops on the Forest Park Blue Line branch”.

The UIC Campus Master Plan of 2010 calls for creating a gateway at this place, and the Illinois Department of Transportation is proposing to rebuild this bridge as part of its Circle Interchange project. The bridge should rebuilt to accommodate a pedestrian street. However, rebuilding isn’t necessary and our proposal can be implemented in situ.

Ryan Lakes with Vocalo producer and cohost Molly Adams at the Vocalo studio in the WBEZ studio. 

Updated March 20 to bring the chronology of events up-to-date.