Category: Information

Divvy activity in Wicker Park-Bucktown

February 13, 2014 / / 18 Comments
Divvy Bikes Outside Smoke Daddy

The Divvy bike-share station outside Smoke Daddy on Division Street at Wood Street is the fourth most popular in the Wicker Park & Bucktown neighborhoods. Photo by Daniel Rangel.

This is an analysis of the station use for Divvy bike-share stations in the Wicker Park and Bucktown neighborhoods (they blend together and it’s hard to know if the club or bar you’re going to is one neighborhood or the other).

Numbers represent a discrete trip, from one station to another (or the same station if the trip was greater than 3 minutes, to eliminate “hiccups” where the bike left the dock but didn’t actually go anywhere). Customer means someone who used a 24-hour pass and subscribers are annual members. Gender is self-reported on a member’s DivvyBikes.com user profile.

17 stations listed.

[table id=10 /]

This map of Wicker Park Divvy stations shows a residential service gap among the Damen/Cortland, Ashland/Armitage ( Metra) and North/Wood stations.

This map of Wicker Park Divvy stations shows a residential service gap among the Damen/Cortland, Ashland/Armitage (
Metra) and North/Wood stations.

Based on the popularity of the Ashland/Armitage station, which is right outside the Clybourn Metra station – a very popular train stop – I think there might be a residential service gap near Saint Mary of the Angels School. I recommend a Divvy station at Walsh Park this year because the Bloomingdale Trail will open and terminate there.

Notes

Not all of these stations were online when Divvy launched on June 28, 2013, but I haven’t yet looked into the history to see when each went online. Therefore direct comparisons are not appropriate until you have a trips per day number. Then, seasonality (very cold weather) has its own effect. At the very least, all stations were online by October 29th, with the final addition of the Lincoln Ave & Fullerton Ave (at Halsted) station.

Can someone use “R” to make a time series chart on the entire trips dataset so we can find the best cutoff time to eliminate “hiccups”?

Query used: SELECT count(`trip_id`), usertype, gender FROM `divvy_trips_distances` WHERE (start_station = ‘Claremont Ave & Hirsch St’ or end_station = ‘Claremont Ave & Hirsch St’) AND seconds > 180 GROUP BY `usertype`, gender

Where do Divvy riders go?

February 13, 2014 / / 14 Comments
Divvys

Divvy bikes fit people of almost all sizes. Photo by Mike Travis (mikeybrick).

Divvy released the 2013 trip data on Tuesday for their data challenge, and presented alongside me the data, basic system operations info, and existing visualizations and apps, at a Divvy data-focused Open Gov Hack Night I put together at the weekly meeting. Thank you Chris Whitaker at Smart Chicago Collaborative for writing the meeting recap.

I “ran the numbers” on some selected slices of the data to post on Twitter and they range from the useless to useful! I’m using the hashtag #DivvyData.

  • Average trip distance of members in 2013 is estimated to be slightly shorter than casuals: 1.81 miles versus 1.56 miles – tweet
  • Bike 321 has traveled the furthest: 989 miles. Beat the next bike by 0.2 miles – tweet
  • Women members on average took longer trips (but fewer trips overall) on @DivvyBikes than men in 2013. – tweet
  • The average trip distance of 759,788 trips (by members and casuals) in 2013 is an estimated 1.68 miles. – tweet
  • In 2013, 79.05% of member trips were by men and 20.95% by women. – tweet
  • On average in 2013, 24-hour pass holders (whom I call casuals) made trips 2.5x longer (time wise) than members. – tweet
  • Damen/Pierce Divvy station (outside the Damen Blue Line station) is most popular in Wicker Park-Bucktown – data

And other stats, presented as embedded tweets:

 

 

Chicagoland transit funding has no traction

February 7, 2014 / / 2 Comments
Two maps showing the extent of the rapid transit network in 1950 and 2010.

I reviewed Metropolitan Planning Council’s short and easy-to-read report about existing funding conditions of Chicagoland transit (CTA, Metra, and Pace) for Streetsblog Chicago. It was more eye-opening that I expected, mainly because I didn’t realize how poorly we fund transit here compared to cities nationwide and around the world.

The bit about only Atlanta spending less than Chicago when you compare our regions’ funding levels to what it was 20 years ago really caught some people’s attention.

The other part of the report, co-authored by Yonah Freemark (who also writes the blog The Transport Politic), that got some attention was the above map that showed how the Chicago region had more rapid (frequent) rail transit in 1950 than 2010. Lower mileage and funding over the past three decades meant fewer riders – that part is obvious and has been known to me, transit planners and managers. But this much? I had no idea.

My tweet about this map – to which Eric Fischer, Mapbox map designer and map historian responded with a map from one of the predecessor departments* of the current Chicago Department of Transportation – was retweeted ten times and clicked on over 100. That more than 70% of Chicagoland workers drive to work alone is not surprising given that our rapid transit network is built around rush hour service to downtown, where a minority of jobs are located.

* The department name on the map, published in 1939, is listed as Department of Subways and Traction, headed by commissioner Philip Harrington. This became the Department of Subways and Superhighways. The map shows two cross-Loop (east-west) subways linking Michigan Avenue businesses and intercity electric trains (that travel south, southeast, and near southwest) with the Union and Northwestern train stations (where people board trains to the west, northwest, north, and southwest).

How Chicagoans commute map: An interview with the cartographer

January 24, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Chicago Commute Map by Transitized

A screenshot of the map showing Lakeview and the Brown, Red, Purple and Purple Line Express stations.

Shaun Jacobsen blogs at Transitized.com and yesterday published the How Chicagoans Commute map. I emailed him to get some more insight on why he made it, how, and what insights it tells about Chicago and transit. The map color-symbolizes census tracts based on the simple majority commuting transportation mode.

What got you started on it?

It was your post about the Census data and breaking it down by ZIP code to show people how many homes have cars. I’ve used that method a few times. The method of looking up each case each time it came up took too long, so this kind of puts it in one place.

What story did you want to tell?

I wanted to demonstrate that many households in the city don’t have any cars at all, and these residents need to be planned for as well. What I really liked was how the north side transit lines stuck out. Those clearly have an impact on how people commute, but I wonder what the cause is. Are the Red and Brown Lines really good lines (in people’s opinions) so they take them, or are people deciding to live closer to the lines because they want to use it (because they work downtown, for example)?

The reason I decided to post the map on Thursday was because while I was writing the story about a proposed development in Uptown and I wanted  information on how many people had cars around that development. As the map shows, almost all of Uptown is transit-commuting, and a lot of us don’t even own any cars.

What data and tools did you use?

I first used the Chicago Data Portal to grab the census tract boundaries. Then I grabbed all of the census data for B08141 (“means of transportation to work by number of vehicles available”) and DP04 (“selected housing characteristics”) for each tract and combined it using the tract ID and Excel’s VLOOKUP formula.

Read the rest of this interview on Web Map Academy.

Wayfinding signs at Van Buren Street Metra station are incomplete

January 13, 2014 /

New RTA interagency transfer signage near Van Buren Street Metra Electric station

“B” marks a new bus boarding area near the Van Buren Street Metra Electric station.

The Regional Transportation Authority has spent $2 million to improve wayfinding between CTA, Metra, and Pace train stations and bus stops in a needed effort to connect newbies and long-time residents to their next transfer.

Some of the signs need to show better information, though. The RTA installed signs at the Van Buren Street Metra Electric station at Michigan Avenue that create “bus loading groups,” similar to bus bays at suburban park & rides.

It works like this: you come across the nearest bus stop – I happened upon boarding area B – hoping to find the route you need. Instead, though, that route stops at boarding area A. The sign at boarding area B points you in the direction of A and from where you stand you can see a sign that identifies A.

RTA’s signs have two issues. First, they don’t tell you that boarding area C is across the street – unless you inspect the small map – and instead point you in the direction of A (from B). If you walk in the direction of the arrow from boarding area B you will not run into boarding area C or a sign that tells you where to cross the street in order to access C.

The first issue creates the second problem: by reading and relying upon the sign’s text you can’t know at which boarding area, A or C, you should board a bus route that stops at both boarding areas. (Those who also study the maps on another side of the sign will have better luck.) That’s because the same route operates in both directions and if you’re not familiar with the route, you won’t know which direction takes you towards your destination.

New RTA interagency transfer signage near Van Buren Street Metra Electric station

Both boarding areas A and C will get you on the 3, 4, J14, and 26, but only the map on the other side tells you which direction they go. Also, while the arrow points in the direction of boarding areas A and C, only the map tells you that A is across the street.

The fix seems an easy one. First, point the arrows on A and B across the street instead of north or south towards B or A, and add an intermediary sign along the walking path that communicates that “boarding area C is across the street.” Then, update the signs to indicate which direction the bus routes are going so that travelers are assured they need to visit C across the street for King Drive buses going towards Bronzeville or A for King Drive buses going toward Streeterville.

The RTA has installed other signage in this program at 95th and Western (CTA & Pace), Joliet Union Station (Metra & Pace), and Davis Station in Evanston (CTA, Metra, & Pace).