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NYC Subwaysheds

subwaysheds.com

51–60 of 116 posts

Re: NYC Subwaysheds

#51
post #2

Nice first pass, but its clearly calculating these as the pigeon flies and not taking the various stitched together street grids into account. You should get diamond and square shapes, not circles, for the most part. I'm working on a redesigned subway map / nomenclature an indicators of walking time to nearest stations is a subtle feature I want to build in. Something between a watershed like this and a vornoi diagra…

It's using some hybrid of isochrones & walking time "as the crow flies." The subway travel is in isochrones, but once you exit the subway the walking time assumes walking in straight lines with no obstructions in any direction. So yes that's inaccurate but it's relevant that only the walking time is done so. I assume subway ride time is based on subway schedule times.

Re: NYC Subwaysheds

#52
This kind of tool would be absolutely brilliant as part of Zillow.

I'd love to see various distances from properties assuming bike, or walking, or driving, etc.

Everyone who lives in a neighborhood knows these things, but it's really hard to figure it out before without traveling there and attempting some things.

Re: NYC Subwaysheds

#53
post #2

Nice first pass, but its clearly calculating these as the pigeon flies and not taking the various stitched together street grids into account. You should get diamond and square shapes, not circles, for the most part. I'm working on a redesigned subway map / nomenclature an indicators of walking time to nearest stations is a subtle feature I want to build in. Something between a watershed like this and a vornoi diagra…

No, it is clearly not as the pigeon flies. That is incorrect. When I click on my local subway stop it seems entirely accurate, and the stations don't form any kind of circle at all. In fact I can't find any subway stop origin that seems to form anything even close to a circle. Also, according to the "about" it's calculating from actual subway schedules. And it has nothing to do with street grids. It's subway trips, n…

From the About

"Isochrones are manually calculated using turf.js assuming 1.2m/s walking speed after the subway trip. These are simple buffers around each station/prior isochrone and do not take the street network into account."

Re: NYC Subwaysheds

#54

I'm not from NYC, so maybe this is obvious, but why can you not get from Staten Island to Manhattan in 40mins? Is there really not bridge/tunnel that can get you there?

Ferry runs 24/7 and is free.

Re: NYC Subwaysheds

#55
post #37

I'm not from NYC, so maybe this is obvious, but why can you not get from Staten Island to Manhattan in 40mins? Is there really not bridge/tunnel that can get you there?

There is no bridge or tunnel. One was started back in the 1920s and parts of it still remain but it was never completed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staten_Island_Tunnel It’s kind of a political hot potato few want to touch these days. A tunnel feels like a no brainier but a lot of NIMBY types in Staten Island don’t want a fast connection to the rest of the city as it would likely change the area dramatically.

It's also very across the harbor between Staten Island and Manhattan. Any bridge or tunnel would be multiple times longer than any other bridge or tunnel in the area (and correspondingly expensive).

Re: NYC Subwaysheds

#56
post #9

Since it's Mapbox I wonder if they are using the Isochrone API[1], or if this is more custom b/c it's subways? I agree an adjustable duration of trip would be neat. [1] - https://docs.mapbox.com/api/navigation/isochrone/

Here's the author's source code: https://github.com/chriswhong/nyc-subway-isochrones

If they were using the Isochrone API, the buffers around the subway stations would take in account the street grid vs a circle.

That's really cool that Mapbox now offers an API to do this. It seems like it also factors in elevation as well!

Re: NYC Subwaysheds

#58
post #52

This kind of tool would be absolutely brilliant as part of Zillow. I'd love to see various distances from properties assuming bike, or walking, or driving, etc. Everyone who lives in a neighborhood knows these things, but it's really hard to figure it out before without traveling there and attempting some things.

Zillow already has that. You input an address and it tells you the distance in time by transportation method on each property details screen. You can also sort properties according to distance from the given address. The software labels it a "work" address, but you will face no consequences for using an address that you do not work at.

Re: NYC Subwaysheds

#59
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s still interesting/useful, though. Once you require factoring in average train wait times and stuff like that the project is going to be way too complex to ever be achievable.

for sure, it's still useful, but i think it might be worth some sort of down-weighting for trains that run less frequently. for example, if the ratio of local:express trains is 5:1, the watershed should be more heavily influenced by what's accessible in 40 minutes via local. this is also in part due to the way people use the subway in NY -- nobody looks at a timetable and says "i'll head down to the station to catch…

> this is also in part due to the way people use the subway in NY -- nobody looks at a timetable and says "i'll head down to the station to catch the 6:37 express" like you would in some cities with reliable timetables/schedules. in NY, you just go to the station and wait and hope the train you want shows up next/soon.

That was true 15 years ago, but it's less true today now that there's a multitude of apps (both the first-party MyMTA app and many third-party apps which are much better) which make this easy.

Even Google Maps gives train times in their directions, and they're mostly accurately updated as delays happen, etc.

Re: NYC Subwaysheds

#60
post #57

What's with the weird design decision not to have more West to East lines in NYC? It can make travel very convoluted.

With the exception of three stops on the UWS that took about a century to build[0] and one additional stop on the 7, ~all of the subway stops were built 80+ years ago, via one of three independent private train companies. Those three companies eventually went bankrupt and were taken over by the city, and then later the state.

So I wouldn't call anything a "design decision" in this case, insofar as it was never designed intentionally to be a comprehensive public transit system the way we think of it today.

[0] Not an exaggeration - Phase 1 was originally supposed to be completed before WWII.

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