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Interactive visualization of commute times for all US cities

trulia.com

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Re: Interactive visualization of commute times for all US cities

#81

Post by elliottcarlson »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #37
elliottcarlson wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks - it actually seems close to accurate for me - though I have an approximate 2 hour commute door to door so it's purely guessing on the remainder of the trip. Will the outer boroughs of NYC receive transportation options as well?

Where do you live and work? 4 hours of commute a day seems ... excessive. (I'm guessing, based on your question, that you work in NYC but live in another state, and probably spend most of those two hours sitting on a train, which would make it less, uh, awful-seeming.)

Sadly, I live in Staten Island, still one of the boroughs. I live on the southern end of the island, and work near the Empire State Building. While it is indeed excessive, it's on a nice comfortable tour style bus so I get an extra 2 hour nap time in the morning and can get work done on my way home - and I save more money due to far lower rent.

Re: Interactive visualization of commute times for all US cities

#83

Post by lallysingh »

dkarl wrote: post #48
shashashasha wrote: post #2

Hi, Sha from Trulia here. I worked on some of the frontend aspects of this visualization and would be happy to answer any questions. We're pulling in OSM road data and published GTFS files for public transit routing. I just linked to SF but you can also search for other cities: http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/new-york-ny http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/miami-fl http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/austin-tx

Times seem inflated in Austin, too. The smaller the time, the greater the error. The ten-minute area should be two or three times larger, but the 45-minute area bears some resemblance to rush-hour reality. Also, every route seems to be treated the same. In the morning, the road I live on is always empty in one direction and congested in the other. I used to commute against traffic and now go the same way as everybody…

Funny, commute times for both me and my wife in the NJ/NY area are longer than those listed here.

That said, it's not too far off, and useful for when we buy a home.

Re: Interactive visualization of commute times for all US cities

#84

Post by jaredsohn »

Mapnificent (http://www.mapnificent.net/) does something like this and even has an API.

I started writing a Chrome extension using the API that you could apply to any existing Google Maps v3 map (such as AirBnB), but I've abandoned it since 1) I was disappointed that quite a few sites with Google maps are still using older versions (such as Padmapper) and 2) I lack time. I believe the Chrome extension portion is working, but it needs a UI overlayed on the map for specifying locations of interest.

If anyone is interested in working on this, send me a message and I'll post what I have to github.

Re: Interactive visualization of commute times for all US cities

#86

Post by rdl »

It might be worth doing "rush hour" and "non-rush hour". It takes me 48 minutes door to door from downtown Oakland to Mountain View, going 80 on I-880 and 70-75 on 84 and 101 (i.e. flow of traffic, and at the speed where you won't get a speeding ticket even for going past a cop, especially if you slow down slightly on seeing one..).

It takes 1.5-2h during rush hour on the same route if anything goes wrong (50-75% of the time there is at least one accident or construction).

Both numbers are meaningful, but distinct.

Transit is the same way, in the other direction -- during peak commute hours, trains are frequent and/or synced. During off-hours, you can be waiting 30-59 minutes for a connection, 1-2 times.

Re: Interactive visualization of commute times for all US cities

#87

Post by swdunlop »

peterwwillis wrote: post #8
shashashasha wrote: post #2

Hi, Sha from Trulia here. I worked on some of the frontend aspects of this visualization and would be happy to answer any questions. We're pulling in OSM road data and published GTFS files for public transit routing. I just linked to SF but you can also search for other cities: http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/new-york-ny http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/miami-fl http://www.trulia.com/local#commute/austin-tx

Is this the absolute worst-case commute times? It never takes me that long to commute into/out of miami, or baltimore, or fort lauderdale. More like half the time. DC actually seemed like it went the opposite way as it usually takes an hour and a half to get from VA through the beltway into DC while the map showed only an hour for as far out as Dale City. A half hour (or more) from Petworth into Downtown during rush…

Yeah, looked at Seattle -- what is typically an insane 60m commute (the 520 floating bridge) is a cheerful 20-25m. NYC was also pretty laughable -- traffic really matters outside of sprawl cities with six lane highways masquerading as main streets.

If you are going to measure the distance and use that as a basis -- just report the distance. Otherwise, the estimates based on time will just flip the bozo bit in your customers.

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