Transportation
Just came across this excellent flow map tool that takes a google sheet and turns it into an interactive flow map. It’s super-easy to use, here is a quick demo.
We are using the commuting flow data between census subdivisions from the 2016 census. First we load the required libraries
library(tidyverse) library(cancensus) #remotes::install_github("mountainmath/statcanXtabs") library(statcanXtabs) library(sf) library(googlesheets4) Next we create the google sheet for our flow map. It comes with three sheets, one defining overall properties, one defining the locations and one for the flows.
Almost three years ago I ran the numbers to identify “Vancouver’s most lucrative fire hydrant”.
Behold, Vancouver's most lucrative fire hydrant. 815 tickets issued in 7 years. Red curb markings might be advisable. Data via @VanOpenData pic.twitter.com/j4Po9UpiCc
— Jens von Bergmann (@vb_jens) February 1, 2017 Being a card-carrying Shoupista it’s high time for me to do an update. And looking back I can’t help but realize how my approach to data analysis, even about such trivial things as parking tickets, has changed since then.
Metro Vancouver is growing, both in terms of population and jobs. That means the number of people commuting to work is growing and putting a strain on our transportation system. The nature of that strain depends to a large extent on how people are getting to and from work. The Canadian census started collecting data on how people get to work in 1996, which allows us to see how commuters and commute choice have changed over time.
Today I saw a particlarly uninformed tweet claiming that “the most important areas to densify are near transit and are mostly upzoned already”. I tend to agree with the first part, but the notion that our frequent transit network is “mostly upzoned already” is plain wrong. I suspect that a lot of other casual observers share the misconception. So I decided to take this as an opportunity for a quick post to quantify zoning in our frequent transit network.
When we (Denis and Jens) got together for coffee the other day, Denis showed off some maps of renter density in the frequent transit network that he was working on. The idea immediately clicked and we decided to work this out together. Motivated by the issue of renter demoviction caused by the 2017 Metrotown Plan, we set out to quantify how one could plan for displacement on a regional level, instead of treating it as an unwelcome consequence of development at the lot level.
