Concerned about the challenges faced in funding King County Metro, data visualization expert James Davenport has turned to a form he knows best to express the importance of the bus and trolley transit system in the city. His 24 Hours of King County Metro visualization is below. See also our new series, Bus Stop.
I mused about the challenge of finding a data visualization to capture the emotion and gravity of this issue. Rather than produce some big infographic or series of detailed graphs, I decided to make an animation. This traces every bus through every stop, for one entire weekday. Note how our entire city, every major landmark and neighborhood, is traced by just plotting the bus stops. The buses thread the city like ants in a colony, connecting everyone and everywhere.
24 Hours of King County Metro from James Davenport on Vimeo.
Wow
This is really neat!
Are the dots in the water off of west seattle water taxis, ferries or buses on ferries?
On April 22, a vote will be held on a King County tax measure that would save hundreds of jobs and cuts to our Metro bus service. (74 routes eliminated and 107 with reduced service) Sixty dollars seems like a lot of money for each vehicle tab, but many thousands of drivers will end up paying more than that for increased gasoline costs AND loss of time due to increased traffic congestion on the freeways and streets of King County. If there was any doubt about that, just watch the video. Those buses move thousands of people to and from work, school, medical and family visits, and leisure activities and those people will have to get around somehow. Wonderful creation
How many of those buses are empty? I see quite a lot crossing the I-90 bridge.
I take the bus across Lake Washington at least twice a day, Joe, and I can assure you those buses are very well used.