Category Archives: Transportation

Massachusetts: Hawt… and Nawt

Posted on September 12, 2019 by

A map of urban heat islands in Eastern Massachusetts. Brighter colors represent relatively hotter summer conditions.  This map was created from a Landsat 8 land surface temperature composite of the last couple of summers, and was made by Krishna Karra … Continue reading →

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A day of traffic

Posted on January 29, 2016 by

If you’ve driven a car at all around these parts, you’ve certainly spent some time as a part of slow or stopped traffic. Despite how it may feel when you’re parked on the Southeast Distressway, Boston is, relatively speaking, not … Continue reading →

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MBTA map redesigns

Posted on September 11, 2013 by

Remember the MBTA map redesign “competition” from the summer? Well, looks like a good number of people were glad to surrender the rights to their work for free, and we the public now get to vote on six finalists. (But … Continue reading →

Posted in Transportation | Tagged | 7 Comments

Mapping Hubway availability

Posted on July 23, 2013 by

As an occasional Hubway user, I sometimes feel like some kind of transportation gambler. There’s a risk with each trip. Will docks be available where I’m going? Will bikes be available when I want to return, and docks available back … Continue reading →

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Live MBTA bus speeds

Posted on May 30, 2013 by

‘Tis the season to revisit and update some of our past projects. You may remember the map from November 2011 showing 24 hours of GPS location data from MBTA buses, colored according to their speeds. (A local adaptation of maps … Continue reading →

Posted in Transportation | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Visualizing Hubway, for real this time

Posted on November 5, 2012 by

How convenient. As soon as we got around to our previous post, in which we mapped some Hubway bike sharing data, a new visualization contest started. This time, MAPC and Hubway invited people to visualize every Hubway trip to date … Continue reading →

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MBTA + Boston Bikes Visualization

Posted on October 4, 2012 by and

Back in January, the MBTA and City of Boston sponsored a developer challenge to develop new apps and visualizations making use of real-time bus locations and Hubway bike sharing station data. For the visualization challenge, they provided three days’ worth … Continue reading →

Posted in Transportation | Tagged , | 4 Comments

You can’t get here from there

Posted on July 26, 2012 by

There’s an excellent Far Side cartoon of which I’m often reminded around here: a man in a car has asked a farmer for directions from Point B to Point A, as indicated by the map in the man’s hand. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Transportation | Tagged , | 35 Comments

Happy birthday, Red Line

Posted on March 23, 2012 by

Do you live, work, or ever travel in the area between Harvard Square and Park Street? If so, you know a piece of the MBTA Red Line that celebrates its 100th birthday today! Yes, what is now the Red Line … Continue reading →

Posted in Historical, Transportation | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

An MBTA bus-iness day

Posted on November 7, 2011 by

(Click to see the whole thing!) You know by now that real-time bus location data are available for the MBTA via NextBus. It’s very handy for riders, of course, but for cartographers it’s also something else: a gold mine of … Continue reading →

Posted in Transportation | Tagged , | 26 Comments