Visualizing mobility in Washington D.C.

The District of Columbia has one of the most elaborate multimodal transportation systems in the USA. Residents, commuters, and visitors can use cars, transit, taxis, bicycles, and the ped-walk network to access goods and services throughout the District. However, congested travel, low travel time reliability, and bad coverage are issues across ways of transportation. The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) is working to understand these travel issues in order to better define a program of improvements to address them.

— PROJECT BACKGROUND

The District of Columbia has one of the most elaborate multimodal transportation systems in the USA. Residents, commuters, and visitors can use cars, transit, taxis, bicycles, and the ped-walk network to access goods and services throughout the District. However, congested travel, low travel time reliability, and bad coverage are issues across ways of transportation. The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) is working to understand these travel issues in order to better define a program of improvements to address them.

— TECHNICAL SETUP

The data for this project is collected from several data sources. These data files are loaded, filtered and visualized as maps in the microsite. The microsite allows users to explore the data in-depth based on selections made by visitors.

The reports are based on the same datasets and are downloadable from the microsite. These reports are less exploratory but offer conclusions by DDOT.

— DESIGN

Through captivating images and short text, each of the chapters starts by telling a story around a topical theme. The topic is introduced and it explains the challenges that DC faces. In the subsequent views, the maps is fixed in place on the right side. It is the common denominator on which a different datasets are loaded as the user scrolls through the chapters. Additional highlights, explanations and map controls allow the user to further deep dive the topic. This interplay between the map on the right and controls on the left creates a dynamic yet clear experience.

Our overall minimalistic style, the lines and shapes of the map dictate the atmosphere of every page. Focussing on content and a clean, elegant look and feel, the user is drawn into the topics. Throughout the website, four colors are used consistently to emphasize the different modes of transport, and red as an overall accent color.