The Hubway Data Visualization Challenge was a contest run using the data released by the local bike share. I really wanted to do something for the contest and even started a project in October to try to do something with it.

You know how that turned out

Anyway, between finding myself with a life that I can fill occasionally with fun programming and the need to do some cool visualizations for my presentation at HTML5 Developer Conference, I resurrected the project and managed to finish the thing over a weekend.

What did I do?

The image above shows a snapshot of the final output. What does it show?

• The top ten Hubway departure points mapped against their top ten destinations.
• Google is queried for each departure/arrival pair to create a “bike-friendly” route between the two points.
• This is then plotted on the map using one color for each departure station. The size of the line is directly proportional to the number of trips for each departure and arrival pair.
• Every line is 40% opaque, so the darker the path on a particular road, the more different trips pass over that road.
• The bicycling layer is turned on, to show bicycle infrastructure. So basically, thick dark lines on top of a bike path = a good match for usage and infrastructure*.

*Theoretically. As the following table shows, the “bike friendly” route is not always the most direct. What I did here was calculate the correlation between the distance between the two latitude and longitude points in a straight line and the distance as calculated by the Google directions service. As you can see, some of the routes are 2x as far as the flying crow when approached on a bike-friendly route.

Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St.	The Esplanade – Beacon St. at Arlington St.	2.13
Boylston St. at Arlington St.	Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St.	2.04
Boylston St. at Arlington St.	TD Garden – Legends Way	1.98
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St.	TD Garden – Legends Way	1.93
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave.	Aquarium Station – 200 Atlantic Ave.	1.87
TD Garden – Legends Way	Boylston St. at Arlington St.	1.85
Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St.	Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St.	1.83
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St.	Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St.	1.83
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St.	The Esplanade – Beacon St. at Arlington St.	1.75
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St.	Stuart St. at Charles St.	1.74
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave	Boylston St. at Arlington St.	1.66
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St.	Boylston St. at Arlington St.	1.57
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave	Newbury St / Hereford St.	1.57
TD Garden – Legends Way	Post Office Square	1.56
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave	Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St.	1.51
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave	The Esplanade – Beacon St. at Arlington St.	1.5
Boylston St. at Arlington St.	Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St.	1.49
Newbury St. / Hereford St.	Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St.	1.47
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave.	TD Garden – Legends Way	1.46
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave.	Fanueil Hall – Union St. at North St.	1.46
Beacon St. / Mass Ave.	Boylston St. at Arlington St.	1.45
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave.	Post Office Square	1.45
Newbury St. / Hereford St.	Washington St. at Rutland St. Boston	1.45
South Station	TD Garden	1.44
Newbury St. / Hereford St.	Yawkey Way at Boylston St.	1.44
Back Bay / South End Station	Prudential Center / Belvidere	1.43
Boylston St. at Arlington St.	Kenmore Sq. /Comm Ave	1.42
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave.	South Station – 700 Atlantic Ave.	1.4
South Station	Seaport Hotel	1.39
TD Garden – Legends Way	South Station – 700 Atlantic Ave.	1.38
TD Garden – Legends Way	Faneuil Hall – Union St. at North St.	1.38
Boylston St. at Arlington St.	Mayor Thomas M. Menino – Government Center	1.38
Back Bay / South End Station	Christian Science Plaza	1.38
Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St.	Fanueil Hall – Union St. at North St.	1.36
Back Bay / South End Station	Boston Medical Center – 721 Mass. Ave	1.36
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave.	Rowes Wharf – Atlantic Ave	1.36
Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St.	Beacon St. / Mass Ave	1.35
Beacon St. / Mass Ave.	Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St.	1.35
Back Bay / South End Station	Washington St. at Rutland St. Boston	1.34
Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St.	Tremont St. / West St.	1.33
Beacon St. / Mass Ave.	TD Garden – Legends Way	1.33
TD Garden – Legends Way	Aquarium Station – 200 Atlantic Ave.	1.32
South Station	Cross St. at Hanover St.	1.31
South Station	Boylston St. at Arlington St.	1.31
Newbury St. / Hereford St.	Landmark Centre	1.31
TD Garden – Legends Way	Summer St. / Arch St.	1.3
Newbury St. / Hereford St.	Kenmore Sq / Comm Ave.	1.29
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St.	Beacon St / Mass Ave	1.28
Back Bay / South End Station	Stuart St. at Charles St.	1.28
Beacon St. / Mass Ave.	Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St.	1.28
South Station	Boylston St. / Berkeley St.	1.27
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave.	Congress / Sleeper	1.26
Back Bay / South End Station	Tremont St / W Newton St.	1.25
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave.	Seaport Square – Seaport Blvd. at Boston Wharf	1.25
Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St.	Stuart St. at Charles St.	1.22
Boylston St. at Arlington St.	Rowes Wharf – Atlantic Ave.	1.22
Back Bay / South End Station	Washington St. at Waltham St.	1.22
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St.	Kenmore Sq / Comm Ave	1.22
Beacon St. / Mass Ave.	The Esplanade – Beacon St. at Arlington St.	1.22
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave	Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St.	1.21
South Station	Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St.	1.2
Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St.	Newbury St. / Hereford St.	1.19
Newbury St. / Hereford St.	Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St.	1.19
South Station	Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave	1.17
South Station	Aquarium Station – 200 Atlantic Ave.	1.17
TD Garden – Legends Way	Rowes Wharf – Atlantic Ave.	1.17
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave.	Chinatown Gate Plaza – Surface Rd. at Beach St.	1.17
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St.	Cross St. at Hanover St.	1.16
TD Garden – Legends Way	Congress/Sleeper	1.15
Newbury St. / Hereford St.	Stuart St. at Charles St.	1.15
Boylston St. at Arlington St.	Tremont St. / West St.	1.13
TD Garden – Legends Way	Seaport Square – Seaport Blvd. at Boston Wharf	1.11
Back Bay / South End Station	Columbus Ave. at Mass Ave.	1.11
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St.	Mayor Thomas M. Menino – Government Center	1.11
Beacon St. / Mass Ave.	Boylston / Mass Ave	1.11
Newbury St. / Hereford St.	Packard’s Corner – Comm Ave. at Brighton Ave.	1.11
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave	Landmark Centre	1.09
South Station	Rowes Wharf – Atlantic Ave.	1.08
Back Bay / South End Station	Roxbury Crossing Station	1.07
Beacon St. / Mass Ave.	MIT at Mass Ave / Amherst St.	1.07
Newbury St. / Hereford St.	Boylston St. at Arlington St.	1.07
Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St.	South Station – 700 Atlantic Ave.	1.06
Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St.	Boylston St. at Arlington St.	1.06
Boylston St. at Arlington St.	Newbury St. / Hereford St.	1.06
Boylston St. at Arlington St.	South Station – 700 Atlantic Ave.	1.04
Beacon St. / Mass Ave.	Christian Science Plaza	1.02
Beacon St. / Mass Ave.	Kenmore Sq. / Comm Ave	1.01
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave	Agganis Arena – 925 Comm. Ave.	1
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave	B.U. Central – 725 Comm Ave	1
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave	Packard’s Corner – Comm. Ave at Brighton Ave.	1

The intent is to highlight where bicycle infrastructure can be improved in the city- especially for the presumably inexperienced cyclists on Hubway machines.

I’ll follow up with a post on the technical implementation shortly. In the interim, check out the code on Github