Capital MetroRail
04.02.2010
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority launched Austin’s foray into passenger rail last week with the opening of the Capital MetroRail Red Line between Leander and Austin. I’ve been following ridership statistics the agency has been posting on Twitter @CapMetroRail and, predictably, the naysayers are already at it with the skepticism. And, just as predictably, the loudest critics (and some of the most ardent supporters) are not offering much in the way of objective, data-driven analysis. We should fix that now before we get into debating expansion plans.
I am not a transportation planner, so I can’t comment about the Red Line’s early performance. But I can point you to a free resource that may be helpful for benchmarking ridership and assessing progress over time as the system is more fully developed.
U.S. Census Bureau hosts a free data tool called OnTheMap, which allows you to analyze commuting data. The service uses unemployment insurance forms and Census records to plot where people live and work, so as long as you are covered by unemployment insurance (most workers but excludes self-employed), you should be able to find yourself in the data. Census uses statistical techniques to protect individual confidentiality, so it’s not as Big Brother as it sounds.
According to this data from the Census, 4,836 people living in Leander commuted to Austin for work in 2008, which was more than 50 percent of the total number of employed people in Leander. In other words, a slight majority of the city’s workforce traveled to Austin somehow in 2008. Here are maps showing where in Austin the Leander residents were working, including a close-up of downtown Austin. Each blue symbol represents at least one worker.
Census updates this data each year, so why not compare it to MetroRail ridership data to see what we can learn? We don’t need to stop there – the GIS enabled interface is flexible so you can analyze standard geographies like cities and zip codes or draw your own shapes on the map and organize the data that way. Seems like a reasonable way to plan locations for future stations and evaluate planned TOD sites as well.
Combine free data and software from Census and interest in Gov 2.0 from groups like Semantic Web Austin and others and we could learn some really interesting things.
2 Responses to “Capital MetroRail”
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Civic Analytics LLC is an Austin-based economic research and consulting firm. Brian Kelsey, Principal, blogs here about big data, economic development, and the Austin economy. Views here are his own. Photo credit: Austin Business Journal
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Excellent suggestion. This would be one nice objective way to analyze ridership. Of course, if done correctly mass transit is designed for future grow, not just the current population, so this analysis would not be the end of the story, but it is a good way to get around all of the shouting that seems to be taking place.
Thanks, Michael. I’ve read about some amazing third-party e-Gov apps catching on in cities like San Francisco and Washington DC, as well as right here in the region in Manor. The Texas Tribune is also making significant contributions to data availability. Maybe all the attention paid to Cap Metro and ridership statistics will entice a few developers to take this on.