Uber is providing access to anonymized data from over 2 billion trips to help improve urban planning around the world. Uber movement provides a new way on how traffic is moving around in your city. It was designed in partnership with urban planners and transportation professionals. Tools are included to analyze traffic changes over time. Check it out!
Thanks goes to Barry Waite for finding this one!
With all the rain we have been receiving, I thought this site might be useful for those driving around. LA County Department of Public Works has a road closures website which shows road closures in the unincorporated areas of the county ONLY. So if you plan on travelling in the mountains, you would probably want to consult this site.
Check out this article about mapping building shadows of New York City. Building shadows were measured using a shadow accumulation technique and the dates of December 21 (winter solstice), June 21 (summer solstice), and September 22 (autumnal equinox) were chosen for the shadow profile. Shadows can be greatly distorted when they are near the horizon, so all the shadows in the model were estimated from one and a half hours after sunrise and one and a half hours before sunset.
Thanks goes to Mary Bates from College of the Canyons for finding this article!
Check out these maps that show the massive scope of America’s infrastructure using data from OpenStreetMap and various government sources.
52 19th and early 20th century maps of California have been added to the California Historical Society’s new Digital Library. The images represent a sampling of unique or uncommonly held titles ranging geographically from an 1863 map of the copper region of Del Norte County in the north, to a circa 1866 Topographical Map Showing the Locations of the Sutro Tunnel and the Comstock Lode, to a colorful 1913 townsite map of Date City (now called Calipatria) in Imperial County in the south. In between are city, county, mining, real property, water-supply, road, and railroad maps of various localities throughout the state. Check it out!
The Protected Areas Database of the United States (PADUS) is the official inventory of public parks and other protected open space. With more than 3 billion acres in 150,000 holdings, the spatial data in PAD-US represents public lands held in trust by thousands of national, State and regional/local governments, as well as non-profit conservation organizations.
It is possible to download data for the entire US or a state from the Data page. Data can be downloaded in Shapefile or Geodatabase format. A fact sheet can be found here. To view data in a viewer or download the data click below.
The NOAA Office for Coastal Management has released a sea level rise viewer. You can use the web mapping tool to visualize community-level impacts from coastal flooding or sea level rise (up to 6 feet above average high tides). You can also download the data used in the app or access the map services. Check it out!
This interesting interactive map makes it possible for you to click on an icon to get directions on where to sit to get the best Wi-Fi access as well as instructions for entering the password. Check it out!
For decades the CIA relied on geographers and cartographers for planning and executing operations around the world. During the 1940’s in support of the military’s efforts in WWII, cartographers pioneered many map production and thematic design techniques, including the construction of 3D map models. To celebrate 75 years of serious cartography, the Central Intelligence Agency has declassified and put decades of once secret maps online. Check it out!
You can read more about it here too.
Check out this story about James Niehues, the person that hand paints all those ski resort maps that you probably have used or seen before.
