Analysis of the Macon Bus System in the College Hill Corridor

Authored by: Batts and Yearty

Published: Cinco de Mayo, 2010

     To begin our project, we determined that we wanted to map out the bus stops and routes of Macon, Ga. After a quick assessment of the city and the Macon Transit Authority's (MTA) bus system, we narrowed our mapping site down to the College Hill Corridor. The College Hill Corridor, from here defined as “the Corridor,” is a section of Macon stretching from Mercer University's Historic Campus, further identified as “the Campus,” through the downtown area. It mainly follows College Street, Forsyth Street, Washington Avenue, Poplar Street, and Mulberry Street. The idea behind the Corridor is to promote student involvement in downtown Macon, and invite the greater community to invest in and around their city. The main goal of our project was to create data that previously did not exist, or was at least not available to the public, that showed the location and accessibility of bus stops in the Corridor.

     In order to project the location of the bus stops into our Geographic Information System, or GIS, we utilized Mercer University's Trimble mapping hand-held GPS units. These units run a version of Microsoft Windows and use TerraSync software to map any point, line, or polygon to within a one to three meter radius. Our task was to go out and physically map these locations with the unit.

     After driving madly throughout downtown, Joseph successfully managed to keep us alive, and we began to input our newly mapped data into our GIS. From here we began to add data layers that were provided to us through the Georgia GIS Data Clearinghouse, Mercer University Professor Dr. Brian Rood, and Mercer University GIS Lab Assistant Leslie Ouy. We included satellite imagery, landmark outlines, roads, and railroads to assist with familiarization of the location of the bus lines and bus stops. We utilized ArcMap GIS software to compile these layers as well as to georeference the physical location of all added features.

     From our maps, we extrapolated that the bus system seems to be better designed to transport people FROM downtown Macon rather than TO destinations in downtown. The lack of a singular route to connect Mercer's Campus to the eastern half of downtown is a point of weakness in the bus system. This weakness causes MTA patrons to pay more in bus fare because of the need to transfer, thereby deterring passengers who would otherwise opt for public transportation over personal. Furthermore, we included within our GIS the conditions of the bus stops. For the most part all that existed was the sign indicating the bus stop. Only one stop out of twenty-three was covered and only one other had a bench and trash receptacle. Two were even lacking sidewalk access leaving patrons to wait in the grass or on the street for the bus, a terrible situation for the disabled community. This leaves nineteen bus stops in our GIS with only signage on a sidewalk. The aesthetic value of the city is decreased by the lack of creative design associated with these bus stops.

     In preparing our GIS, we hope that the MTA will take into account our findings. We propose two improvements that we believe would make the bus system more rider friendly. The first is to add a new bus route (or alter an existing one; Route 5 would be the most likely candidate) that would stretch from Mercer's Main Campus across to the businesses on Riverside Drive in order to better incorporate the entirety of the College Hill Corridor. Secondly, we propose that the MTA make the bus stops more rider friendly and improve pedestrian access to the stops. Locating stops on a sidewalk, with a bench, and under some type of covering for occasions of inclement weather would likely increase ridership among Maconites, and would not hurt the system's image with respect to Mercer University Students. More aesthetically pleasing stops would also help the image of the bus system. Themed stops, such as one modeled on the annual Cherry Blossom Festival, are one avenue to pursue. In conclusion, we believe that the MTA bus system has a way to go before it can be considered an efficient, effective, and desirable mode of transportation for a majority of downtown residents and visitors.

Special thanks to: Georgia GIS Data Clearinghouse, Dr. Brian Rood, and Leslie Ouy!

New, Cam-Made Maps!!!

Here are two maps that I created all by myself!
The first map is one that I created earlier today. It will be appearing in a research article looking at kaolinite deposits in Georgia: 

The second map is one I created for my Epidemiology course. It shows the prevalence of different species of Hantavirus all over the world. Just some forewarning, the map is pretty flawed. Luckily for my group and me, our professor just took a quick glance at it and did not ask for the file afterwards. Let's have a little contest to see who can find all of the flaws in the map:

And finally, for those of you who follow this blog religiously, don't.

There is nothing particularly funny about that, just a hint of what I will be up to in the not-so-distant future .


Ciao,
Cam

The Day The Irish Slept In...

Howdy guys and gals! Here's to my first posting in March! What you will find below is a map I created today of the largest land owners of Gulf County Florida. The point of making this map was to learn how to Join and Relate databases (i.e. Excel, .csv files) with existing maps of an area. I think it's pretty cool to know how to do that. If you have any questions about it, just leave them as a comment and I will respond!

When you are finished admiring this awesome map, check this out. When you are done with that, how about this. And for a final hoorah today, check out this!!!

Duval County Map (w/political propoganda)

Check out this link if you care at all about the path of our country.

HA! Told you I would post a map!!! Here is a map I created today that shows some socio-economic data. What this map is showing is land value (expressed in dollars/acre) and the routes of public transportation in the county. You can see some neat occurrences when  looking at the map. The darker the shaded area, the more valuable the land. Notice that transportation routes make special detours on occasion to the darker areas, while most of the straight lines go through lower-valued areas. This appears contrary to what one might expect. I would like to critique my map by saying that to be more informative I should include actual transportation stops, rather than routes only.

New Maps from Cam!

 I APOLOGIZE for it being so long since my last post, but I have been working really hard on these new maps!

Above is officially my second map, which was considerably harder than my previous mapmaking experience. It is actually four maps showing the same data set, just with different data classification methods being used to sort the data.

The above map shows the different states of Mexico, sorted by population.

This map is my most complex so far. It shows a lot of the major features of Central Mexico, including Roads, Rivers, Railways, and Urban Areas. Also, if you will bring your attention to the inset at the top, I just want to point out that it was very complicated to create, and I am quite proud of it.

 

This final map is one of the Elevation of Mexico. I used a raster file of the elevation contours, inverted the color scheme, and added all of the frivalities that make a map pleasant to look at. I have become so proficient with making maps that it only took me about ten minutes to create this! I am getting good, but I still need to get better... 

Extra Assignment: Geocaching is a virtual game played with GPS units that involves hiding and seeking small containers, or caches.

As for my daily dose of links to keep you entertained, you may want to try this link.

Notes, Ramblings, and My First Map!!!

 Hey, hey, hey! I just made my first map! It is a world map that details world population by country. I would very much like for it to be critiqued, so if anyone out there in Cyber-Land has a few minutes, tell me what you like and don't like about the map.

As for the rest of this entry, it's just some class notes and other info. I forgot to bring a pen to class, so no writing for me!!! Unfortunately, I am not a great typist, so these notes are, as my former In-School-Suspension teacher used to say, "Rude, crude, and uncouth." However crude, here they are:

On the Mercator projection, the distance measurements are true for the equator and about 15 degrees north and south of the equator. Large areas are distorted on a Mercator projection, most extremely so around the poles. The Mercator projection is a conformal map, meaning that it preserves shapes and angles. In a transverse Mercator, the same logic applies, only the area that is not distorted is at the poles. In order to get a more accurate picture of any given area on Earth, run the Mercator projection’s “great circle” around the Earth around the desired area.

Polyconic Map Projection

Equidistant Conic Map Projection

Lambert Conformal Conic

Gnomonic Projection

Albers Projection

Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area

Orthographic Map Projection

Robinson Map Projection

Sinusoidal Equal Area Projection

Stereographic Projection

Azimuthal Projection Map

Miller Cylindrical Projection

Here is a link to detailed descriptions of the aforementioned maps.

I think that is going to be all for this edition of GIS WTF? I am going to be traveling to Memphis tomorrow for a Rifle Match, so I will not be attending the Thursday class, but I will try to post something from the trip for all of my loyal followers. Until then, this should keep you entertained. If not, and you are a fellow Cochranite, feel free to use this nifty website I stumbled upon to see what your neighbor's land is worth! Finally, if none of the above links are working, then you must be into this...

History of Maps, Part 1

A Brief Who's Who and What's What of Maps and Mapping

George F. Jenks: Jenks' accomplishments are not as well recognized by the internet community as the next three men on this list, but from what I was able to deduce he derived new methods for showing maps on the computer. His paper "The Data Model Concept in Statistical Mapping" introduced the "Jenks Optimization Method," the particulars of which I am sure I will become more familiar with as the semester goes on.

Erwin Raisz: Raisz wrote the book on cartography. Literally, his General Cartography (1938) was the first published textbook on cartography. In doing so, he introduced the world to the "language" of cartography. By describing landforms as "orthoapsidal" or "armadillo," he gave us the vocabulary and map skills to adequately define and describe what we were wanting to map.

John Paul Goode: Goode developed a new world map that attempted to eliminate the area distortions that were present at the poles on older versions of world maps. His map, called a Homolosine projection because it combined the homolographic and sinusoidal projections, converged the two at the latitude where the scales were the same, and then merged the two there.

Waldo Tobler: An influential figure in cartography. Tobler is a Swiss-American who currently holds a teaching position in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was awarded a honoris causa from the University of Zurich in 1988 for his lifetime work in cartography. His main contribution to geography is the idea that "everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related to each other." This is known as the First Law of Geography.






A Note on Maps: Did you know that the earliest known map was made by the Babylonians almost 8,000 years ago? If you are interested and would like to know more about this, click here, or here, or even here, but not here. And, for the love of God, whatever you do, don't click here.

GIS POP QUIZ 1

Hello all!

I am about to take a quiz on this blog, so if you are also taking this quiz with me, DON'T PEAK!!! If you are following along at home, feel free to steal my answers and learn more about GIS! FTR, these answers may not be the most correct. Await my instructor's comment on the grade before taking this for absolute truth...

Question 1: What are the skills necessary to be a good cartographer?

The man on the moon does not exist! Trust me, or ask a cartographer. At least a good cartographer would tell you that he isn't real. That is one skill that he must have, knowing the difference between fact and fiction. But, more importantly, he would need to know how to make a good map. See my answer below to find out what all that entails. Furthermore, a good cartographer would be able to take in a task (say, someone asks him to make a map of Mercer University's Macon campus, highlighting the current parking areas) and put out a map that does just that. Of course, he would need to gain more insight into what the customer would want, so he would have to be able to communicate with him/her very effectively. Beyond that, the cartographer would need to be able to know how to gain information and datasets that detail the area to be mapped. These are but a few of the general skills that a cartographer would need to be successful.


Question 2: Distinguish between the elements that result in a "good map" and a "bad map."

A good map is going to have many elements that accomplish one purpose: making the map as easy to read and informative as possible. A scale and legend are must haves; they give the map reader much information about how to interpret the map. Also, easy-to-read color schemes are definitely needed. If the colors are offputting, then the reader will not want to look at the map and will not be as comfortable getting the information that he/she needs. When filling out a map with detail, simpler is better. Too much information is clutter at best, unreadable at worst.

A bad map is much easier to define. It is simply a map that isn't good. A bad map is missing one or more parts that make a good map, or is difficult to read and/or simply uninformative.


Well, that's it for my quiz today. I hope you have learned something about maps and map making, or at the very least, Dr. Rood has found it in his heart to give me an A.

Until next time,
Keep reading and playing along!

GIS in the PLK

I just installed my ESRI ArcMap software on my personal laptop in my Plunkett dorm room. It comes loaded with some base maps of the different regions of the United States, but as for any detailed maps or data sets, it is quite bare. To combat this problem, I Googled for some data sets. I came up with a site, http://www.fws.gov/data/statdata/, which has many links to the different States' public data sets. I registered with the Georgia Data Clearinghouse at http://data.georgiaspatial.org, which has let me access many of the different maps and data sets for the State of Georgia. I am busy now playing with the ArcMap software and learning more about how it works, what style maps are pleasing to the eye, and how to manipulate the data that I place onto the map. I will report back to you when I do something exciting!

Tomorrow's just your future yesterday

Where's the Fun?

This is a blog following Cam Yearty's GIS experience at Mercer University. For those of you who are unfamiliar: A Geographic Information System (GIS), is any system that captures, stores, analyzes, manages, and presents data that is linked to location. Technically, a GIS is a system that includes mapping software and its application to remote sensing, land surveying, aerial photography, mathematics, photogrammetry, geography, and tools that can be implemented with GIS software. Still, many refer to "Geographic Information System" as "GIS" even though it doesn't cover all tools connected to topology (Thanks, Wikipedia).

In this class we will be learning the basics of GIS as well as participating in a project using the skills that we have learned. I am sure that this will be an interesting experience.