1. NYC Subway Station Location Data (geojson)
Source: NYC.gov NYC 3D Model by Community District
Use: For Locating subway station as points
2. NYC Pedestrian Street Network Data
Source: OpenStreetMap
Use: For creating street network for distance calculation
3. Manhattan Building Footprint Data (geojson)
Source: NYC OpenData BUILDINGS
Use: For building geometry generation
4. Manhattan Building Height Data (csv)
Source: NYC OpenData BUILDINGS
Use: For building geometry generation
5. Manhattan Building Volume Data (csv)
Source: NYC OpenData BUILDINGS
Use: For calculating weighted average on building floor area
Manhattan Transit Accessibility Mapping
Summer 2025
Parametric Modeling
Shortest-Path Calculation
Urban Data Visualization
Tools:
Python: (Data Preparation & Wrangling)
Rhino + Grasshopper (Data Modeling & Visualization)
Flow Chart
Datasets
Process
- Distance Calculation (Street Network Only)
- Convert streets into a weighted graph (nodes = intersections, edges = street segments, weight = segment length).
- Snap each building centroid to the nearest street and assign it to a graph node vb.
- Snap each subway station point to the nearest street and assign it to a graph node vs.
- Compute distance only along the street network using shortest path:
d(b, s) = Σ Le over edges in the shortest path (vb → vs)
- Finding Street For Each Building
- Run multi-source shortest path from all station nodes.
- Assign each building to its nearest station:
s* = argmins d(b, s)
- Extract the shortest-path edges and allocate that street set to the building.
- Aggregate edge usage counts to get street “flow” intensity.
-
Coloring
- Streets: vary thickness by edge flow; color by nearest-station catchment or flow intensity.
- Buildings: color by distance to assigned nearest station.
- Statistical Analysis
- Compute summary statistics from all building distances { d(b, s*) }: min, median, mean, max.
Outcome & Statistics
- Average Walking Time:
- 5.132 min
- Median Walking Time:
- 4.687 min
- Maximum Walking Time:
- 21.18 min
- % of buildings with
- Less than 5 min:
- 55.40%
- Between 5 and 10 min:
- 39.45%
- More than 10 min:
- 5.15%
Statistical Summary:
Regional Analysis
Lower Manhattan has the highest concentration of subway stations, while the East Village has the lowest. Almost all of the buildings in financial district is withint 3 minutes of walking time to the station, while majority of the buildings in East Village requires up to 20 minutes of walking time to the nearest subway station.
Midtown shows a clear contrast between the densely served central area and the less connected waterfront zones. Due to the concentrated subway stations in the commercial districts, residential regions are underprivileged for transit access.
Upper Manhattan shows most even distribution of subway stations. Majority of the buildings are withint 15 minutes walking time to the station, even for buildings closer to the waterfront.