Project Update #4

Okay folks, so I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that I STILL have not been able to obtain the accident data from the NYS Department of Transportation... nor have I heard back from the Albany Bicycling Coalition! That said, it will probably be another week or so before I get a solid draft of my map completed. HOWEVER, the good news is that despite my issues with acquiring data, I was still able to make some progress on my project over the past few days! On top of finding some relevant maps from the Capital District Transportation Coalition's website, I sent in an official FOIL request to the Department of Transportation! Below are some screenshots and/or links to the maps I found today:

Map 1- "NYS Department of Transportation Functional Class Viewer."

Map 2- "Capital District Transportation Committee's 2013-2018 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) Map"

Map 3- "Mohawk-Hudson Bike-Hike Map: Albany to Cohoes Section"

Link= http://www.cdtcmpo.org/mohhudns.pdf

Map 4- "Mohawk-Hudson Bike-Hike Map: Cohoes to Rotterdam Junction Section"
Link= http://www.cdtcmpo.org/mohhudew.pdf

Map 5- "CDTC's Bicycle Pedestrian Priority Network"
Link= http://www.cdtcmpo.org/networks/bikeped.pdf

Since many of these maps were created using arcgisonline, my goal is to find a way to transfer some of their layers into my own ArcMap document! Needless to say, I have quite a bit of work to do over the next couple of days!

Until next time,
-Christie 

Project Update #3

Unfortunately, I still haven't heard back from the Albany Bike Coalition or the New York State Department of Transportation. That said, another week has gone by without making any progress on my actual map. My hope is that I will be able to obtain some information after making couple of phone calls. If not, I may have to start getting creative.

Despite the setbacks I've had so far, I discovered that there may be a way to upload old accident data from Albany County using a website called geocommons.com. Although I didn't have time to experiment with the website today, I will do some exploring before next week.

Project Update #2

Well, here I am again. The past week went by real fast, but I did get the chance to make a little progress on my project. Although I still have to email the New York State Department of Transportation, I contacted the Albany Bicycling Coalition yesterday to ask for any available maps of the current bike routes in Albany County. Over the last few days, I also looked up some background information on Albany County's biking projects. While doing this background research, I discovered that the City of Albany actually has a master bike plan (for more information, click the link below). By next week, I hope to have at least some data on the current bike routes so that I can post a map for you all to see!

https://docs.google.com/a/uhls.lib.ny.us/viewerurl=http://www.cdtcmpo.org/linkage/materials/albbikeplan/present2.pdf

Project Update #1

At this point in time, I have not made much progress on my course project since the last post. I went on a Habitat For Humanity trip to South Carolina over spring break, so my time to work on the project was very limited. By now, I was hoping to have at least some data sets from the New York State Department of Transportation as well as information about the current bike routes in Albany County. So much for that! Instead, I think I will push my project work plan back a week. Over the next few days, I plan on sending some emails out to obtain the data I need.