The NYPD's been burping out monthly crash data since City Council mandated they publish collision information back in 2011. But if you need something a little more comprehensive than an Excel spreadsheet or PDF to pinpoint problematic intersections, you're in luck—a new collision map will let you analyze two years of NYPD crash data, breaking down the information by category and highlighting crash-prone areas via heat map.
The map, appropriately titled NYC Crashmapper, is the brainchild of John Krauss, a freelance webdesigner who's been putting NYPD crash data in more readable forms on his OpenScrape site for a while now. The map presents data regarding collisions involving no injuries, passenger injuries, cyclist injuries, pedestrian and motorist injuries, and helpfully pinpoints specific monthly crash sites since August 2011. You can zoom out for greater area data or zoom in to get information for specific intersections—5 intersections near Clinton and Delancey Streets saw two passenger and two motorist injuries in June 2013, and three passenger and one cyclist injury in July 2012, for instance—and the heat maps make it easy to map out more encompassing trends, like areas prone to cyclist accidents. "I’ve done heat maps and time-sliding maps before, but it was a fun challenge to load up and visualize over 30K intersections over a significant period of time," Krauss told Streetsblog. "It took a few weeks of on-and-off again work."
Krauss' map comes a few months after Transportation Alternatives released a collision crowd-sourcing map that allows users to mark collisions and near-misses they have either witnessed or experienced, and legislators hope the more comprehensive, readable data will make it easier to improve car, cyclist and pedestrian safety in the city; the map will be updated with new data monthly, and you can also download NYPD data in CSV form off Krauss' other site if you're looking to build or analyze on your own.
