Visualizing Madison

Our case study on HSR involves looking specifically at station placement in Madison, WI. We have developed two different mapping applications for this case study; both can be found on this page. When looking at station placement in Madison, we are focused on four locations; the Kohl Center, the Monona Terrace, Yahara and 1st Street stop, and the Dane County Regional Airport. These locations were chosen based on a previous analysis of station accessibility. Our included layers and criteria for ranking and assessing these four stations include bus stations and routes, bike share stations and paths, population and demographic data, and tax parcel data.

Bike and Bus Accessibility

Our first map displays all four stations mentioned above as well as data layers for bus stops, bus routes, bikes share locations, and bike paths. The data layers are available as 1km and 2km buffers around the station; these distances were used to demonstrate optimal walking distances to the station as well as general accessibility around the station as we did not want to include features that were not relevant to the area surrounding the station in question. Click on a proposed train station location to the left of the map to bring it up on the map itself; doing this will activate the ability to toggle on or off the various data layers and their corresponding distance buffers. Clicking on a train station on the map will reveal overall statistics for those data layers, hovering over a bus station will bring up information on that stop, clicking on a bus station reveals the bus routes on the map corresponding to that station, and hovering over a bike share location will reveal the bike paths available.

Bus Stations 1km

•Kohl: 99

•Monona: 59

•Yahara: 67

•MSN: 10

Bus Stations 2km

•Kohl: 224

•Monona: 143

•Yahara: 156

•MSN: 57

Bike Shares 1km

•Kohl: 9

•Monona: 10

•Yahara: 2

•MSN: 0

Bike Shares 2km

•Kohl: 22

•Monona: 20

•Yahara: 5

•MSN: 0

The map above shows that the bus station and bike share placement within the city of Madison is relatively diversified, aside from the station at MSN (Dane County Regional Airport) which had only 10 bus stations within a 1 kilometer radius and had 0 bike share stations at both a 1 kilometer and 2 kilometer buffer. The Kohl station, Monona station, and Yahara station all had above 50 bus stops within a 1 kilometer radius and greater than 100 bus stops within a 2km radius. Regarding bike shares, both the Kohl station and Monona station both had plenty of options, while Yahara did not have as many as the previous two but were still present. Based on this information alone, Kohl and Monona stations seem to be most favorable, however it is not this easy.

Demographic and Parcel Impact

Our second map displays all four stations mentioned above as well as data layers for demographics/population and tax parcels. The data layers are also available as 1km and 2km buffers, for the same reasons mentioned above. The demographic layer is displayed as individual dots - 1 dot equals 1 person. The dots were generated from Census Block shapefiles - points were randomly generated within these blocks based on the 2010 Population Census data for the corresponding block. The dots are color-coded based on racial categories of White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Other. The legend for these dots can be viewed just below the map. Tax parcels are color coded on a gradual scale based on Net Taxes for that parcel - the darker the blue of each parcel, the higher the net taxes for that parcel. Instructions for the buttons on either side of the map work the same as above, however clicking on a tax parcel instead converts the map to a 3D viewpoint and extrudes the polygon of the tax parcel based on net taxes.

Demographics 1km

•Kohl: 20,803 White, 713 Black, 1,111 Hispanic, 2,513 Asian, 90 Other

•Monona: 9,171 White, 785 Black, 463 Hispanic, 462 Asian, 37 Other

•Yahara: 7,879 White, 523 Black, 488 Hispanic, 277 Asian, 55 Other

•MSN: 1,150 White, 142 Black, 137 Hispanic, 70 Asian, 9 Other

Demographics 2km

•Kohl: 33,992 White, 1,613 Black, 1,682 Hispanic, 3,281 Asian, 156 Other

•Monona: 26,608 White, 1,511 Black, 1,358 Hispanic, 2,354 Asian, 123 Other

•Yahara: 17,310 White, 944 Black, 868 Hispanic, 458 Asian, 93 Other

•MSN: 5,779 White, 1,118 Black, 730 Hispanic, 463 Asian, 49 Other

Tax Parcels 1km

•Kohl Average: 10,523

•Monona Average: 7,243

•Yahara Average: 6,087

•MSN Average: 7,892

•Kohl Property: 1,019 Commercial and 2,565 Residential

•Monona Property: 985 Commercial and 3,301 Residential

•Yahara Property: 255 Commercial, 9 Industrial, and 2,118 Residential

•MSN Property: 1 Agricultural, 46 Commercial, 1 Industrial, and 143 Residential

Tax Parcels 2km

•Kohl Average: 10,088

•Monona Average: 9,312

•Yahara Average: 6,304

•MSN Average: 4,177

•Kohl Property: 1,710 Commercial, 3 Industrial, and 6,049 Residential

•Monona Property: 1,639 Commercial, 3 Industrial, and 5,770 Residential

•Yahara Property: 591 Commercial, 28 Industrial, and 5,492 Residential

•MSN Property: 3 Agricultural, 166 Commercial, 5 Industrial, and 2,647 Residential

This map presented less on the accessibility side of station placement and more on the demographic and economic side. At all four station locations, the majority of people within a 1 kilometer and 2 kilometer radius are of Caucasian background. This would be expected as the majority of the Madison population in general is largely Caucasian, however the differences between a large populated area around the Kohl center and the sparsely populated area around MSN is interesting to see. Tax parcels were important to analyze as the opportunity for expansion and economic development in the area surrounding a high-speed rail station is a motivating factor for placement. As expected, areas towards the city center have a higher average parcel net tax, while areas further away from that city, such as at the Yahara station, have a much low mean. This data can be seen as going both ways. One, you would likely want to place a HSR station in the most densely populated area to get the highest amount of traffic, as in Kohl station or Monona station. Two, you want to place the HSR station in an area of the city that will benefit the greatest from the economic and community development that comes along with that station, as in the Yahara station. A perfect answer for the question of optimal HSR station placement in a city would need much more data analysis and modeling.