Inspiration
Public transport has always been a very important issue for me. I was born in a city that had very poor quality transport, and as such have always felt tied down by my parent's car and their time and ability to get me somewhere I wanted to go. And I found out I wasn't alone - there's a whole community of people called "New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens" that feels the same way. Ever since I moved to New York, which is more or less the only American city even approaching decent public transport, I've felt much more free to go anywhere. And it's not just that - the single most important factor in whether a person will move up the economic ladder is what mobility options they have, more than even their parent's income and whether they graduated high school. And that is best supplied with well-priced, extensive, frequent, and quality public transport.
What it does
The website's essentially a simulator - you build up transit lines along a map of a city, where you must consider where to build stations to meet demand, the cost of building lines, and that people generally dislike transfers because it makes public transport way less convinient, so you must minimize them.
How I built it
I built it using React.js with the Google Maps Embed & JavaScript APIs.
Challenges I ran into
The Google Maps APIs were very tricky to work with correctly especially because of their weird rules regarding Google Cloud billing. I also don't have much experience with React.js as well which made this an uphill battle.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I managed to figure out how to draw on the map correctly to build up the transit lines, and to make it look decent as well. That took me longer than it should've, however.
What I learned
I learned a lot about transit planning in my prior research.
What's next for Transit Oriented Cities Simulator
Building up more features regarding timing (morning rush and evening rush are important - there's not constant demand!), more detailed budgeting involving increased costs in building across bodies of water, more detailed routing options (land in dense areas, both above- and under-ground, is more expensive).
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.