Winning Project Showcases Art Throughout the Subway, Metro-North and LIRR
More Than 100 Submissions Explored MTA Open Data Sets to Create Projects That Uncover and Share Data-Driven Insights About Transportation in New York
Explore the Winning Project Here
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) today announced the winner of its data challenge – the Authority’s first of its kind – that encouraged members of the public to transform its vast volumes of open data into web apps, maps, data visualizations, written reports or art works that shed light on how New York moves.
The winning project, Art Off the Rails, was created by NYC designer and developer Stephanie Dang. Using two MTA datasets, the Authority's transit stations and art catalog, the map allows riders to view and learn more about art in subway, Metro-North, and Long Island Rail Road stations
Submissions were judged on creativity, utility, execution and transparency. The winner received an item from the vintage New York City Transit memorabilia collection and the winning project is featured in a blog post on the MTA’s Data & Analytics blog.
“It was really great to see all the creative ideas that resulted from this Open Data Challenge,” said MTA Chief Customer Officer Shanifah Rieara. “The MTA is at the center of so many New Yorkers’ lives – if not all – that this challenge was a fantastic opportunity for the public to engage with MTA data to create something that, as a daily transit rider themselves, would be helpful and interesting to other riders. Congratulations to the winner and finalists who developed and transformed mundane data into something useful, fun and engaging.”
“We received more than one hundred insightful and creative projects that used maps, charts and artwork to shine a light on the MTA’s data,” said MTA Chief of Strategic Initiatives Jon Kaufman. “Stephanie’s winning project makes viewing and learning about the system’s hundreds of art pieces easily accessible to the public via her intuitive and elegant web portal. We’re pleased to see creative ways of using Open Data like this, and hope to see many more.”
“Art Off the Rails makes it easy and fun to learn about any one of the hundreds of beautiful pieces of public art in the MTA system – New York City’s underground museum,” said Acting Director of MTA Arts & Design Juliette Michaelson. “What a creative way to make use of the MTA’s extensive Open Data. Congratulations to Stephanie Dang.”
“Working on Art Off the Rails was such a fun and rewarding challenge,” said Challenge Winner Stephanie Dang. “Before starting on this project, I hadn't realized how many iconic parts of my commute were actually pieces of art. Diving into the MTA’s permanent art catalog made me realize how much creativity surrounds us even in the most routine parts of our day. It’s been so lovely to explore the different works of art that keep us company as we navigate our intricate little lives. I hope this project inspires others to take a closer look and appreciate the incredible artwork in our subways, especially in those moments when you just missed the train and—dang it, now you have to text your friend that you're running late!”
Additional challenge finalists include:
Subway Stories
Every year, New Yorkers take more than a billion trips on the subway. Subway Stories is a series of vignettes that analyze open data on ridership to understand how New Yorkers work, enjoy themselves, and stay connected.
This was a favorite of the New York Transit Museum, as it coincides with its current exhibit “The Subway Is...”. The project’s creators will attend an event on January 23 to speak about how they built their website. Those interested in attending can register on the Transit Museum’s website.
Are NYC Subway Stops Ready for Every Student?
A group of CUNY students asked the question – are subway stations near specialized high schools accessible for students with disabilities? In addition to using MTA’s subway elevator and escalator availability dataset, they layered NYC Department of Education’s disability demographic’s dataset to round out their analysis.
The Museum of Transversal Art
Using the MTA’s datasets to explore the Authority’s arts catalog through maps, charts and infographics, the project visualized the materials used and mediums surrounding each piece of artwork.
Lately on the MTA
The fun animated designs use hourly subway and bus data to show NYC Transit and Roosevelt Island Tram ridership. The data visualizations are simple yet effective at telling a story of where transit rides are taking place.
If you Give a Rat a MetroCard
In an ode to If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, this project follows the journey of a rat with a MetroCard and how they are likely to travel based on trends in the modeled Subway Origin-Destination Ridership data. It highlights that rain or shine, New Yorkers make their way to the office on the weekdays. But on weekend evenings, bad weather may be a reason to stay home instead.
The MTA Open Data program is managed by the Data & Analytics team, the MTA's center of excellence in the management, usage, and sharing of data. Its three main functions are to aggregate and harmonize the MTA’s many diverse data sources, to devise and automate creative analyses that uncover valuable insights in that data, and to publicly share the resulting products.