I propose mapping all of the bike injuries and fatalities in San Francisco over the past decade. This data is recorded as long as police are notified after an incident. I would like to make a d3 slider on a map so that people can see where people are crashing and whether the number of crashes at certain locations has changed over time. Has improved infrastructure (ie the addition of bike lanes, etc.) altered the number of crashes in certain locations? Why are certain intersections so dangerous? Also, I'd be curious to know if San Francisco tracks total bike trips in order to determine a crash rate at certain locations. Ultimately, that would tell people the most information. And if the city doesn't track total bike trips, why not? I think that this map could tell us whether bike infrastructure improvements are occurring in the most-needed areas or simply at the most convenient, cost-effective places. Also, as an aside, I also think it would be interesting to use this same data to chart a line graph that looks at bike crashes over time. I'd be curious to know how construction of "the wiggle" affected bike movement through the city.
UPDATE: I received data regarding bike crashes but I have only begun to analyze the stuff that came in an excel (.xlsx) format (which I turned into a .csv). The rest are shape files (.shp and .shx) and a database file (.DBF) and I don't know what to do with those or how to begin looking at them. Also, the city data guy who sent them said because of a coding error the data is not mappable. Maybe that's a story, too?
With the second Bart strike in less than a year looming, I propose graphing BART ridership data during the month of July with the Calif. Department of Transportation's traffic data for every bridge in the Bay Area during the same month. I want to show how significant the BART strike was on traffic in the Bay Area -- a foreshadowing of what's to come if BART employees decide to strike again next week. I suspect that traffic soared during July. I don't think I would have any trouble getting traffic data from the DOT. Or, I could turn to the toll data. I'm sure either tracks the number of cars crossing the bridges daily.
I realize this pitch is more of a long shot, but I think it could be a cool story if it somehow worked out. I propose finding utility data for Oakland rate payers. I came across information for Oakland utility meter locations and addresses on the Code for Oakland site. I would, in addition, need to find out how much energy each of these meters (residences/businesses/etc.) registers. How much, per household or business, every rate payer uses in Oakland. Then, I want to pull the Calif. Secretary of State business licenses for legalized medical marijuana growers in Oakland, of which includes their addresses. I want to compare the amount of energy these residence use in compared to the number of plants that they are allowed to legally grow. I would need to interview someone -- a horticulturist or marijuana advocate -- about the approximate amount of electricity needed to grow, on average, a specific number of plants. And then you could see whether any of these businesses use double or triple the amount of energy as compared to the number of plants they are lawfully allowed to grow under their business license. Obviously there are other factors that could come in to play -- energy efficiency of the house, number of residence occupying the residence, so on and so forth. What I do know is that medical marijuana operations use an enormous amount of electricity. I don't know what you'd find but I think it would be a fun exercise regardless.
Much of the data I may need, I believe, is located on the Code for Oakland site Otherwise, I plan to track down PR folks at government agencies. Also, San Francisco has an open data portal. I believe I could pitch these stories to a number of different news outlets... from bicycle blogs to legacy news outlets in the Bay Area.