Visualizing travel distances

Via epc I came across Jonathan Soma’s Triptrop NYC, which practically in real time estimates how long it’s going to take to travel from a location in NYC by subway to any other location, and paints this graphically as an overlay on a map. Here’s Manhattan, starting from Columbia’s Statistics Department:

distances.png
stat-subway.png

The walking distance is 3mph. Distances in number of minutes are color-coded and above the map. Jonathan says he used SciPy and curve fitting, along with a precalculated database of over 120000 distances between locations.

There are other “time travel” tools for London and UK, but Triptrop NYC is the first one I’ve come across that allows you to enter your own precise location. As for similar visualizations, here’s my post on housing prices in New York.