We've just released the latest (our 10th version!) of the NYC Geodatabase, our foundational resource for mapping and analyzing NYC city-level features and data in GIS. We're continuing to offer two formats with identical content - a Spatialite version for QGIS and Spatialite users, and an MS Access personal geodatabase for ArcGIS folks.
There are a number of noteworthy updates in this new version (July 2017):
- All of the facility point features (colleges, hospitals, libraries, private and public schools) have been updated with new data from May 2017, replacing the data from 2015. The City Dept of Planning has upgraded and reconfigured their Facilities database (FacDB) so there are differences in how the attribute tables are structured.
- New ZIP Code Business Patterns (ZBP) data has been added for 2015, replacing the data from 2014. As before, we've aggregated the ZIP Code data to the ZCTA level, but this time we've used an updated version of the ZIP to ZCTA crosswalk. This crosswalk contains updates and a number of error corrections in ZIP assignments. Most of the fixes are minor (in NYC there were 19 reassignments; the most significant ones were the reassignment of ZIPs 11249 and 10118 to different ZCTAs), but for the sake of consistency I've gone back and updated all of our old ZBP data (2010 to 2014) and published these as text files in an addendum in the NYC Geodatabase Archive, in case anyone needs to go back in time. The updated crosswalk is stored in the database as the b_zips_to_zcta table.
- We have new NYC subway ridership data for 2016 for the subway_complexes table, along with an updated notes table with information on station closures. The W train (relaunched in 2016) has been added to the list of attributes, but the new 2nd Ave subway stations (and the rerouting of the Q train) have not. These stations opened on Jan 1, 2017, so we have no ridership data for 2016. These stations are included in the subway_stations table, which we have not updated since January as there were no salient changes,
- Lastly, we have 2016 ridership data for the PATH train stations in NYC, in the path_stations file.
Related to this work, I've created / updated a couple of resources outside of the NYC Geodatabase:
- I often get requests for ridership data from folks who are not database or GIS users, so I've provided it in a spreadsheet format. The first workbook is for the NYC Subway and contains both the ridership data from the geodatabase and the service notes. The second workbook is for the PATH Train; unlike the geodatabase it contains ridership for ALL of the stations (not just the ones in NYC). Both workbooks contain a metadata sheet that covers the sources and content. Both spreadsheets are available on the NYC Mass Transit Spatial Layers page.
- Under the NYC Geographies resources I've updated the NYC ZIP to ZCTA crosswalk spreadsheet. It contains a metadata worksheet that explains how the crosswalk was generated (using a national crosswalk file from Nov 2015 created by the UDS Mapper and distributed by the MCDC, and the MCDC's 2014geocorr engine for relating ZCTAs to counties). So if you have ZIP Code-level data that you want to aggregate by ZCTA (so you can map the data by ZCTA or associate it with ZCTA-level census data) you can use this spreadsheet or the b_zips_to_zcta table in the geodatabase.