NYC Public Transportation + GIS = One Happy Kid

I'm planning to fly into La Guardia and end up at West 47th and 8th Ave in Manhattan. Lauren and I have all the time in the world and are in no hurry so lets see what Google and the MTA have to offer:

MTA Bus Maps - I need to get to the west end of the airport to jump on the #47 bus which should take me to the Jackson Heights - Roosevelt Ave - 74th St - Broadway Statoin. I'm almost clueless, but it's a deffinate maybe. Getting on the E train to the 50th St - 8th Ave station. Now I just need to wake up on time, catch my connecting flight in Atlanta. Yikes!

onnyturf.com/subway - a mashup of Google Maps with overlays and information of all of the train and ferry lines in the city.

Google maps has all the bus and metro stations available if you zoom in enough. Very cool (yeah, I'm still a tourist - whateves).


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Status: Traveling

Chart Wizard is important

Visualization of raw data is an important skill. Check out these gangsta examples:
jamphat.com/rap

Where the hell is model builder?

Building and running a model has been dangled in front of me for a while, though I could never really find where the hell ESRI stuck that sucker in ArcMap.

Model builder provides an organized, methodical way to run or re-run one or a series of geoprocessing tools. Most importantly, it allows a user to easily test various scenarios in a project that uses of any number of intermediate tools or dataset manipulations.

A process can range from a simple, single iteration:
to a more complex work flow:

The basic design of a process:


To create a new model, right click on a toolset in ArcToolbox and select Model from the New menu.


Right click on the new model and choose Edit to open Model Builder.

That's it. To continue from here, simply drag and drop shapefiles and tools into the building area, set up some processes and run the model with a single click of the Run button . Select Delete Intermediate Data from the Model menu to quickly clean up the previously run session to try another set of variables. Click Auto Layout button to automatically align any tools and processes you have cluttered around the screen.