My project is a suitability analysis that shows locations within the Denver Metro area that are best suited for different types of public transportation. According to Denver RTD, about 75% of commuters in Denver drive to work alone and only about 4% take public transit. I wanted to find out why the proportion of people taking public transit is so low.
My map has pixels that are each the size of 1 square mile. Each pixel is displaying a color that represents the type of public transportation that the area would be best served by. I performed a weighted overlay based on 5 criteria: population density, employment density, sidewalk density, bike path density, and zoning areas. For the population and employment
census tract layers that I downloaded, I calculated the people and employees per acre, then assigned a ranking system based on its population or employee density. I then converted the layers to rasters using the ranked field. For the sidewalk and bike path layers, I assigned each pixel ranking based on the length of bike paths or sidewalks within it. For zoning, I converted the
vector to a raster based on the use field. After each of my 5 layers were ranked and converted to rasters, I used the Weighted Overlay tool to create the final output. I then added Denver RTD bus and rail lines shapefiles and created a half mile buffer in order to determine which areas are within walking distance to frequent public transportation.
The final weighted overlay raster has 3 categories: suitable for light or commuter rail, suitable for rapid or frequent bus service, and not suitable for frequent public transportation. It appears that many parts of the Denver metro area have the conditions to support frequent public transit where it does not currently exist, and that frequent bus and rail service is not widespread throughout the city. Data for this project was collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, so it is possible that transportation schedules were running less frequently than during normal times.