Visualizing a Day in the Life of a New York City Cab

This week, Chris Whong, a self-professed “urbanist, mapmaker, data junkie” in Brooklyn, put out one of the more thrilling data projects we’ve seen recently. It was a visualization of the day in the life of a New York City taxi, and each time you load the page, you get a different taxi’s journey. There’s a voyeuristic thrill to watching a taxi driver go from Midtown to SoHo, only to have to turn around and go right back up. While the map is churning, a box in the upper right keeps track of the car’s fares, passenger count and tips (credit card only). It’s a captivating bird’s-eye view of what New York City residents normally only glimpse from the ground.