NYPD traffic collision data has a booboo. This eases the pain.
Council Member Jessica Lappin got into an animated discussion with Petito over traffic crash data. When Lappin asked why NYPD is releasing data in PDF form — and only after the council adopted legislation forcing the department to do so — Petito replied that the department is "concerned with the integrity of the data itself." Petito said NYPD believes data released on a spreadsheet could be manipulated by people who want "to make a point of some sort." An incredulous Lappin assured Petito that the public only wants to analyze the data to improve safety, not use it for "evil."
(from Streetsblog)
Want to automatically download the latest NYPD traffic crash data as a CSV instead of hard-to-interpret Excel file? Done!
Want to visualize collision data and break it down intersection by intersection? Done!
First, clone the repo:
git clone https://github.com/talos/nypd-crash-data-bandaid.git
cd nypd-crash-data-bandaid/
You'll need Python 2.7, and preferably virtualenv/virtualenvwrapper. Install the requirements in your virtualenv:
pip install -r requirements.txt
And run the shell script:
./bandaid.sh
You can even adapt the sample cronjob to run the script daily.
There's lots'o'work to be done! Check out the TODO.
Thanks to David Turner for writing the original scrapeintersections.py script. It is accessible here.
Thanks to Matthew Kime for suggesting the name.
Thanks to Streetsblog for being awesome.
Thanks to Transportation Alternatives for supplying missing older data, the raw violations files, and the full list of violations URLs.
Thanks to Tom Swanson for his invaluable help in geocoding the vast majority of intersections. Check out his maps!
OK, OK. Go to:
Historical data will be kept there, too. Watch the RSS feed!
Check out Crashmapper.
Data's there. I'm not stopping you. ;)
GPLv3, just as it should be.