Is it faster to take a bike or taxi in NYC?
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Taxis are plentiful and convenient in New York City, but the city is also served by a wide network of commuter bicycles (Citi Bikes). If you need to get from, say, the West Village to the Garment District, are you better off time-wise hailing a cab, or heading over to the nearest Citi Bike station? Data scientist Todd W. Schnieder crunched the number on travel times for both taxis and Citi Bikes to figure out which was better. Neither is universally the best, but for some trips taxis are most often the fastest, and for others bikes are faster. An interactive map (created with R) allows you to select the time of day and an origin neighborhood, and the map will then tell you the fraction of the time (according to the historical data) that a Citi Bike will outpace a taxi.
Click the image above to go to Todd's site and interact with the map, where you'll also find lots of other analysis comparing the two modes of travel. The source code (in R and SQL) for the analysis is available on GitHub.
Todd W. Schneider: When Are Citi Bikes Faster Than Taxis in New York City?
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