Civic News

OCTO’s GIS Day scavenger hunt had some crazy facts about our fair city

Can you help solve the remaining clues?

GIS Day bonus question: Where was this photo taken? (Photo by Tajha Chappellet-Lanier)

Wednesday was GIS Day (part of Geography Awareness Week), and D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer got in on the fun with the District’s second annual GIS scavenger hunt.
“Are you smarter than D.C. GIS?” an announcement post challenged. “GIS professionals in D.C. government have come up with some interesting questions we hope you will have some fun coming up with answers to. Some are easy, some are mind-benders and some are tricky.”
Over the course of the day the OCTO team tweeted a series of clues — each question, presumably, answerable using District maps and maybe a little math. And boy, did we learn some things about the geography of our fair city — things like the fact that Massachusetts Avenue intersects with the most traffic circles (nine) and you can’t just pop in to the White House to use one of its 35 bathrooms (ok, that one may have been obvious).
But some questions from the scavenger hunt remained unanswered at the end of the day:

  • How many times can the bookshelves in the Library of Congress line the perimeter of the District?
  • How many elevator entrances are there in the entire WMATA rail system?

Here’s the clue lineup:


 


Now here’s our plea — can you help answer the remaining clues?
C’mon GIS enthusiasts, we know you’re out there. The hashtag, for those inclined to brag on Twitter, is #DCGISDay.

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