Drivers and data-heads alike, rejoice: One designer has created a helpful map for Philadelphia motorists, making it easier to see the borders of the Parking Authority’s residential permit parking districts.
The map was designed by Lauren Ancona, 33, the assistant director of UArts’ Corzo Center for the Creative Economy, using cloud-based mapping platform Mapbox.
“I’ve looked for a quick map to show where parking was, but it never existed,” Ancona told Technical.ly Philly. “I just wondered about it for years.”
Could never find one, so I made a map of #Philly residential @PhilaParking permit zones: http://t.co/BOhUSEF3R4 /cc @PhilaStreets
— Lauren Ancona (@laurenancona) June 20, 2014
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Ancona credits Jarvus CTO Chris Alfano with the assist, after meeting up at the Philly EdTech Hackathon last month.
“I worked with Chris Alfano and the school district for a visualization of the budget,” said Ancona, who moved to Philly in 2008. “I looked [for parking permit information] and the only place that data was available is in the city code, actually. So the definitions of the parking zones weren’t available in any other formats. As an exercise, I thought it would be interesting.”
This is just the start for Ancona, who’s working on a larger mapping project through Code for Philly that also focuses on parking.
“The greater project is going to be mapping all of the street parking in the city in terms of the information on the actual signs that are so confusing,” she said. “I’ve long had an interest in making it easier to understand what’s available. [Mapping] is a really interesting intersection between my geekiness, my interest in data and my visual life.”
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