Reimagining Mobility in the Bay Area

Reimagining Mobility in the Bay Area comes from a storytelling with data course, where I examined the Bay Area's public transit systems (ridership statistics, commuter demographics, and pandemic-era shifts in usage) and uncovered how certain lines disproportionately impact key communities. My goal was to observe these interconnected factors and highlight equity concerns by identifying who relies most on underperforming transportation.

Data Dashboard

First we designed a data dashboard to communicate key findings from the data story. I aimed to visualize crucial patterns, like the fall in ridership during COVID and the racial/locational disparities in commuting, while using only short captions and titles to guide interpretation. To achieve this, I intentionally chose intuitive chart types (choropleth maps, line graphs, bar charts) and consistent color themes to point viewers toward key takeaways: that essential workers and BIPOC communities are both the most likely to commute and to experience service shortfalls.

Slide Presentation

The slide presentation added a personal anecdote to humanize the data. I highlighted how a commuter living in a less expensive Bay Area location has limited transit options, demonstrating how schedules, costs, and transfers create an outsized burden. The data-driven figures were paired with the commuters' perspective, clarifying that these are not merely abstract numbers but real experiences that harm everyday mobility. This blend of personal storytelling and charts gave the audience both emotional resonance and numerical clarity, a combination particularly persuasive for policy-focused audiences.

Moving forward, I plan to combine concise visuals, personal stories, and thorough data vetting in future research on social equity, ensuring that both the numbers and the human impacts remain front and center in my work. I also take one step further in future work by designing my own solutions to the problems I observe.

This artifact is co-authored with Alyssa Fong and Geana Marte. Most key ideas and work were done in group work sessions. I personally made the "Time (Not) Well Spent", "Public transit commuters working outside their county rely on ACE, BART, and Caltrain", and "Black & Indigenous workers more likely to commute on public transit" figures and the Lee and Carmela story in the slide presentation. Conceptually, one of my biggest contributions was focusing the data story since the American Communities Survey data is quite broad.

Educate

Uplift

Sustain