Sea Rise near Leeds & York

Yorkshire3meters_forWebSmaller20150123
3 Meters

I’m working with the folks at the University of Leeds on a graphic novel depicting life in England in 200 years–if nothing is done to curb carbon emissions. It’s a sequel to their graphic novel about a low carbon future. The maps will be centered around York and Leeds, and includes the surrounding counties. The first three images will be a part of the novel, and show sea levels at 3, 5 and 8 meters.

The grey outlines are the boundaries of the two cities…Leeds to the west, York to the east.

These maps are based on sea rise elevations estimated by the IPCC. Scroll down for other sea rise levels…

Yorkshire5meters_forWebSmaller20150123
5 Meters
Yorkshire8meters_forWebSmaller20150123
8 Meters
Yorkshire40meters_forWebSmaller20150123
40 Meters

The NY Sea

Buy the maps!

With Place Names

NY Sea, With Place Names

 

Without Place Names

NY Sea, Without Place Names

 

Check out my other sea rise maps, or see the original–Burrito Justice & Brian Stokle’s map of San Francisco.

For all of these maps, I am not portraying any sea level higher than what is possible. The IPCC has estimated that the total rise would be about 66 meters.

Here’s a version without the place names:

This will happen someday, but not in our lifetimes. Some who have dared to speculate on a timeline have given themselves plenty of space for error in their predictions–one estimate says anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 years. Whatever the time frame, it is a fact that humans are speeding up this process.

 

 

 

GeoSIMS–An Application for Interior Mapping

In my years at the University of Washington, my greatest accomplishment was envisioning, designing and managing the implementation of GeoSIMS–the Geographic Space Information Management System.

FloorPlanGISThis online application utilizes a multi-campus set of georeferenced floorplans to enable the tracking of room information. The implementation was a challenge–a  lot of different people and departments had to be brought together to make it work. Some groups were indifferent. Some were resistant. Ultimately it all came together, and the UW has a system of space tracking that is streamlined and automated.

For those of you interested in a bit more detail on the background of the program and its uses, you can download my presentation to the University for the GeoSIMS rollout (warning–10 mb Powerpoint file).

 

UW Transportation, Past and Future

As part of a recent historical research project, I georeferenced a ton of old plans and maps of the University of Washington campus and surrounding neighborhood. One of the things that has stood out in my mind about this project is the old transportation patterns, and how our society relied so much more heavily on rail to get around.  The University District was served by several streetcar lines in addition to the rail line that was used by passenger trains–now the route of the Burke-Gilman Trail.

Modern Subway, Historical Streetcar

We are slowly returning to an era of mass transportation. This 1920 map shows the location of at least two streetcar lines, as well as the old heavy-gauge NPRR line and depot. I have overlaid the alignment of the Sound Transit North Link subway and platform location of the new University of Washington Station. The detail that jumps out is the location of the old streetcar turn-around loop, now the location of the subway station. We’re looping back around to an abandoned form of transportation that should never have been abandoned. This time, we’re making sure that the passage of the rail cars isn’t hindered by private cars.

I sat on a bus for over half an hour yesterday, getting from the U-District to downtown. I’m looking forward to the eight-minute ride that the subway will enable.

A Transportation Plan for Wallingford, Seattle

Wallingford is my neighborhood. I’ve lived here for over ten years, commuting out to Redmond for the first year via scooter and bus. After that, I started working at the University of Washington, with an exact mile commute, door-to-door. I still take my ratty old scooter, but I’ll just as often walk, bike, or bus.

Wallingford Transportation Plan
Wallingford Transportation Plan, Phase III

For those of us who work at the UW, Wallingford is in an ideal location–easily walkable, if you don’t mind traversing I-5 and its associated on and off-ramps. You can quickly bike there if you don’t mind the cranky and sometimes aggressive car commuters. The bus is great, except for the winding, plodding 16 and the always-late, always SRO-packed 44. In addition to these indignities to the non-car commuter, Wallingford is more isolated, transportation-wise, than its U-District and Fremont neighbors. This paper, which I co-wrote with two other authors, creates a plan to remedy these problems. It deals with both land-use and transportation issues, which should always be planned in concert, but sadly often aren’t. We focused on enhancing connections to neighboring communities, as well as to downtown Seattle, decreasing the isolation of the neighborhood and allowing for a more compact and energetic local business district. My contributions were the introduction, land-use, rail, and summary chapters.

Wallingford Transportation Plan