My good friend Jens von Bergman co-owns a firm called MountainMath Software that is specializing in data, analytics, modeling and visualization. One of their products is the Census Mapper application. I have listed 5 interesting maps below. MANY MORE (20+) data analysis and visualization insights are on their main page here. Customized maps with more detail for research purposes can be acquired. Click on the blue “main selection pane” button after you clicked their main page here.
Sample Map 1: Relatively high shelter cost map. This map shows the percentage of households that spend more than 30% of pre-tax income on shelter. It covers owner as well as renter household and does not directly take into account the value of the dwelling. It only measure running shelter costs such as mortgage payments, strata fees, rent, property taxes and utilities.
Sample Map 2: % of people that are house poor Starting from the above map, that is households that spend more than 30% of pre-tax income on shelter, this map focuses in on the owner households in that category and maps the percentage of owner households that spend more than 30% of pre-tax income on housing. Overall in Vancouver 29% of owner households are house poor by this metric. Calgary, Toronto and Montreal are not far behind with 20%, 28% and 24%. Pan and zoom around to explore.
Sample Map 3: Employment Income This map shows the percentage of income in each geographic region that stems from employment income, either self employed or through salaries and wages.
Sample Map 4: Bike Mode Share
This maps the bike to work mode share. In Vancouver a ring of modest cycling mode share abuts downtown and is surrounded by, a sea of dark orange patches cautious cycling trials with patches of red bike desert sprinkled in. Low cycling rates downtown are made up for by high rates of walking to work. Victoria sports an impressive overall cycling mode share of 11%, whereas the prairie cities of Calgary and Edmonton just garner around 1%. While Toronto only garners 2% overall, it’s central neighbourhoods have significantly higher bicycle commuting rates that top Vancouver’s. Montreal has an overall cycling rate of 3% but like Toronto has a core with much higher cycle commuting rates. The areas with higher cycling mode share line up with areas where cycling is comparably safe.
Sample Map 5: Average # of children per family This map shows this ratio. In Canada, there are almost as many couples without children as there are couples with children. For all of Canada the ratio between these two variables is 1.1. Areas with more couples without children will have a ratio below 1, and areas where the majority of couples have children will have a value above 1. The dark green areas are areas with two to three times as many couples with children than couples without children. Dark purple areas are areas with more than two times as many couples without children. Very different patterns can be observed in Vancouver than in Victoria, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal
sorry, but Bicycle Mode Share data from the Census is essentially useless.
The Census asks “How did this person usually get to work? 1: Car, truck or van – as a driver; 2: Car, truck or van – as a passenger; 3: Bus; 4: Subway or elevated rail; 5: Light rail, streetcar or commuter train; 6: Passenger ferry; 7: Walked to work; 8: Bicycle; 9: Motorcycle, scooter or moped; 10: Other method”
So last week my 10 commuting trips looked like this: Car pool: 5; Bike: 2; Drive alone: 2, SkyTrain 1. By Census data, I am 100% a carpool person. I suspect that most people who cycle to work do it less than 50% of the time, because of weather, scheduling, motivation, whatever. My own practice is probably slightly less than 50% cycling, with my intermittent car pool and transit making up the balance of the rest. The census still counts me as 100% a driver.
So the lower percentage areas on this map do not reflect “cautious cycling trials”, it is not people trying cycling out 10% or 15% of the time, it is fewer people riding *most days*. This only measures the percentage of people who have made the 100% (or at least, 50%+) commitment to cycling, a commitment easier to make in Victoria with half the rain days of Vancouver and generally shorter commuting distance.