Research Task - Edit visuals for PUC analysis #1830
Description
Research Task
Cont'd of #1656, DOTP responded requesting some edits to the initial visuals. See quote below.
Below are the comments (in blue below) made by Ben regarding the graphs. We got further comments from Ben and a county-level analysis isn’t necessary anymore, we will just explain why we used District-level data in the report instead.
• The graphs appear to be copied and pasted into the report. Can we generate higher-quality graphs in Excel?
o The X- and Y-axis labels are small. Is there a way to increase the font size?
o The intervals on the Y-axis extend to the tenth decimal place. There is no need for decimals—let’s use whole numbers.
o It is not clear that the red line on the graphs represents the baseline.
o For the Caltrans district graphs, why are the districts not in sequential order? Listing them as 1, 10, 11, 12, 2, 3, etc., is an unusual way to order the districts in the legend.Additionally, as Peter mentioned, some visualizations could be added to the body of the report (mentioned by Ben as well) would be great. We have this section (Blue text below) in the report that if we could get a simple graph to visualize the data that would be great.
“The pandemic had the most severe effects in more urbanized Caltrans districts (e.g., District 4: Bay Area and District 7: Los Angeles and Ventura Counties), where unlinked passenger trips and passenger miles traveled fell dramatically due to reduced commuting and widespread office closures. In smaller districts, ridership remained steadier, reflecting a customer base more reliant on transit for essential travel rather than commuting.
Recovery since 2021 has been uneven across the state. Although all districts have seen ridership and passenger miles rise from their pandemic lows, none have returned to FY 2018–2019 highs. Caltrans District 7 (Los Angeles) and District 4 (Bay Area) have experienced the steepest declines and slowest recovery. Overall, urbanized districts drive the statewide totals, with their ridership swings dominating the overall trend. Rural and small-agency districts, however, exhibit much less volatility, underscoring the role of transit in those regions as an essential service rather than one tied primarily to commuting downtown cores.”
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