Over the past several months, employees at the Information Center for the Environment (ICE), in the Department of Environmental Science & Policy at UC Davis, in collaboration with the California Strategic Growth Council, and noted journalist for The Atlantic magazine, James Fallows have been working on a storymap to help better tell the story of the recently update buisness plan for the California High Speed Rail (HSR).
This storymap is a featured part of James Fallow's July 9th blog post for The Atlantic, 'The California High-Speed Rail Debate--Kicking Things off.'
This collaboration grew out of a conversation between ICE's retired co-founder (and now Executive Director of the California Strategic Growth Council) Mike McCoy and ESRI founder Jack Dangermond while Mr. Dangermond was visiting UC Davis. Over the past year, in fits and starts, ICE assisted Mike McCoy on a largely volunteer basis with assembling the data needed to paint a geographic picture of the HSR's recently updated buisness plan.
Through this process, it has become clear that the HSR is much more than just the construction of high speed rail. It is a major reinvestment in passenger rail that spans the state making substantial investments in many local and regional rail transit systems. Each segment of construction, when complete, builds on the prior segments and provides distinct and meaningful value even if further construction is halted.
For Mr. Fallow's blog post, please visit: Link
To access ICE's story map about the HSR system's buisness plan please visit: Link
Nathaniel (Nate) Roth and Prashant Hedao did a majority of the mapping on this project. They recieved substantial assistance from SGC staff and interns, staff at the High Speed Rail Authority, and staff at ESRI in completing this work.
In particular credits should go to:
Nathaniel (Nate) Roth: Cartography, data assembly, and storymap customization/programming
Prashant Hedao: Data assembly
Michael McCoy (Executive Director of the California Strategic Growth Council and retired co-founder of ICE): Seed funding and motivation
Dr. Karen Beardsley (managing director at ICE), Dr. David Waetjen (ICE Staff) and Prof. Jim Quinn: General assistance
Staff at the Ca. High Speed Rail Authority: Data review
Jack Dangermond (founder and owner of ESRI): connecting all of us with James Fallows and encouraging the project.
ESRI Staff: the story map template, guidance on storymap customization, and map service hosting.
Data sources include: Ca. High Speed Rail (HSR Routes and Stations, and Business plan documents), California Department of Conservation (Farmland), California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Income health risk), ESRI and partners (other basemaps including terrain, unemployment, and background cartography)
