Yo, Data: See where South Philadelphians like to exercise

Yo, Data is an occasional feature by tech whiz and South Philly resident Angela Minster, in which she crunches the numbers and makes ’em all nice and pretty. Know of any data sets you can customize to South Philly? Let us know at punk@passyunkpost.com.


Recreational development projects are popping up all over the area, so we took at look at 2,220 biking, running and walking routes from MapMyFitness.com. The data was submitted by 1,100 of the site’s users in the last 12 months.

This map shows only routes that originated south of South Street. Darker lines indicate that a road is more heavily used.

sphilrunmap
Submitted running, biking and walking routes in South Philly from MapMyRun.com. Click to view larger.

Many people seem to run north to Center City, but it looks like any major road or park is subject to recreational use. With all of the work being done by the Delaware Riverfront Waterfront Corporation near Columbus Boulevard, it’s nice to see that the southern section of that waterfront trail is being used for something more than underage drinking .

Are you using your neighborhood for exercise? Where do you like to go?

(Technical notes: This map only represents the runs of people who chose to record their trips to Map My Fitness, so it may not represent the routes of all South Philly residents. We also took out any route that was submitted on the day of the Broad Street Run to avoid overrepresenting routes on Broad Street.)

One thought on “Yo, Data: See where South Philadelphians like to exercise

  • August 13, 2014 at 8:02 am
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    I don’t think anybody yet realizes that the lower Schuylkill Banks trail is an option (starts where Wharton meets the river). It’s a gorgeously landscaped park with nobody in it, so far.

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