Parks vs. Subway Stations vs. Buildings

Data from the New York MTA website

During one of my trips at JFK, I came across a poster that read: “1 in 38 people residing in the United States, live in New York City.” This inspired me to explore the changes in personal space based on New York’s urban situational context.

To do so, I chose to begin my research with the MTA subway system to identify the greatest centers of crossing footpaths. I quickly discovered that the 5 most traffic-ed stations are within a 1-mile radius, between Midtown and Downtown Manhattan.

I had hoped to add another layer of information to my simulation and identify what people do with their (public) personal space, namely, while commuting on the subway. But I am still in the process of figuring that out.

Agent : Person exploring the city (cylinder)

Environment : Urban environment (parks, subway station, building mass)

Behavior : Personal space reacts to entering different regions of the city

Parameters: Number of pedestrians who choose to take a bike, versus those who don’t.

Inputs: Location and amount of human traffic and program.

Output: Personal space expansion and reduction (stretched cylinder)

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;
public class PlayerController : MonoBehaviour
{
private const double V = 0.25;
public float speed;
private Rigidbody rb;
void Start()
{
rb = GetComponent<Rigidbody>();
}
void FixedUpdate()
{
float moveHorizontal = Input.GetAxis(“Horizontal”);
float moveVertical = Input.GetAxis(“Vertical”);
Vector3 movement = new Vector3(moveHorizontal, 0.0f, moveVertical);
rb.AddForce(movement * speed);
}
private void OnTriggerEnter(Collider other)
{// trigger for stations to increase personal space scale
if (other.gameObject.CompareTag(“Station”))
{
other.gameObject.SetActive(false);
transform.localScale += new Vector3(1,0,0);
} //trigger for park areas to decrease personal space scale
if (other.gameObject.CompareTag(“Ground”))
{
transform.localScale -= new Vector3(1, 0, 0);
}
}
}