Micromobility Data Game

Micromobility Riot Map

A loud static Three.js data story about bikeshare, dockless bike, and e-scooter systems by city and year.

By Eric Rhea GameLab prototype Status: Playable static app

The project uses public BTS city-year records. It visualizes system presence and counts from the local file; it is not a live operations map.

Micromobility Riot Map generated poster with bikes, scooters, city map pins, and punk zine styling

High-Level Overview

Micromobility Riot Map is a static browser prototype that turns bikeshare and e-scooter records into a map, stage selector, media gallery, data zine, and Fleet Maze. The core view filters city-year records by year and mode so visitors can see how docked bikes, dockless bikes, and scooters layer across cities over time.

The project uses a deliberately loud visual treatment, but the data shape stays simple: one local CSV, client-side parsing, mode filters, derived summaries, and generated art that supports the story rather than replacing the source.

What the Prototype Lets You Do

  • Open a static browser app backed by bikeshare_escooter_systems_by_city_year.csv.
  • Move through the 2015-2025 year range and filter by all modes, docked bikes, dockless bikes, or e-scooter records.
  • Inspect map dots, type mix, 2025 city leaders, and state record leaders derived from the local records.
  • Open stage cards for the full map, the 2018 break, scooter surge, docked backbone, and Fleet Maze.
  • Browse generated media and a six-page data zine that explain the same local CSV from a more narrative angle.

Source Backbone

The source note documents the local CSV, retrieval date, original catalog location, and parsing cautions for geometry and partial date fields.

Local file bikeshare_escooter_systems_by_city_year.csv, retrieved 2026-07-01, 748,100 bytes, with 1,964 data rows and 49 columns.
Publisher Bureau of Transportation Statistics, distributed through Data.gov and the data.transportation.gov API.
Integrity SHA-256: a7e96edc7200944da59a070eb1d9a60e4abafdb807dffee8c529ed9e33955efd.

Build Detail

The playable app ships as static HTML, CSS, JavaScript modules, local Three.js, local generated media, and the CSV in data/. It parses the WKT and coordinate fields client-side, keeps partial launch and closure date text as source text, and uses derived summaries rather than mutating the source file.

Related builds

Transporter TSI Riot looks at system-level transportation indexes. Motor Fuel Underground turns state fuel tax data into an arcade dashboard. Independence Town is another browser-native GameLab prototype with a playable loop.