Vote for your favorite infographic (Suggestion: vote bike)

The US Department of Transportation wants to know which “data visualization,” or infographic, the public likes best. Vote for your favorite here.

There are two bike-related submissions. The first is an expanded version of one that will look familiar to regular BikeLeagueBlog readers, and I mean a really expanded version.

Kory Northrop created these graphics to show the relationship between bicycle commuting, safety, and government spending. His aim, he writes, was to present bicycling-related data ‘in a manner that is more easily digestible [which] is important to informing policymakers and the public about these issues.”

Kory presents, graphically, data from our tables of American Community Survey bicycle commuting data to show bicycle commuter rates by state, with boxes that illustrate the gender mode split (the larger the yellow box, the more female cyclists). The graph is interactive: you can scroll through the years from 2005 to 2010.

Using the list of US cities with populations over 60,000, Kory graphed commuter data, sort-able by the number of bike commuters, the percentage of bicycle commuters, and the number of female and male bicyclists.

Next, Kory presents the number of bicyclist fatalities in the 50 states for each year since 2000. For the years 2005 through 2010 he calculated a fatality rate using the number of bicycle commuters as the denominator.

Then Kory shows the amount of FHWA Federal-Aid transportation funds states spent on bicycle and pedestrian projects since 1992. The size of the circle represents per capita spending. This is a topic close to our hearts. For more information on accessing federal funds for bicycling and walking projects, please visit our Advocacy Advance website.

Finally, there is an overview that shows commuter levels and fatalities over the years.

Vote now. We’d love to see Kory’s graphic win the challenge.

But if you’re not sold, you have another bicycling graphic option to choose. This one shows roadway bicycle “accidents” on several roads in Chicago. (Ed. note, we know the preferred term is crash.)

So there you have it. The poll is open now.