Also looks like it changes the browser history on every interaction, ie any drag and drop, which seems, to me, to indicate some behind the scenes UUID tracking.
There’s a pretty awkward moment in the expensive-looking documentary video (ie uncritical puff piece) by Gary Hustwit[1], where a developer on the project says “we can’t have it be like chunky 10 frames per second, you know?”, in the exact moment we see an FPS counter on his computer slow down to 14 FPS as he pans around.
Was the whole point of this site to make the cars more visible on the map? B/c they're super hard to see! Would've been so much easier to just use a regular Leaflet slippy map or something and just drop an icon for each car... Could've done that in a day. Sigh.
You're right. It's really silly isn't it. They have a known set of vector shapes, on a quite small portion of a map, with limited geometry. Trains travel along those lines, and really there is not much going on an at all. I don't understand how performance and the technical challenges are so bad for such a limited scope render.
> seems, to me, to indicate some behind the scenes UUID tracking.
I don't know why. It's updating the URL so that if you copy and paste it'll show the receiver the same view you have as the sender. They just need to be using history.replaceState to do that, rather than history.pushState.
It's also not very good when you're zoomed out; everything is way too skinny.
And what is the sloppiness with the lines at DeKalb? Why is the out-of-service shading for the DNR under 4th Avenue this weekend so halfhearted? It's particularly hard to tell when the lines are skinny. I guess they were thinking of how good it was for Manhattan?
So tell me: when I click on tonight's map, what am I supposed to make of a one-way train service on the W, between Whitehall (where it usually stops) and 86th (which is not part of its usual route)? Is that actually a real thing? I am especially confused given that the more-information click takes me to a "look up service changes by line" page that doesn't show anything when I ask for service changes on the W.
And if the D train tonight is running northbound on 6th Avenue and southbound on 8th Avenue, why is the only unusual color displayed on 8th Avenue, given that people who catch the D expect it on its usual route under 6th Avenue?
I guess there's no hope for the F-diamond train but that probably doesn't matter much; I'm not sure it's even running post-pandemic...
This gets worse the more you look at it. A project manager wanted shininess, and they have it, but geez, can't anyone actually try to use the thing before showering it with praise?
1: https://vimeo.com/469980256#t=368s