LinkNYC Kiosk Status Mapped

This map details locations and functional status of LinkNYC kiosks that have been installed and activated, and which should be expected to work. It does not include Links that are “Pending Activation” or “Ready to Install”. The data comes from the NYC OpenData portal. I wrote a simple script that downloads the data once an hour, dumps it into a database, then plucks the relevant data points from the database and spits them out as a KML file. That KML file feeds this map.

The dataset was first published at the NYC OpenData portal a couple of months ago. I don’t know if I am just not seeing it but there appeared to be no obvious way to visualize the data in map form within the OpenData website, as can be done with other datasets. This made the information unwieldy to use. If you wanted to know where functional LinkNYC kiosks were to be found you were left to comb through a spreadsheet of ~1,800 records, but searching by what criteria? Zip code? Sounds like a good idea but the zip code field in this dataset seems to have a lot of errors. Street address? You could try but there’d be some guesswork involved since it’s not as if LinkNYC kiosks have street addresses printed on them.
This resource cried out to be mapped, and I assumed from its publication that someone responsible for publishing this data would make that possible. In its first iterations I found numerous errors, and I still find some, but the accuracy of this data seems to have improved since it was first made available in June. I’ve also found that the ability to make a phone call has improved greatly since the rollout of these kiosks began in 2016, but the phone calling app is still plagued by garbage call quality, calls frequently getting cut off after less than a minute, and occasionally-encountered kiosks where the speakers emit an incredibly irritating high-pitched screeching noise the moment a call connects.
One question I had at first about this data was how some kiosks could be flagged with the tablet not working but the phone app functional. I had assumed that if the tablet was down then the phone call and other tablet features were as well, since I assumed the touchscreen was the most commonly used interface for making calls. It turns out that in some cases the tablet screen is off but phone calls can still be made using the tactile keypad below the screen. Who’da thunk it?
Information the dataset does not provide includes whether a kiosk’s touchscreen or tactile keypad works, if the large advertising panels are spewing lines of computer code, if the phone calls are marred by a high-pitched screeching noise, how many calls get cut off prematurely, etc. It would be interesting if the dataset could somehow have a pulse, showing how many people are connected to the WiFi network at any given moment, how many phone calls are being made, which kiosks are the most heavily used, etc. It would also be handy to know if both of a kiosk’s USB charging ports are actively in use or if one or both of them are available.
According to the original announcements regarding this dataset, such as this posting from New York City Council Member Ben Kallos, the dataset was to be updated hourly. The NYC OpenData page for this resource says it is updated “Daily”. So, I don’t know how often it is actually being generated but I’ll poll it every hour for now.
I decided against using Google Maps for this, even though it was considerably easier to use and more versatile than OSM’s relatively craggy WordPress plugin. It was not the stuff of soul-searching but I wanted to avoid the dilemma of using a Google product to expose the warts of what is essentially a Google product. Going forward I might attempt to get clever with the icons, generating separate maps for the status of each device’s WiFi, tablet, and phone functions and using green or red icons to indicate working and non-working status. I might also tally simple statistics showing what percent of kiosks work and what percent do not. I might also generate individual pages for each kiosk, inviting site visitors to share memorable experiences and sightings at the kiosks. All this depends on whether anyone actually finds what I’ve done so far to be useful. I am a tad skeptical of the real value of some of this stuff. I mean the map appears to be mobile-friendly and all but who is going to use their phone to find a phone? As far as the status of the tablet screens I don’t know who is going to be sitting at a computer looking for a way to access 311 or the Aunt Bertha app through this other curbside conduit.
I do not expect to personally verify if the status of the WiFi is accurately reported in this dataset. I only ever connected to the LinkNYC WiFi a handful of times and found it spotty as hell, with some stations delivering blazing speeds while others did not work at all or else were uselessly slow. I don’t expect to verify the WiFi status because I do not and never have liked the idea of connecting to shared public WiFi, unless I happen to know and trust whoever set it up.
Any comments just let me know.