(Robert Anthony) Blog Post #3 Cleaning The Data

Since the last time I posted, there have been many updates. I had to go through the process of scrapping data from multiple sources to use for our road safety story. All of the data from the open data source was in TXDot, so excel allowed me to convert those PDF files into excel using "Get Data". After going through the files, I access that the data didn't need cleaning but all of the information did need to be on one spreadsheet. The biggest challenge was combining files from different years of open-source data into one table. I put data from 2010 through 2021 and converted it to a pivot table where it's by year and average of total crashes. My FOIA request hasn't fielded me much luck as my back-and-forth emails with the department of transportation have taught me a valuable lesson in clarity. I have went through extensive searching of cycling and pedestrian data on tXDot's extract system and cris service. Sadly some of that data has proven to be irrelevant to my goals in this story. My request was often stated to be large and not clear enough in content so I am in the process of simplifying it again before the final finished product of my story. The rest of the data is provided in this excel spreadsheet that is linked to this post.

Data for Motor Vehicle Accidents in Texas

.xlsx

Download XLSX • 464KB