I found myself exploring these new sites this week: a New York State College Campus Crime Stats site and a New York State Traffic Data Viewer.

The college stats site I found while looking at the Governor's page, specifically looking for new information regarding the Regional Economic Development awards announcements Thursday. But this is pretty interesting, too.

Of course, I looked up my alma mater and then friends' colleges and local colleges. I can't help but think the data is not exactly comprehensive. (ie - only 19 burglaries and 7 forcible sex offenses on the UAlbany campus in 2011? For a college with more than 17,000 students, even if many live off campus, that still seems a bit low.)

(logo from NYS site)

I have a feeling the origins of the site may be connected with the recent Rolling Stones article which gave a look at sexual assaults on college campuses, focusing on the University of Virginia. The article was also not exactly comprehensive but it was an interesting read and brought up some good points. I know when I was a college student, I always heard of sexual assaults but I also heard they were almost never reported.

While it's great that there's a site for the reported cases, I have a feeling we're still only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

And the Traffic Data Viewer is just really cool. A lot of the data doesn't seem quite up to date (some of the referenced reports are from 2006 or 2011) but it gives a good overview of traffic on NYS roads.

For example, according to a 2006 report, I-90 in the Capital Region between Exit 2 and Exit 3 saw about 50,000 cars per day. I bet with the NanoCollege that's increased a bit, too.

And parts of 787 Northbound between Troy and Albany, according to a 2011 report, saw nearly 45,000 cars daily.

So, if you get bored and want to peruse some interesting data, give these two sites a look-see.