The government shutdown, now in its third week, has already changed some Washington D.C. tourists' vacation plans. Now, it's changed the traffic patterns of locals, too.
Uber, the taxi alternative that links smartphone users with private drivers, mapped the frequency and locations of its Washington, D.C., service pre- and post-shutdown. The result: a lot fewer travelers hailing rides between the Capitol and downtown D.C.
See also: The 10 Cities Most Affected by U.S. Government Shutdown
"We're always very curious about how people move around in their city," Bradley Voytek, a data evangelist at Uber, told Mashable. "So whenever anything happens that could affect that, we're interested in it."
A blog post on the company's website details the data. In it, Voytek explains that the team first mapped out a "normal" week's trips, finding that a huge proportion of business day trips run run between downtown and the Capitol.
They then calculated the difference in rides before and after the shutdown between neighborhoods and mapped it. The thick red line in south D.C. represents the decrease in travels between the capitol and downtown.

"For people who know D.C. and how it works, this probably isn't surprising," Voytek said. "But as an outsider to the city, I thought it was very striking."
In another graph, Voytek tracks the proportion of rides between the capitol and downtown by the hour, before and after the shutdown.

On weekdays, before the shutdown, close to 1.5% of all rides were between the two locations, but as soon as the government shutdown started, weekday rides dropped closer to 1% or 0.5%.
Voytek said the weekday decrease is probably due to furloughed workers and decreased government activities. On the other hand, weekend rides, likely taken for personal rather than business trips, have stayed more stable if not increased.
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Image: Flickr, ehpien; Uber