San Francisco Bike Blog

Google Transit might not save the world, but I think it’s still a distinct possibility. Combined with bicycles, who knows?

All hyperbole aside, Google Transit is an exquisite tool. It offers transit riders - get this - a dignified way to get travel information. Bet you’ve never seen that word around here before. (Previous post on this matter.)

WMATA (wiki) - the Washington, DC-based transit agency - has been resistant and duplicitous in its dealings with taxpayers who want to see WMATA make its data publicly-available, or at a  minimum, available to Google so it can be integrated with Google Maps.

Now, with the help of blogs like Greater Greater Greater Greater Greater Greater Washington, the battle has gone national. Search Google News for ‘wmata google’ and get a long list of results.

Keep in mind that this is not Google vs. WMATA - Google wants access to any and all information everywhere - but we don’t need to believe that they are under any delusions that they, as a corporation, can compel a public agency to divulge its operating schedule. Google is offering a service for free to transit agencies that want to participate. If the agency wants in, great - everybody wins. If not, so sad, too bad - everybody loses.

If and when you go to Google and you say, “Hey - why don’t y’all add [insert your local transit agency name here] already?!” — Google will say, “Awesome! Great idea! We’d love to! Please just ask your transit agency to make their data available to us and we’ll do it right away! Thank you!”

I know this is at least one of the ways it can work, because I’ve participated in these activities for months - bugging transit agencies all over the place to ‘get with Google Transit.’ Most recently I talked to the Golden Gate Transit folks, and they’ve said they’re working towards Google Transit-ness, and though I don’t plan on following up further right now with the other two SF-touching ferry operators, both left me voicemail stating they were working towards Google Transit-ness.

Google Transit is such a compelling service that many taxpayers are telling WMATA that they want to see WMATA release its data, as other transit agencies - bigger and smaller - around the world have done already.

Because of WMATA foot-dragging, it probably won’t be available for Inauguration Day 2009. Could have been a real showcase for WMATA, for public transit, for Google Transit, for taxpayer money well-spent, for everyone.

[p.s. The DC Metro has some wicked-cool subway stations - I've wanted to say something about them for a while. In a way they're old-ish and terrible, but some of them are like 8,000 feet below the ground and have elevated my spirits while I was descending down into the earth - I can't say I've ever experienced that on any other metro in any other part of the world. As you can see from the picture below, the ceilings in some stations are just tremendous - so high - things don't feel small and closed and claustrophobic like so many other subway systems. They have little glass-topped lights flushly-embedded into the concrete 'warning strip' that flash when a train is approaching - it's cool. It's almost like they designed the system so that people would ride it. And apparently, they do. Below is a quick pic taken from wikipedia. Don't get me wrong - it's not 'riding your bike' cool, but it is a decent way to travel.]

Another side note - if a website shows up in a Google News search, that means that website has been deemed a ‘news outlet’ by Google. A site has to meet several criteria to achieve this - and that usually includes having an editor. Streetsblog made the cut. And I just noticed that Greater Greater Washington has made the cut. This effectively gives those blogs - those news operations - a much broader reach. If you think your blog might qualify, you should check out what it takes to get listed.

If you’ve already signed the petition, and written a nice little polite note to the powers that be at WMATA, and to DC-area politicians, pat yourself on the back — you’ve helped turn up the heat. I have a feeling something good will happen, and it will have everything to do with our efforts. 

…Chicago’s CTA jumps on-board the Google Transit bandwagon.

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[p.s. The Forums are open for participation.]