Can We Design the San Francisco Public Transit App?
David points us to Designing Chicago: New Tools for Public Transit, a project under way in the Windy City to build an app that finally, once and for all, truly serves the needs of transit users in a big city. He goes on:
Feel that hopefulness? I get where he’s coming from. Nothing against some of the better apps out there. But something like Design Chicago could (should) happen here.
Okay, who’s ready? And who’s leading this thing? Not me. Heh.
It’s been tried: http://www.gaffta.org/2012/04/21/new-york-times-the-bay-citizen-san-francisco-puts-brakes-on-an-app-for-transit/
Routsey Pro already exists and does a nice job.
Perhaps the private sector (assuming the private sector is interested) is the answer.
what we really need is something like this:
onebusaway.org.
OBA was created by a grad student, picked up by his university, and then by King County Metro (the Muni equivilent). It provides real time data for buses, streetcars, light rail, and commuter trains across various transit agencies. The app even uses your phone’s internal GPS to locate routes and stops near you (instead of having to search). It’s also cross platform – iOS, Android, and Windows Phone – as well as being web based, mobile web based, and text based. Oh, and it’s just simply super user friendly.
It’s really the best transit app I’ve ever used and when I lived in Seattle, there was not a day that I didn’t use OneBusAway.
If one UW grad student can pull that all together, then I’m sure there are a few in the Bay Area that could do the same thing. 🙂
oh yeah, ferries and water taxis too
Routesy does a lot (maybe all?) of this stuff.