February 22, 2008
Unlike 511.org, We're Never Too Busy for Transit
How will this weekend's Transit Camp affect you, the average beleaguered bus rider? In lots of ways: better websites, nicer maps, smarter rides, and information customized exactly to your transit needs ... which all adds up to you getting where you're going, faster and happier. Or at least, that's how it'll be if the Transit Camp evangelists can convince transit agencies to play along. The event is a sort of meeting-of-the-minds between transit-happy hackers and transit officials; the officials own the resources and data, and campers want to liberate it for you.
BART will be there to do a presentation, and Caltrain, and NextBus, and the MTC; they'll be joined by a ton of eager software developers and UI designers and social-engineering-types. Will Muni be there? Er, maybe. Possibly. In an unofficial capacity. Muni's been suspicious of information-sharing in the past, but maybe they can be convinced by the peppy energy of the Transit Campers -- and the success enjoyed by their projects such as IamCaltrain, and Zimride (for carpooling), and RideSpring (for incentivized rideshares and transit), and Efficient Palo Alto.
Camp happens this weekend, the 23rd and 24th, from 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM in Palo Alto. Yes, Palo Alto. Good luck figuring out how to take transit to get there! It's at the SocialText HQ, 665 High St. We won't be attending; but our friends are, and we'll be anxiously waiting to hear how it goes.
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I wanted to go but can't, due to another commitment, but it sounds interesting.
Transit it easy - they are going to be meeting just a few blocks from Palo Alto CalTrain.
East bay folks can take BART to the Caltrain Station in Millbrae and switch over, and SF folks can hop on any one of a number of buses and the Mighty N to Caltrain also.
Don't forget - on Caltrain you can drink so why not bring a mimosa while you take the train down to TransitCamp!
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'll be at Transit Camp, as well as others from our agency, representing Caltrain and SamTrans, in other words, buses, paratransit and other modes, not just the train. It is critical, in our view, that people begin looking at transit issues from a network perspective and not focus solely on one mode, such as the train.
struth Mark. I was bike-free today and my 90 minute commute turned into 3 hours.
Missed the 9:37 Caltrain at 4th/King due to the wonders of the 47 bus.
I think I've figured it out - before 8:30 AM the 47 is faster because the drivers are not out in force in Soma yet and the bus is less crowded, but the underground MUNI is backed up due to too many trains. After 8:30, the N/T speeds up but the 47 bogs down, loaded with more passengers headed into Soma (Courthouse/etc...). Each stop usually means a light cycle missed as well.
How do you encapsulate those factors onto a website for those chossing transit???!!!
Hey, who's Linton Johnson and what does he have to do with transit?
[insert bellybutton/LBJ/basketball joke here]