Google Transit, a great resource, expands to NYC; but LA still absent

October 2, 2008

Last week Google Transit announced the expansion of its fantastic service into New York City.  At a time when urban overcrowding and high gas prices are taking a toll on people, Google’s cool new feature is a great resource for making one’s use of public transit an easier experience.  According to Google co-founder Larry Page, “I think with these kinds of services that we’re providing for transit that really help people easily ride transit, more people get into it and really help congestion and help the economy overall. 

Page is right.  Trying to effectively use public transportation can be a confusing proposition, even for long-time residents.  Even if you’ve mastered one section of the system, it is easy to get confused if you have to travel outside of your comfort zone.  And for people who are not familiar with local public transit, the prospect of just getting on a bus or train that has nothing more than an end-destination on display, can be enough to halt your trip.

Google Transit makes it easy for individuals to plan out their trip in advance, or on the fly, if they have a PDA. 

Unfortunately, while dozens of cities throughout the world have already contributed their route data to Google Transit (including major US cities like Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, and now NYC), there is still no data for Metro in Los Angeles.  While the SoCal commuter rail, MetroLink is on Google Transit, they are still waiting on data from LA’s Metro.  While it was hoped that Metro would be on Google Transit by this summer, it still is not up and running.  Not to be too snarky, but for a city with such a limited public transit system as LA, it shouldn’t be too hard to get Google all the necessary data.  (Although, we don’t know the real reason for the delay.)

[Update: the Bottleneck Blog had an explanation for the delay in Los Angeles a couple months ago, and it "involves whether Google intends to make money from advertising placed on the maps. Like all transit agencies, Metro is cash-strapped and looking for new revenue and apparently doesn't want to give proprietary information to a firm that may profit."]

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