Visiting Seattle this past weekend, I found myself jealous of the Emerald City, and not just for their fine food and coffee options, or for the warm weather and gentle rain. No, what I found most amazing about Seattle was the wealth of transit options I had in the palm of my hand through Google Maps on my iPhone.
If you’ve ever tried to use the transit mode in DC, you know that it holds nothing but certain disappointment, and you find yourself trying to find directions another way. You muddle through the wmata.com website, you try to remember which bus route runs where, and which ones are named after streetcar routes, and if you’re like me, you can’t keep it all straight.
WMATA has committed to bringing Metrobus and Metrorail routes to Google Transit, but have missed deadline after deadline, first saying January of 2011, and then saying “any day now“. The project has foundered for reasons that WMATA isn’t discussing publicly. I do recognize that processing five rail lines, and 300 bus lines is a chunk of work, but after my weekend of wandering Seattle, and spending a chunk of money on fares, it’s awful hard to go back.