Category Archives: transit

Missed Connections

In her bathroom, a friend of mine has some really beautiful illustrations of posts from the Craigslist Missed Connections section.  If you’ve never looked at missed connections, you should — there are some really wonderful notes in there (also some sketchy ones).  Here’s a beautiful one from today:

7 train glances on monday – w4m – 20 (7 train Queensbound)

We were sitting opposite each other on the train. We caught eyes early in the ride, but you nodded off through most of it, but looked up as I was getting off. As the train moved you kept looking at me walking to the stairs.

All I want to tell you is that you have the most beautiful clear blue grey eyes.

What’s striking is how many of the missed connections take place in the subway.  I’ve said before that transit is a uniter not a divider; these posts confirm that, and are a really nice view into that slice of NYC life.

The “ad hoc groupings” that take place on the subway also really resonate with the ideas in Dave Weinberger’s Small Pieces Loosely Joined, which I’m reading right now.  Dave talks about how on the web, groups take on a new meaning — they form and unform quickly, and can be formed by very loose connections (such as commenters on a blog post).  The city is the same way — the people I’m standing with on the subway are an ad-hoc group that unforms just as fast as it forms.  But there’s definitely a connection. Typically, it takes an event of some kind, like a man talking into a banana phone or two people having a loud argument, to draw more outward communications among riders.  But underneath it all, there’s a hidden set of communications going on, and it’s really beautiful to see it unearthed through Missed Connections.

It turns out the posters are by a Brooklyn-based artist named Sophie Blackall, who has a whole poster series + a blog on Missed Connections.  Really nice.

July 21st, 2010

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Art, transit

Talking transit tech @ the MTAdev conf

Next Wednesday, I’ll be on a panel at the MTA Developers Unconference.  I’m very much looking forward to the event, because among other things, one of my fellow panelists will be the new MTA Chief, Jay Walder.  Here, I’ll give an overview of what I’m hoping to discuss on the panel; any feedback would  be greatly appreciated.

Before I get to that, though, I should note that it’s been an interesting journey working with MTA on its open data and developer relations policies over the past year.  In a nutshell, it’s gone from a highly contentious situation, to an atmosphere of open collaboration.

Almost exactly one year ago, here at OpenPlans we were beginning to experiment with the problem of tracking buses through the city.  That led us to dip our toes in the world of transit data — since you need to know the routes and schedules to do tracking and predicting — and introduced us to some of the challenges in getting accurate and up-to-date NYC bus schedule data.  Over the next 9 months, we engaged with the NYC transit developer community and the MTA to help work through the issues standing in the way of open MTA data.  We were very pleased when they announced in January that they’d be launching a developer outreach and open data program.

We believe that most of the credit for making this dramatic change happen goes to Chairman Walder and his conviction that open data would lead to innovation and ultimately better service for riders.  In his words at the time of the MTA dev center launch: “We need to get out of our own way and instead get out in front of the data sharing revolution” (via Second Avenue Sagas).

But I’d also like to personally thank Nick Bergson-Shilcock, David Turner, and the rest of the transit team here at OpenPlans for their hard and important work in helping to organize the NYC transit developer community, and in helping to identify and work through the sticking points regarding open data policy with the MTA.  Back in August 2009, I got an email from Nick to the effect of “This is going to be really big, and we need to step up and get involved.”  That prompted us to start the NY Transit Data Meetup, and develop a more serious and structured conversation about open data with the MTA and the developer community.  Thanks Nick; you were right (as usual), and I’m really happy that I listened to you (as usual).

Fast forward to today.  MTA has open data, a growing developer community, and is iterating.  From our perspective, they seem to be heading in the right direction.  So, that begs the question, what should they focus on next?  Here are a few things that I’ll be interested in hearing about & talking about on Wednesday:

  • Within MTA, which datasets would be the next easiest to expose? Of those, which would be the most interesting to developers?
  • What can we do to increase data sharing among other regional transit agencies? Last I checked, NJ Transit was the largest agency without open data according to City-Go-Round.
  • Let’s think beyond just transit data to transportation data. When it comes to planning trips, modes should be abstracted out of search.  What other datasets (outside of the ones in the MTA’s control) would be required to make some really interesting things possible?  (I’m thinking DOT for traffic, TLC for taxi data, paratransit, etc.)
  • Real-time. MTA has been piloting real-time bus location data on 34th street.  Would love to see the L train and 6 train in future pilots.
  • (Imaginary readers out there…) If you could ask Chairman Walder one question, what would it be?

That’s it.  Have a great weekend, and here’s to smart transportation and open, interoperable cities…

// Heart shaped subway map by ZEROPERZERO

April 30th, 2010

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Cities, transit

Interview on the Engadget Show is live

A few months ago, I did a short interview for the Engadget Show on the state of real-time bus information here in NYC.  The interview was for a video segment which led into a live interview with the reporter I worked with, Rick Karr.  The whole episode is now available online.  Before our section is an interview with Nicholas Negroponte, talking about OLPC and visions for the future.

35 min into the show is our part.  We’re standing right outside of Penn Station, checking out the real-time bus information that’s available now on 34th Street via dynamic signage.  We talk a bit about the current state of real-time on NYC buses and the challenges that the MTA has faced getting real-time implemented thus far.  In the live interview, Rick mentioned some of the work we’ve been doing at The Open Planning Project, including the iPhone-based OpenBusTracker experiment we did last summer, and our general belief that real-time can be implemented for less than you’d expect using commodity hardware and open source software.

Of course, it’s tough to watch yourself on video, and it’s even tougher to hear your own edited answers.  Note to self: work on snappier soundbites!  But it was really fun doing the interview, and great to get the real-time transit discussion out there to a wider audience.

March 26th, 2010

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Cities, Open Source, transit

Transit: uniter or divider?

Today’s post on Infrastructurist about the D-Train Murder had a line that caught my eye:

Cramming the population of a city like New York into a maze of underground cars creates a forced melting pot that’s a perfect breeding ground for class and race divisions.

There’s no question that the NYC subway is a forced melting pot — but it’s the assertion that it’s a breeding ground for class and race divisions that I take issue with.  In fact, I’ll say it’s the exact opposite.  Most (all?) of the above-ground city is actually divided by race and class.  It’s the subway where we all come together each day; the subway is perhaps the only place where people from all races, classes, and neighborhoods really mix.  In my experience, that is not cause for further division; rather, it’s a uniting force that gives us shared experiences on a human level.

One of the commenters on the Infrastructurist post summed it up nicely:

I think the necessity of sharing space with strangers is what makes cities the diverse, creative, wealth-producing places that they are. Far from being a necessary evil, it is the most distinctive feature of urban life. The elimination of this feature was one aspect of modernist city planning, but we reject that now. So we want mass transit for the type of civic interaction it creates, not just for sustainability and practicality.

Well said.

(Photo my moriza on Flickr)

November 24th, 2009

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Cities, transit