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October 7, 2008
Dear Google Maps, What About Orange Line Stations?
Have you ever noticed that Google Maps displays Metro Subway and Light Rail stations but not Orange Line ones, even though the buway pretty much acts like train on rubber wheels (yeah, cheesy description). We posed that question to Google and a spokesperson quickly responded saying those stations would be marked on the map if Metro joined the Google Transit program.
"The icons you're seeing for LA Metro stations are actually from a separate source from our Google Transit data." explained the spokesperson. "As such, we typically only receive data on subway/rail stations. If LA Metro were to join our Google Transit program, we would include an icon for every train station and bus stop they operate. (For example, we recently launched New York City's MTA and now have nearly 40,000 icons across the tri-state area)."
Screen capture of the Metro Red Line station in the NoHo Arts District. The two smaller bus markings north of the station denote Burbank Bus, who is a member of the Google Transit program.
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What's even nuttier is when you're on the Orange Line, there's sometimes a window on the Transit TV screen showing the GPS of where your Orange Line bus is, the bus jumps from cross street to cross street, because the Orange Line isn't in the system. Too many systems in LA assume that everyone is in a car.
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again, it would be a huge mistake for Metro to waste (yes, WASTE) resources on Trip Planner.
Google Transit would provide better functionality and it wouldn't cost a thing to release the feeds to Google.