Google Transit Maps for Boston Unveiled

Red Line T inbound to Alewife at South Station...
Image via Wikipedia

Over at Flight Wisdom, our sister blog, we’re well familiar with Jonathan Kamens, who is very active in the greater community in a way we envy. Over at Flight Wisdom, we wrote about how Continental Airlines sent his daughter to the wrong city. It amused us to see him pop up again in regards to another story.

On Thursday, Google Maps announced the MBTA, the Boston Transit system, would now appear on Google Maps. This includes commuter rail, subway, bus and ferry schedules. We think this is wonderful. Anything that adds to the ability of riders to take public transportation is a good thing.

However, that brings Jonathan Kamens, who is a software engineer, onto the scene. The data supplied to Google by the MBTA contains route errors he’s been complaining to them about for six years now. So, he showed up at the announcement at Boston’s South Station, brandishing a flyer(click here), indicating his example. Kamens was told by Transit Police he couldn’t hand out flyers. One would think the MBTA would be interested in correcting mistakes pointed out to them, but we’ve discovered most organizations aren’t when they are pointed out by the public.

Google Transit has already added over 400 transit systems to its data. For a complete list, click here.