The Google Transit team has been busy.  In the last month they have added some new locations.  I am especially interested in the Las Vegas monorail since my college friends are heading to Sin City next week.  It’s also terrific to see more California cities getting on board as this will hopefully put pressure on the SF Bay Area to play ball with Google.

Additions (from what I can tell)

• Burbank, CA
• Humboldt County, CA
• Orange County, CA
• San Diego, CA
• Duluth, MI
• Las Vegas, NV
• Reno, NV
• Dallas, TX

The transit team also added mobile support.  If you pull up the site on a phone then it redirects you to the plain-HTML version where you can get directions and fares in text.  They haven’t promoted this feature, but Chris showed it to me.  Here’s text-based directions for Vegas.

Today it was reported that Google Transit is working to map the New York City subway system.  I know how much the team has struggled to find support within local transit authorities, so this is a huge win.

“We are always looking for ways to incorporate technology
in what we do,” Jim Redeker, assistant executive director of New
Jersey Transit, said in a telephone interview from Newark. Google
has “good experience at making this work.”
via Bloomberg

In related transit news, the San Francisco area BART opened up their EZ Rider program this week.  They had shipped a rider card to me within 48 hours of signing up online.  I’ve used the “fasttrack for trains” service for the last two days and it works as promised…. no more paper tickets for me!