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Post by matthewb on Nov 14, 2011 8:45:11 GMT -8
Los Angeles is the largest city in the US without a transit layer on google maps. A transit layer would overlay major transit lines on the map of the city, and depreciate the prominence of car oriented map features. I don't know why LA doesn't have this, while San Francisco, San Diego, and Sacramento do. I think it would be fantastic to have a transit layer with Metro rail and buses, as well as Metrolink. Probably Big Blue Bus and some of the other heavily used lines (or those of particular interest to tourists) would be good. Any thoughts on how to promote this? |
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Post by jamesinclair on Nov 14, 2011 9:59:07 GMT -8
I believe the agency has to give them the mapping data, google doesnt do the work.
I dont quite understand why they dont let users map it.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Nov 14, 2011 11:12:09 GMT -8
But LA is the 2nd largest city. Saying that Omaha (or wherever) is the largest city without it would mean something, but saying that LA is the largest only means that NYC already has it. |
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Post by matthewb on Nov 15, 2011 13:10:57 GMT -8
But LA is the 2nd largest city. Saying that Omaha (or wherever) is the largest city without it would mean something, but saying that LA is the largest only means that NYC already has it. I know :-) It was an easy statement to make, but the fact is that San Francisco, Sacramento, and San Diego all have it, but Los Angeles doesn't for some reason. I could go through a list of hundreds of cities around the world that do, most of which are smaller than LA (you can check in google if you want). LA is a huge city with an extensive rail and bus network, but it has something of an image problem when it comes to transit. One of the main cliches about LA is that everyone drives, and not having a Google transit layer in the maps program reinforces the idea that transit isn't an option. I believe the agency has to give them the mapping data, google doesnt do the work. I dont quite understand why they dont let users map it. I believe Google already has the data in the feed that Metro provides. If you turn on the "rail" option in Google earth, you can see all the metro lines drawn in the correct colors. If you search for routes using public transport, the lines drawn on the map follow the rail lines. Maybe Metro needs to change the format of something, or maybe Google needs to make a change to their system to turn on the service for LA. Either way, I don't see a good reason why it shouldn't work already. |
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Post by ieko on Nov 15, 2011 13:19:53 GMT -8
I've asked my colleagues at Google, hopefully I'll get a response soon.
I think the reality is that there are too many agencies not on Google Transit, or who provide poor data for this to work here.
Metro doesn't even provide proper shape files for their Rail lines [shapes are what make lines follow a certain path, notice how when you plan trips for a rail line they just have direct lines from one station to another instead of following the tracks] or fares, so they've got a long way to go.
Then there are agencies like Big Blue Bus, who don't provide plain english in their feed -- instead they dump internal transit-speak onto the public. For example, plan a trip on Lincoln and see if it says take route "23" -- what is route 23? It's Rapid 3.. it's very easy to change this, but they haven't.
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Post by matthewb on Nov 16, 2011 3:45:17 GMT -8
I've asked my colleagues at Google, hopefully I'll get a response soon. I think the reality is that there are too many agencies not on Google Transit, or who provide poor data for this to work here. Metro doesn't even provide proper shape files for their Rail lines [shapes are what make lines follow a certain path, notice how when you plan trips for a rail line they just have direct lines from one station to another instead of following the tracks] or fares, so they've got a long way to go. Then there are agencies like Big Blue Bus, who don't provide plain english in their feed -- instead they dump internal transit-speak onto the public. For example, plan a trip on Lincoln and see if it says take route "23" -- what is route 23? It's Rapid 3.. it's very easy to change this, but they haven't. Ieko, do you work at Google? I have a few friends in the Venice office, but they don't work on maps. Even if they only got Metro rail and Metrolink right, that would already be a start for a transit layer. Add Metro rapid (significantly more effort, I know), and you're pretty much there. I would imagine this should be possible to do. I know this isn't really Google's responsibility to have the shape files. If that's the problem, someone should point out to Metro that they're losing ridership because they aren't providing the correct information. They just have to do this once per new line, and *all* GIS systems will have access to it. There's no knowing what impact it would have across a range of apps and websites, but I think Google is already enough to justify the effort of getting it right. |
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Post by ieko on Nov 16, 2011 9:39:30 GMT -8
No.
Metro provides shapes for everything but rail.
If you look at say, San Francisco, the transit layer distinguishes by mode, not service type per-se.
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Post by jamesinclair on Nov 16, 2011 17:13:26 GMT -8
Could you ask why users arent allowed to do that? There are rail fans around the country that would like nothing more but to make sure the line geometry is absolutely perfect.
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