I’ve written before how transit apps for smart phones aren’t the silver bullet to getting everyone on the bus. But they can get make riding transit convenient enough for some people to make the switch from their car once in a while.
So I thought it was pretty cool that Google is upping their game on transit. You’ve been able to map transit routes and find stops nearby. Now they’re rolling out features that let you see when your bus is going to arrive, if it’s running late, and other service alerts.
Right now, they’re just rolling out the live transit updates in six cities–including Portland. We’ll see how they do against the existing heavyweights like PDXBus and OneBusAway (in Seattle).
