Sightline Daily in the Pacific Northwest reported yesterday that the popular walkability-rating service Walk Score has added transit information to their ratings. Walk Score uses transit data in GTFS format, the same format used by Google Transit. According to Sightline,
"What makes this extra nifty is that Walk Score has already partnered with a bunch of national real estate websites to incorporate walkability rankings into real estate listings. So now, all those real estate sites will have data on transit access, too."
However, Walk Score can only use the data if it has been made available to the public. Some transit agencies, even though they have provided data to Google, have not made that data publicly available. I live in Baltimore, and although our public transit system (MTA) is included in Google Transit, Walk Score isn't picking it up.
Interestingly, WMATA (AKA Metro) has not yet struck a deal with Google to be included in Google Transit, but actually HAS released GTFS data publicly, and it's included in Walk Score. I haven't researched it thoroughly (welcome to the blogosphere), but typing in the address of the Arlington County offices turns up distances to the Metrorail Orange and Blue lines and several Metrobus routes. (The Court House neighborhood is rated "Walkers' Paradise" by the way.)
Arlington's local transit system, ART, is working diligently to get their schedule, route, and stop data cleaned up and Google-ready. When that's done, the data will be released publicly.
Joe Chapline is Web Manager for Arlington County Commuter Services
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