The Washington Metro system has announced that it’s going to support data published in the Google Transit data format – an open, published format for posting schedules and stops. The Metro’s decision followed an online petition drive last fall. The drive was started by riders that were frustrated when talks between the Metro and Google to add the Metro data to Google Transit broke down. Google Transit has more than 115 agencies on the system now, but according to the Washington Post, the talks broke down over liability. The Metro will make the data available to anyone that agree to it’s terms.

So where is SEPTA in all this? They won’t agree to give Google their data, but the difference is that they won’t agree to give the data to the public either. Imagine how great iSEPTA or other, unimagined applications could be with structured data and locations published by SEPTA.  And SEPTA has even more than most transit agencies – they’ve got GPS feeds on every bus!! Would you like to see it change? The list of board members and their address is online.