this article was written by Jeremy Faludi in June 2007. We’re republishing it here as part of our month-long editorial retrospective.

Google Transit was already the best thing that ever happened to online public transit trip planning, and now it’s grown to a whole new level. Even better, it’s starting to be incorporated into the default Google Maps and Google Earth. The new features and the integration into normal map queries will make public transit more accessible and easier for everyone to understand; and in doing so, it will certainly increase transit ridership and reduce driving.

One of the big barriers to public transit use is the knowledge required to use the system: where to wait, when to wait, where to transfer, how much to pay, etc. Some readers may remember that two years ago we helped cause Google Transit to happen, but it’s taken off far beyond what we had suggested, and they keep getting better. What’s more, they’re doing it at no charge to the transit agencies (a perpetually under-funded sector of local governments). More cities are coming on board, as well; if you live in one of the eleven cities now participating, enjoy! If you live elsewhere, consider writing to your local transit agency and telling them to join the 21st century. (ahem… San Francisco, right in Google’s back yard, no excuse… ahem.)

What are these tools? In addition to being able to type in your route and get comprehensive directions (including walking to stations, showing the bus or train route, walking directions between stations, how much it costs, etc.), you can plan trips by departure or arrival time and see when the next couple buses come if you miss the one you’re aiming for. Now, if you zoom in enough on any Google map in the right city, all the transit stops appear, with different icons for bus, light rail, etc.; click on a bus stop and up pops a list of the buses or trains that stop there; click on the bus number, and up pops the timetable for the next several buses stopping there.

Here’s a summary of the new features, with screenshots, right from the horse’s mouth–Thomas Sly, a business development manager on the project. (Note the screenshots are small for bandwidth reasons; for real-size ones, give it a spin yourself on the real site.)

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This article was written by Micki Krimmel in June 2007. We’re republishing it here as part of our month-long editorial retrospective.

I first learned about MAPLight.org at the recent NetSquared Conference. As I wrote last week, the conference attendees chose MAPLight as the winner of the first prize NetSquared Innovation Award. In a crowd of extremely well-deserving projects, MAPLight stood out as an organization applying the best of Web 2.0 technology and standards to create a vital tool for transparency in democracy.

MAPLight.org brings together campaign contributions and how legislators vote, providing an unprecedented window into the connections between money and politics. We currently cover the California Legislature and U.S. Congress.

Maplight has been receiving a fair amount of attention lately and the $25k prize will help them take their project to the next level, providing the funds for them to create customized widgets for bloggers and nonprofit organizations to share up to date information on their websites automatically. MAPLight is also working to expand their service to other states, with New York next on the list.

I chatted with Sean Tanner, Maplight’s Research Manager via email to get a little more insight into Maplight’s mission and future particularly as America turns its attention to the next Presidential election. As Research Manager, Sean coordinates the MAPLight.org database and research internship program. He is also the chair of the Young Advocates, a group of young professionals who support the work of Human Rights Watch.

Micki Krimmel: Can you tell me a little bit about the mission of MAPLight and its origins?
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May 02, 2008 – Craig Barnes(51 minutes – 23.7mb)Craig Barnes is an author, essayist, playwright and international mediator. 

 His books include In Search Of The Lost Feminine, Decoding the Myths that Radically Reshaped Civilization, an analysis of the roles of women as they appear in archeology and myth before the patriarchy.

http://www.futureprimitive.org/GAIAlogues.html

 See Ivan Illich’s  Shadow Work for earlier take on all the work being done for little pay or cash 

Lev Manovich is the author of Soft Cinema: Navigating the Database (The MIT Press, 2005), Black Box – White Cube (Merve Verlag Berlin, 2005), and The Language of New Media (The MIT Press, 2001) which is hailed as “the most suggestive and broad ranging media history since Marshall McLuhan.” UCLA listing and details.

Prints of this portrait are available (sale benefits MAPS) here.
More about Artist Brummbaer

from MAPS.ORG site

Brummbaer recently completed his second book, What’s So Wrong With Love and Peace: 1965-67. To find out more about Brummbaer’s work visit his Web site: www.brummbaer.net

And now, here comes Brummbaer to show us how to use the screen for interpersonal communication;how to embrace, fondle, cuddle, snuggle, enliven our brain-exchanges to the level of the high spiritualart of India, China, Tibet, Rome, Egypt, Venice, Berlin. He has sculpted digital pixels into tender,caressing mind inter-play things.It is always the artists who blueprint and design the spirit of a culture. The 21st Century is beginning to express itself in the shimmering electronic realities of these digital wizards.

Timothy Leary Nov. 1990 Los Angeles

   and today at 5 PM

5:00pm

Short Break

 http://www.ecocityworldsummit.org/program.htm

 See one of Soleri’s earliest Arcologies, Asteromo! One of the first space colonies ever designed, circa 1969?! fromhttp://pruned.blogspot.com/2006/02/asteromo.html