About a month ago, STM and Google announced the launch of Google Transit for Montreal. Both bloggers (Patrick Tanguay, Fagstein, Daniel Lemire, Roberto Rocha, Tristan Péloquin), and mainstream news sites covered the event.
I want the same data that was given to Google, so I can create isochrone or “travel-time” maps. So far I’ve put in two days of work on the imaginatively named isochrones project. It’s open-source and accessible on github. It was all written pair-programming, first with William Lachance, then with François Beausoleil.
It took the STM a few days to answer my call, and when they did I was informed it was “impossible” at this time for them to share the data. Release of said data would be considered in the medium-term, but my caller wouldn’t say how long the medium-term is. Incredibly helpful.
My options are apparently to write a partnership proposal or go to their monthly administration meeting
If you have the patience to fight a bureaucracy, you have my admiration. I no longer have the stomach for it: all I want to do is write code.
4 comments ↓
fuck!
I was told there would be an annoucement regarding this. Maybe they’ve changed their mind? How can this be impossible? The data is already on their web servers for Google to download, so we just need to know the URL!
Impossible was their word, hence the quotes.
My translation? “Fuck you, we only share it if we want”
If they actually cared, they would tell us what’s taking so long rather than lie outright.
Well, it’s not their data! It’s our data! We paid for it.
This is unacceptable — what are the options for getting some mainstream press coverage?
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