Transit mashups & me on Kojo tomorrow

Tomorrow at noon, I’ll be on the Kojo Nnamdi show’s “Tech Tuesday” to talk about transit mashups like Google Transit and other innovative ways government agencies are improving public access to information by letting private companies and individual “garage developers” innovate in ways we couldn’t imagine in advance.

Michael Perkins has collected some great examples, like TransitAlarm, an Android application which uses Chicago real-time bus feeds to automatically alert you when your bus is about to arrive. I’ve been told that some bars in Portland even have real-time displays on their walls. Walk Score has a great “transit time map” showing the places you can reach in 15, 30, and 45 minutes by transit in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle.

These mashups don’t only apply to transit. DC’s Apps for Democracy contest last year challenged developers to build tools out of numerous DC data feeds, with information like crime statistics, repaving requests, or the locations of fire stations. Walk Score itself works because of open access to business listings and Google Maps.

How about social media? DDOT is on Twitter, as is DCRA and Metrorail service disruptions. Metro has a Facebook page.

I should be the first segment, starting just after noon. I’d like to go on the air armed with the best examples. What other mashups have you seen using government or public agency data?