i hope marin’s stuff gets in soon… those buses come so infrequently that having schedules optimized would be really useful.

that said, google can only do so much — in the end, the bay area just needs better transit planning. in the mean time, this is the best we have, so it’s great that we’re doing it.

The walk from “Vallejo, CA” to the Vallejo Ferry Terminal is more than 4 miles: http://tinyurl.com/ndtfu9

Google Transit doesn’t return trips where there is a walking leg that is more than about 4 miles.

Creating an algorithm that chooses when to include a walking travel leg vs. a transit travel leg must be challenging. In most cases, I’ve advocated on behalf of rural transit agency clients for Google Transit to more strongly preference returning available transit over walking (with some rural systems, indirect loop routes mean that walking is actually faster than traveling by bus for some trips). Even though someone who has no problem walking a mile or two may choose something other than the all-transit option, other factors such as weather, carrying packages, or disability may make the longer transit trip the only or preferable option.

What I am getting at is that the agencies I work for would prefer that Google Transit minimize walking distances and show all available transit services in most cases. The passenger can then choose to replace some transit travel legs with walking. As to how that reconciles with cases like the BART to Ferry Building transfer across the F Line and bus, I’d be curious to find out if there are other cases where a transit service or passenger would want or need a very short-leg transit service to transfer (maybe connector service to an air terminal?) It’s tempting to say that Google Transit should not return short hop service where an under 1km walking transfer is possible, but would instituting that screw something else up?

Switching topics somewhat…

SF Bay Ferry service trip planning in Google Transit will be much more useful when Golden Gate bus service, Marin Transit, and other North Bay Area transit services participate in Google Transit. Right now, I think that queries to Tiburon, CA, don’t return any result, because that city is too far from the ferry terminal and the local transit service isn’t included yet. Only to trips to Tiburon Ferry Terminal or Belvedere, CA will show the Blue & Gold Fleet service to the Tiburon Ferry Terminal.

It’s also necessary to query for locations within ~4 miles of the Sausalito Ferry Terminal and Vallejo Ferry Terminal. And you can’t query for just Sausalito, CA or Vallejo, CA as your origin or destination.

i think google needs to rework their algorithm a bit…

otherwise, i can’t wait for golden gate transit and all the other agencies to get on google transit —