Never Wait For The Bus Again - The MTA Has Released Live GPS Data For Brooklyn Bus Lines

It's not always easy to get from one location in Brooklyn to another by way of public transportation.

There's the famously fluky G train that may or may not be running, and you're likely making a transfer or two and going out of your way after that. The bus system steps up in a big way to fill these gaps, but it has gaps of its own - it runs on timetables that can't readjust themselves for lateness or rush hour. The MTA hasn't provided a really solid way to let you know when your bus is coming yet. It's all very 1989.

But the MTA stepped up the bus system in Brooklyn this weekend and enabled realtime GPS data for the borough's buses. Yesterday morning I used an app called Bus New York City (we previously gave the app a detailed walkthrough here) to meet my bus at its stop rather than wait for it and shiver in the cold like a fool. It works like a charm and I hope you end up using it too.

Here's what it looks like.

First we select the bus line we're looking for.

It displays every stop on the route as a blue dot. The buses' current locations are shown in red.

It we select the stop where we'll be waiting, we have an instant live countdown to when the bus will arrive, far better than a static timetable.