SpotBus!
SpotBus
Background
Seattle's bus system, Metro, provides a trip planner web site designed for planning trips ahead of time. It's good to plan ahead so you can make it to the bus stop on time; however, this required planning makes bus travel much less convenient than driving by car.
SpotBus!
Enter SpotBus, a tool I designed to enable spontaneous travel on the bus system. SpotBus can tell you how to get from point A to point B in just a few seconds--much faster than either Metro's tool or even opening a timetable. Since SpotBus is so convenient, you don't need to plan ahead to ride the bus. That means that you can spontaneously stop by that flower shop on the way home from work, take that trip to IKEA on your lunch break, or go on any number of trips that are usually only convenient by car.
The Big Picture
Making transit convenient is a vital for decreasing the region's dependence on the automobile. SpotBus is a small but decisive improvement, and I think it can have a big impact on the way the region uses public transportation.