Headway Blog: Bringing Transit to Web 2.0

A screenshot of the Headway blog, your portal to transit’s future.

A blog I’ve recently come to discover and enjoy, thanks in part to a recent interview with our very own Wad about his work on SoCalTIP, is Joe Hughes’s Headway blog. In many ways Headway has a similar mission to MetroRiderLA: improving transit through individual action. Headway smartly recognizes that attempting to navigate the massive political and monetary roadblocks in order to improve transit can often be difficult and fruitless, but that passionate individuals have the power to bypass the political machine and facilitate their own improvements without the bureaucracy. With the proliferation of the web this philosophy is more relevant than ever. Headway references sites like Seattle Bus Monster, Train Check, and events like the Toronto Transit Camp as evidence of the D.I.Y. transit movement at work. Joe himself has been involved in the third-party game, working on sites like Google Transit and buskarma, in addition to Headway.

The blog itself has been around for a year on this day (Happy Blog Birthday!) and has logged in over 40 posts in that time. Google Maps mash-ups, GPS hacks, and iPhone hints are just a few of the topics Headway looks at. Headway also offers it’s own innovation, the Headway Wiki, a user editable index of transit agencies, cities, software, and third-party sites. As of today there were 81 third-party transit sites listed.

Headway has really created an inspirational resource for all those interested in fixing transit but who don’t feel like waiting 5, 10, 15, or more years for the agencies to make a difference. Check it out and see if you’re inspired.