Do you remember how Google Transit used to show lines that traveled straight between bus stop locations, even right across the bay (I called it the trans-Humboldt Bay tunnel)?

No more. [Click the image to read more.]

[Click here to see this trip on Google Maps.]

This change comes with the latest version of the Google Transit feed for Humboldt County.  Curious what this is?  You can download it on Google's public feeds page.

While it may seem simple to make line for the bus route follow the road, it actually took quite a bit of doing, especially because of the many different trip patterns in the RTS schedule.

Each unique trip pattern (a particular order of stops) needs to be described by a shape, which is a series of lat/lon points that describe a line.  Humboldt's feed has 59 shapes, most of which are for RTS, and many, many hundreds of segments that are stitched together into the shapes.  Each segment runs between two stops.  It took a little bit of doing with software to stitch together segments into all the shapes for the system.  Each stop time and each shape point (lat/lon) includes a distance traveled value, so that Google Transit knows how much or how little of the line to draw.  If you're really curious, you can learn all about it here.

As part of this project, Trillium sub-contractors (Thanks Patch Hofweber & Mike Egan), HSU students (thanks Jeff Steuben), and a Green Wheels volunteer (thanks Michelle Sternberg) gathered new lat/lons for bus stops with a handheld GPS, so most bus stop locations should be accurate to within about 30 feet now.

This project, for which Trillium received no money, took a total of a few weeks worth of time worth thousands of dollars to complete.

Of course, there are probably going to be a few issues with this new feed.  I've already noticed some irregularities with the shape for the ETS Green Route, and with RTS mainline trips around McKinleyville's Railroad Avenue.  I've also noticed that fares are not showing up (might be something to do with merge.py).  The schedule information should all be accurate, though.

Please post any feedback or concerns you have at the customer service forum for transit in Humboldt County.