I don’t have a car here in Washington DC, so I rely on public transportation a lot. And mooching rides off my friends where available. I also take the bus to and from work, so I the fact that Metro offers a service for people waiting at any bus stop to call a number and get back the estimated time the next bus is supposed to arrive. In theory this is a really convenient feature, and helps people plan better. Especially helpful if the weather is bad, so you don’t have to wait outside in nasty weather.

But the thing is, it almost never works. That is, unless you get to talk to a real life human operator. In few attempts we have tried to use the system, it always resulted in us fruitlessly hanging up… wondering if we have to wait another 30 mins for the next bus because we just missed the last one.

Metro, if you’re listening, what I wish for you to implement is a dead simple system based on text messages. Let me text the stop number (it’s even printed on the sign!) to the posted phone number, and then you send me back a reply message back with the estimated arrival times for the next couple buses. How hard can it be? It doesn’t even have to be real time data (tho that would be nice), just do a table lookup and send me the info. If not text messages, then let me dial in the stop number after calling the phone. Thanks.