Apple Maps Expands Transit Data to Portland, Oregon

[campyguy]

I'll offer a bit of encouragement for those in outlying areas - I'm based in Portland and Seattle, but working at a job site in Longview WA for a few months. I'm in Longview now, and I need to travel to Downtown Portland tomorrow (back to my home office). Just for the heck of it, rather than driving my Benz I opted for using Apple Maps and got a direct link to my Portland location completely via transit!!!!!!

The RiverCities Transit, CC Rider, and Tri-Met Route options were all shown!

This, coming from a former Tri-Met employee who worked on the Eastside Improvements and Westside Improvements projects and helped lay out and perform preliminary design on what is now the Yellow Line - good on Apple, finally! It's about frickin' time, given that Tri-Met was one of the first transit agencies who got on board (no pun intended) with publishing its data...

I now have two options to get where I need to go in Portland, GMaps and Apple Maps. The last 3 times I used GMaps in Portland I was left at the bus or train station - as they'd already departed as the scheduling wasn't accurate. I'll use Apple Maps next time and see what happens with my schedule...
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I live in Portland, Transit maps don't seem to be loading. Keep seeing the error "Transit information for Portland is not available." on my phone and computer. I have restarted devices, any ideas?

Wait a bit. I read this earlier elsewhere, and it wasn't showing up (former TM employee here...). It is now.
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Small technical detail - TriMet is not an agency of the City of Portland, but a regional transit authority under the state (closely related to (but separate from) Metro, the regional government of the Portland metropolitan area).

No offense intended, TM isn't at all closely related to Metro. I'm a former TM employee, in Engineering Services and still a TM consultant. The engineering/planning offices of TM, at 710 NE Holladay Street (where I worked) is two blocks from Metro's office, but that's about as close as it gets.

Tri-Met is a municipal corporation of the State of Oregon and is governed by a Board of Directors appointed by the Governor of Oregon, receiving funds from Federal, state, local agencies as well as private funds. I left Tri-Met in 1999 - they're now TriMet - old habits die hard, they've dropped the hyphen in their name...

Metro is a regional governmental agency for the Oregon "portion" of the Portland metropolitan area. Metro manages parks, recycling, garbage collection, GIS, the Zoo, the Arts Center and Exposition Center, and more...

Hey, I'm not picking nits with you - just having fun. Feel free to drop by 710 Holladay and give Neil McFarlane (my former director) a kick in the butt for me (he deserves it!).

 

[hagar]

Yes!! That one student Apple hired to enter transit data into Maps is really paying off: 11 cities done, 49.989 to go.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

Luckily Google Maps works perfectly well on my iOS device - if they would provide a toggle to select an alternate Maps app as the default, we'd be golden.

Apple needs to remember that they are a hardware company - make only as much software as is necessary to sell the hardware. In this case, Maps might be a hedge to ensure access to a navigation app (should others stop supporting iOS).

I have reluctantly converted to Google Maps from Apple Maps recently.

In England, the navigation is so much better in Google. It's a shame, as I prefer the look and feel of Apple's maps, but it's been several years now, and Apple Maps doesn't cut the mustard.

 

[Bubba Satori]

The dream of the 90's is alive in Portland

It's nice that the addicts, homeless and skinheads will have an easier time getting around.

 

[jonnysods]

It's nice that the addicts, homeless and skinheads will have an easier time getting around.

JASON: Remember when people were content to be unambitious? Sleep to eleven? Just hangout with their friends? You'd have no occupations whatsoever. Maybe you work a couple of hours a week at a coffee shop?
MELANIE: Right. I thought that died out a long time ago
JASON: Not in Portland. Portland is a city where young people go to retire

 

[campyguy]

I had to travel a bit this week along the OR Coast, and tried this out a bit more while I was out and about. The transit agencies in Columbia, Clatsop, and Tillamook Counties are former clients of mine, sooooo....

One can navigate to/from:
Portland Metro Area - Salem Metro Area/Corvallis/Tillamook/Rainer/Longview-Kelso/Clatskanie/Westport/Astoria/Yachats

and travel to/from Astoria all the way to Yachats or from Yachats to The Dalles.

It's nice to see that Apple's connected several (but not all local) rural transit agencies, despite some kinks. I can get from Longview to Astoria and from Astoria to Tillamook, but not from Longview to Tillamook - there's a bit of disconnect. But, while it's better than a week ago, Google's offering still kick Apple to the curb with this - although GMaps gave me options from 5 hours to 2 days & 16 hours to get from Rainier OR to Stevenson WA, I'm not sleeping on a transit center's bench so the latter option is out!

Still no Amtrak/Greyhound options as there are in GMaps.

Being silly here, I'm wondering what's going to happen with HERE now that they've been folded into Daimler, et al. Maybe I'll be directed to ride the bus to the nearest Mercedes Benz dealership - my fare will be around $93,008, $8 for the bus fare and $93k for the marked-down S65 on the showroom floor...