Fina-Effin'-ly Calgary Transit has Text Messaging for bus stops

http://www.calgarytransit.com/sms/

Finally we get a feature that other cities have had for a while now. You text the number 74000 with your stop number in the message, and it will return the next bus times. Pretty neat huh!?

I hope that this is the beginning of a tech revolution for Calgary Transit - first we got the signs on LRT stations that tell you when the next train is coming, and now text for bus stops. Next I hope that they tackle that gawdaweful website... I can't honestly believe that the overhaul of www.calgary.ca didn't include the Calgary Transit website. Google is currently doing a much better job of transit tracking - the algorithm on the CT website doesn't really do the best job of optimizing trips. The site otherwise is clunky and outdated. We should be taking cues from sites like http://www.bart.gov/ and implementing a better experience.

Read FFWD, it's good fer what ale's ya

http://www.ffwdweekly.com/article/news-views/news/smoke-on-the-border-8791/

A good read about a fire that is blown way out of proportion.

Diane Colley-Urquhart is a jerk. Who the hell voted in this soulless heathen?
-Will

Alberta Budget 2012 online

The Alberta budget for 2012 just went online and can be found here:
http://budget2012.alberta.ca/index.html

I haven't read much of it yet, but it seems pretty par for the course, a manilla envelope in front of a beige wall. Mediocrity, yet again.


nothing in there about our damn high speed train ... grumble grumble...

-Will

Thank you Apple, for Microsoft.

Here is a blog you should read:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/

It's about what MS is doing with Windows 8, when you look at your new copy of Office 2010, and think to yourself "WHY ON GODS GREEN EARTH DID THEY HIDE THE ONLY !@!#?!@! THAT I KNEW HOW TO FIND" you will find a thoughtful, mechanical, statistically backed up reason behind every UI adjustment that they've made to MS products (the exact opposite of how governments work). While I was completely caught off guard when they brought in the "ribbon" it didn't take long for me to love the ribbon.  The ribbon is peaceful, powerful, zen. Learn to leverage it to your use, and you too can be a ribbon lover.

Before this degrades into a penthouse forum letter about the ribbon, I want to quickly mention why the title. I hate/love Apple. Mostly hate. Apple, however makes great designs because they care about the integration of form and function of their product all the way through (hardware to software) and they have now eaten enough market share to shove that lesson down Microsoft's throat.

I love the ribbon,

-@willcwf

4 new Rec Centres will finally go ahead for Calgary

My man Nenshi announced today:
http://blog.calgarymayor.ca/2012/02/media-release-funding-solution-for-4.html

We're going to go ahead with the new (desperately) needed rec centres for the city.  Rec centres are my favourite projects to work on (my first project was the SW Edmonton Rec Centre that's my terrible render on the left!) Apparently the funding will come "through a reallocation of existing money in the Community and Recreation Levy as well as a portion of the City’s GST rebate" Fair enough. I spend my GST cheques on booze, but the City's plan is a good one too.

Public Input Wanted for Crowchild Trail

Head on over to http://calgary.ca/crowchild to have your say heard in the debate whether we should add an HOV lane to Crowchild, ie: busses and carpoolers only. I've seen and used these lanes with great success in other cities, and it would be a great addition to Calgary's infastructure. Northbound Crowchild makes more sense to me, feeding the new lane onto 9th avenue and into downtown. Southbound, however, thanks to the new Glenmore flyover, is rarely plugged with traffic, and I doubt that any benefit would be gained in the immediate future.

Cool ass link!

A traffic simulator in Java - check it out here: http://www.mtreiber.de/MicroApplet

Also make sure to check out this AMA on reddit from a Traffic Engineer: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/okt3j/iama_traffic_engineer_ama/