The Government needs to get with Web 2.0

This article in the New York Times, "In a Crisis, Subway Riders Get Little Guidance," discusses how the NYC subway system lacks good information systems to deliver messages about problems, and that the website gets overwhelmed when problems occur.

Last year, I suggested that the DC Government set up its calendaring system so that other websites could feed it too--just as how the Google or Upcoming Calendars work. See "An idea to make the DC.gov Calendar more widely available."

Feed me...

Similarly, the WMATA trip planner could be fed to other websites in the same fashion. (I suggested this to WMATA last year also.)

And the same with notices about system status.

This accomplishes multiple objectives: greater spread of information, usage, and redundancy.