The other day we were sent a link to a live website for NextBus, the previously suspended service that tracked where Metrobuses are and when they’ll be at different stops. The site looked pretty good— you could enter your location and destination for any bus line and see when the next three buses will show up, or you could look at a live map that showed the location and direction of buses in real time so you could plan your trip.

The site appeared to be working, though it isn’t linked from WMATA’s site or from the NextBus home page. A NextBus staffer even commented on my blog post about it, saying the site is currently under construction and that “WMATA has just given us the green light to finish the project and release it to the public later this year,” he wrote. “In the meantime, feel free to continue using it.”

Metro spokesperson Steven Taubenkibel had this to say: “The information you see … is a test site. We are not ready to go live yet… it will be several more months until we are ready.”

And now when you visit the site, you get an error message and a block of code.

The NextBus program was put on hold in the fall of 2007, after Metro announced that software problems were causing customers to receive inaccurate information. Metro has long stated that it intended to bring the program back once those glitches were worked out.

It’s too bad the site we saw yesterday is no longer up, but at least we now have some indication of what’s coming: a pretty useful site with a live map feature. The image above was taken when the site was working. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that it comes back sooner rather than later, and that you’ll be able get it on mobile devices, too.