Fairly exciting news from WMATA: the transit agency let the world know this morning that they are planning to relaunch the much-clamored-for Next Bus service on July 1. In preparation, your bus stop du jour will be getting new signage anyday now. The Next Bus system, which uses GPS technology to accurately estimate the real-time arrivals of buses, should really assist those of us — all of us, I should say — who know the frustration of waiting forty minutes in the rain for a Metrobus, only to find three bunched buses, arriving at the same time.

Of course, any regular around these parts will remember the brouhaha over the last usable, but hush-hush iteration of Next Bus. When alerted to an operational beta version of the useful system, WMATA pulled it from circulation, claiming that it wasn’t “ready for prime time” — although many were using it with modest success. Hopefully, things will go a little more smoothly this time.