Bus trips on the DC Circulator can now be mapped within Google Transit, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty announced today. The move means that anyone attempting to get directions from Google Maps within the city will now see Circulator routes when selecting “By public transit” as the sorting option. The change is welcome news to residents and visitors of Washington, D.C. alike, but it’s practically meaningless without the addition of WMATA. Having the Circulator info available…

Greater Greater Washington’s Michael Perkins has been doing great work chasing down why, exactly, WMATA and Google can’t come to an agreement and get Metro data into Google Transit. This post gets into the details, but the short version is that WMATA isn’t inclined to play nice with Google, apparently because the agency thinks its schedule data might be worth something. No, they’re not sure if they can get any money for it, but…

There were long delays, petition drives, and some final technical hiccups, but WMATA has finally released its schedule data in the Google Transit Feed Specification format. What does that mean? Well, most obviously it means that Google Transit will soon be adding D.C. to its list of supported cities (UPDATE: or perhaps not — see below for a comment from Michael Perkins of GGW, who explains that there are lingering complications surrounding WMATA’s legal…

$68,000. That’s how much money WMATA earned from web advertising in the last fiscal year. It’s also, according to the Examiner, what the agency says is keeping Washington’s public transit riders from being able to use Google Transit, a story which has picked up considerable steam since Greater Greater Washington got it started and we reported on it last weekend. Metro spokeswoman Candace Smith told the paper that “[integration with Google] can’t just be a…