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Comment by cpitman | Hacker News Reader

Do municipalities collect and release any data on how people move around the area? For example, start and end points, with usual times for leaving or arriving. A large enough sampling of something like this seems important for planning, and I assume the real planners have it.

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They do collect. I frequently see "people counters" stationed on Caltrain trains. And BART (less frequently) sends out people asking questions like where'd you leave from, where are you going, etc. Of course those are just samples, but one hopes they're done correct enough to get a fair idea for what's going (e.g. if your poll shows more people leaving a station, than actual fare deductions at said station, then you've got a problem with fare evasion or in your poll's design).

I feel like Ggogle should be altruistic and donate Maps usage data for this purpose.

I'd be totally onboard to have Google share aggregate data about my trips planned using GMaps both for driving and public transit if it would help causes like this. Extra points if it was made available open-source for non-commercial uses.

Boston has a data-sharing partnership with Waze.

Chicago publishes boarding counts for each train station and bus stop. However, the CTA rail system is a flat fare and doesn't know where you exit.

It's pretty simple: build a highway and it will saturate. At this point it is only a matter of when total saturation starts (7am? 6am?) and how long total saturation lasts.

Since development follows highways, you already know where transit needs to be. Caltrain already closely matches 101 on the peninsula.

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