Bay Area traffic site melts in the rain

PR wonk and buddy Joshua Weinberg sent me a rant that the driving time app and interactive map on the Bay Area's 511.org Web site is down, "due to a high volume of users." It's a pretty stormy day here in the Bay Area, but as Weinberg points out, it's during storms and emergencies, when public transit is a mess, that people will go to state-sponsored route-finding systems.

Here is Joshua's rant:

The error message's advice to use the text version is flawed: It, too, is overloaded. Google's traffic maps are working, though. Leave it to private industry to provide better emergency services than our tax-supported agencies.

That's ok, I'll use Google.

See yesterday's Dept. of Missing the Point on another navigation product.

[listen_to_webware]

Definitely a great opportunity for someone to make 511.org's solution more scalable and reliable. If only I could get a foot in the door there ;)
listen_to_webware

[meshcount]

As my friend that works for the responsible agency says, "what do you expect when we have to contract out with the lowest bidder?"

[wavjockey]

Since Google has more money than the City of San Franciso, I'd expect it to work when the government portion fails.

At least they were smart enough to use Google instead of trying to do the maps themselves.