Is "Guia T" a Goner?

Calling Tokyo, NYC, Mumbai, and São Paulo.  Tell me, Mexico, Moskow, and Bejing ...do you guys have ANYTHING like this?  Paris, London, Hong Kong?

For us in Buenos Aires, except for its lack of a portability application for blackberrys and iPhones, we may have bought our last Guia T.

I´m talkin´ about a world-class mass-transit application: the City of Buenos Aires´ new beta version of their Mapa Interactivo, www.mapa.buenosaires.gov.ar

Google maps is great ...but it could never hang with mapa.buenosaires because Google doesn´t have the subtes and the surface trains.

The original mapa.buenosaires has an interface for buses but it was a Guia T style mix and match, connect the dots affair.

Both guides could tell you very well, with some effort and savvy, what bus would get you where on a direct connection ...but figuring out if that bus was going way out to the stockyards before getting you to your stop was not easy.  If it looked like you needed a transfer to another bus route, you were in for some serious research ...if you didn´t just give up or call a cab.

Goodbye to all that and get ready to be amazed.  Click on the above screen capture and begin to groove to the new features.  Here, we´ll concentrate only on the colectivos.

After filling in the info across the top of screen (Transporte Público, From, To, Colectivo, and going or coming), you get a full list in the lower-left of all buses that can get you there.  Furthermore, the list is ordered by ETA.

Pero pará!  Hay Más!  The fun is just beginning.

By clicking on one of the routes listed in the lower-left, you not only get a dropdown telling you not only how far you have to walk to your stop ...it tells you where to get off for your transfer and what transfer bus to take from there.

Did the dropdown verbage not impress you?  Look to your right and see a detailed line showing you how direct a route your colectivo will take.  Zoom in and you can even see the street names and all the turns.

Still not impressed?  Looky here:

By clicking on another route from the list, you can see BOTH routes, color-coded for your convenience, on the map at the same time.  You can remove one or both of your selected map routes by clicking on the corresponding color icon from the list.

You can close the dropdown by clicking on the tiny "-" at the left of any dropdown ...and can even completely eliminate from the list any routes that piss you off by clicking on its "X" at the right of the list.

Like I said, this is world class y estoy enormemente orgulloso de mi ciudad!

Not only that but, under the dropdown "mapas temáticos", there is an incredible amount of info you can add to the map regarding the city´s new bike paths, handicapped accessibility, urban planning, street parking and loading zones, banks, hospitals and clinics, schools and universities, ...culture ...fun ...and even food.

There´s probably more that I haven´t found yet.  Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Have fun, explore!