New York City Councilwoman Gale Brewer Chairs the Technology in Government Committee, and has sent a letter to MTA interim CEO Helena Williams regarding MTA’s current data policies.

In the letter, Brewer suggests that MTA operational data be “wholly in the public domain”, available online, using standard data transit protocols provided by Google, and be kept updated.

MTA’s current data policy involves a $5000 licensing agreement, 10% of royalties on developer app sales, delivery of transit data via cumbersome CD-ROM format, and lacks a willingness to provide accurate and timely updates to schedule data.

Furthermore, when developers such as myself have approached MTA for negotiation on these terms, MTA marketing was completely unwilling to negotiate and immediately resorted to legal threats including the takedown of both my blog and iPhone application.

Brewer’s views are shared by StationStops.com and the Councilwoman has our full support.

Councilwoman Brewer joins The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Gov 2.0 Spokesman Tim O’Reilly, NYC IP Attorney Ron Coleman, and Stamford Advocate Opinion Editor Thomas Mellana in it’s opposition to MTA’s licensing policies regarding schedule data, and in the latter four cases, MTA’s actions against StationStops specifically.

I have forwarded this information to my contacts at MTA Marketing and Legal, and once again requested that they retract the cease and desists to StationStops and Apple as a first step in developing a data transit policy which is in line with public opinion and seeks meaningful cooperation with developers.

The question remains – exactly how much public opposition to MTA’s behavior is necessary for MTA to react to public concern and take positive and meaningful action?

My latest request to MTA Marketing for an update on MTA’s willingness to make changes to its data licensing policies went unanswered.

MTA Open Data Letter 09-08-2009