MTA Chief Jay Walder was the man of the hour at last night’s Google/MTA Transit Developer Un-Conference, confirming developer’s suspicions since his confirmation last fall:

Walder “get’s it” – and then some.

In the process, he wiped the slate clean of MTA’s historically contemptuous relationship with developers preceding his tenure. A relationship which had, from the perspective of this developer, barely evolved from ‘paranoid schizophrenic’ to ‘reluctant and visionless’ prior to his confirmation.

The icing on the cake was Walder’s realtime release of a massive new batch of MTA data to developers via the MTA website. This was followed by Walder sharing his own personal transit data analysis bugbears with the audience and inviting them to use the data to help him solve these issues.

Walder also gave a nod to StationStops in his speech, revealing he had followed my MTA legal battle (he didn’t mention us by name) while he was in London and found MTA’s attitude over my iPhone app incredulous – “Just give it to him! (the data)”, he thought. He also wrapped up his speech by saying he hoped that ‘same person’ would be able to say – maybe not today – but sometime soon – that MTA’s developer relationship had done a complete 180.

Well, I would have said that well before this conference, Mr. Walder. MTA’s abrupt ‘about face’ towards transit app developers was apparent to many of us last fall, and it’s only gotten better since. It happened so quickly, in fact, that many of us wondered whether any of it could even be connected to an MTA CEO who’s chair wasn’t even warm yet.

The long-suffering developers in attendance can smell MTA apathy and BS from 100 miles – and our sniffers were out in full force last night – out of habit more than anything else. But there was none of the olfactory stench of bureaucratic sub-fiefdoms and ‘lifer’ managers who never signed on for ‘high tech stuff’. The same managers who held the keys to databases which, in hands of the willing and able, are completely reshaping commuter information services at ‘private sector speed’ – without the ‘MTA spending’.

The concept is so obvious to developers, so obvious to commuters, that it’s difficult to imagine that it was only 10 months ago that an MTA lawyer called me on the phone, and angrily told me to take down my website, and my iPhone application, or face legal action for ‘pretending to be MTA’.

Walder harbors no such institutional misconceptions about app developers whatsoever. He freely admits unapologetically that there is nothing about MTA’s organization which lends itself to the effective internal development of such apps, and that just focusing on getting that data out the door to those who can is MTA’s logical focus.

That said, it hasn’t stopped them from stepping up their internal initiatives on their website this year.

Before Walder, the MTA website front page was primarily a newsletter for capital expenditure press releases and and bunch of hobbled logo gifs. Since then, its already been transformed into what it always should have been – a front page which puts passenger service information and tools up front.

Many of these tools are new – Google Plan & Ride, Metro-North Train Time, 511NY, and TripPlanner, and Service Status. In addition, there have been enhancements to existing mobile versions of many of these tools.

In 2008, MTA had been literally dragged kicking and screaming into Google’s landmark transit data initiatives. It had taken Google over 18 MONTHS of patient and dogged persistence to convince MTA to even get to that point. Even then, MTA was for whatever reason overtly secretive over the relationship – and its terms.

But last night, I found myself at an MTA/Developer love-fest that had little to do with damage control and everything to do with aggressively getting developers informed, supported, and motivated to help commuters.

Embarrassingly, many of us (myself included) who hadn’t done their homework or previously heard Walder speak had assumed that Walder, coming from Transport for London (where he was the point man for the beloved ‘Oyster Card‘), is a Brit. But he also looks the bureaucratic type. So, while we were hopeful that he would bring the modern European savvy of mobile development awareness and ‘quality’ commuter rail system know-how to MTA, we were afraid MTA might instead eat him alive and assimilate him into the Borg collective like so many other well-intentioned souls.

Luckily, that has not been the case.
And he’s not a Brit, he’s from Rockaway…and MTA.

Walder was born in Indianapolis and grew up in Queens. He has 12 years of experience with MTA (1983-1995), culminating in his role as CFO, before going off to teach public policy at Harvard (where he holds his Masters), leading Finance and Development at Transport for London, and partnering at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

The relevance of his experience with starting at MTA, leaving for London, and then returning to MTA is key to both his awareness of the importance of transit data information sharing and his proven ability to get MTA to deliver on it.

When Walder would visit New York from London, and ride the subway, the contrast between European and NYC systems was immediately apparent to him.

He was surprised that there were still no overhead electronic signs in the NYC subway alerting passengers of real-time train arrival information. “We still do it the ‘New York’ way – by leaning over the platform and looking down the tunnel for the light” he said – with the exact same laugh of disbelief as any other rider you are likely to meet.

When one of his first new subway sign installations became operational, he timed it with his Blackberry in giddy satisfaction of its accuracy. It’s this authentic personal enthusiasm and awareness about the relevance of such systems which came through clear as a bell to the cautiously optimistic audience.

For Walder (and anyone who rides systems outside NYC), such conveniences are not ‘luxuries’, they are ‘standard equipment’ which is fundamental to an effective transit system. Not just today, but years ago.

Old MTA didn’t want to do stuff like install LED signs. Old MTA wanted to do a 6-month multi-million-dollar study which would basically declare that the signs were unnecessary, expensive, complex to deploy, and no one really wanted them anyway.

Walder’s MTA just ‘does it’.

While at the conference, I got to touch base with a lot of app developers I hadn’t seen in a while, most of the MTA reps I have ever worked with but never met in person, and new Google faces who had patiently coaxed MTA’s hand through data preparation and export while MTA was still a grumpy gus about the whole idea. This groundwork was key to Walder’s MTA data Glastnost being so swiftly productive on the technical end (its no small feat, trust me).

The central topic of conversation again and again amongst developers at the conference wasn’t the expected rah-rah about the new data sets, or Google’s great work with GTFS and MTA, the next iPhone or Android release or even the latest version of each other’s latest apps.

Instead it was the overwhelming consensus that the new MTA CEO was even better informed, enthusiastic, and effective about MTA data initiatives than we had ever hoped him to be.