How do you bring meaningful public participation that’s fun and engaging into transit planning? Code for America’s new Transitmix tool may be able to do just that.

While Transitmix may have been created with transit planners in mind, the website allows users of all abilities and backgrounds to design new bus lines and tweak the routes of existing lines (though unfortunately for the region’s transit riders, the ability to tweak existing routes isn’t yet available for New York City or many communities in the tri-state region).

There is a lot of useful potential to the tool: transit agencies across the tri-state could use Transitmix to get feedback from riders when planning and modifying existing routes; community groups interested in gathering information on local transit needs and desires could also. Imagine attending a public meeting where participants could collaborate to design bus routes on iPads, or having bus riders design or modify a route while they’re aboard a bus, or redesigning your commute from the comforts of your own home, hitting “submit,” and sending your input directly to your transit agency.

Transitmix also provides the rough operating costs of all user-created, user-modified and existing routes. In designing a route, users can modify the frequency of service and see how that affects the operating cost. This feature is helpful in understanding the costs of one route over another, as well as the financial trade-offs a transit agency faces when prioritizing which routes to modify.

Even in its early stages, Transitmix is growing in popularity. Code for America reports that “Transitmix has been used to generate 30,000 new transit maps for more than 3,600 cities across the world.”

In our region, NYCDOT has been at forefront of soliciting public participation and feedback in innovative ways, including its Vision Zero map and “Tell Us More” function for select corridor improvements, but other agencies in the region have lagged behind in utilizing social media to solicit input on projects or services. Encouraging increased rider participation through this new tool could help the MTA, NJTransit, CTTransit and the region’s suburban bus systems improve service for those who depend on transit as well as those looking for additional transportation options.