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14 comments

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jackweirdy
Looks like the Cities->Want to see your city here? menu link is broken
mpcadosch
Sorry about that. What city would you like to see ?
evancasey
Does google maps/citymapper consume this sort of real-time train location data?

If not, perhaps you could use the NYC subway REST API to cross reference route calculations

mpcadosch
This API uses the same source of real-time data as Google Maps and CityMapper
cunac
it uses http so anybody can snoop api key ?
untog
It is possible to get this data directly from the MTA: http://datamine.mta.info/

It is a good bit messier than this, but it is free, unlike this site. And after all, you never know how long sites like these will be around.

robbiemitchell
It appears the point of this service is to make it less messy. For that convenience, there's a charge. And now we've both stated the obvious.
untog
I didn't think that the URL for the MTA's own data source was particularly obvious, so I stated it. Apologies if doing so somehow offended you.
robbiemitchell
HN contributors have a great habit of creating something (some sort of MVP) and charging for it. HN commenters have a habit of immediately pointing out the free way of doing something that takes more time, skills, or effort. It's not offensive, but it gets old and it's not very supportive of the contributors.
mpcadosch
Thanks @robbiemitchell for appreciating my work. I put many hours and a lot of effort to make this project happen, and as a student, need a way to support myself so I can continue to grow it. So @untog, it is a little offensive when you just ask contributors to give out their work for free.
johnduhart
Putting your API on the same hostname and presumably the same codebase as your website is not a great long-term strategy. And mentioned before, consider HTTPS to protect the API key.
mpcadosch
Thank you johndunhart for the advice, I will definitely take into account this in the next iteration of the product.