METRO Map
Carlos Lacayo, UHD employee, stands near the METRO light rail stop at UHD.
UHD Employee Creates Interactive Tool to Simplify Commuting
By: Mary Ann Cozza For one UHD employee, simply wishing the Houston transit system was easier to navigate wasn’t enough he took matters into his own hands by developing an interactive map for commuters. Carlos Lacayo, web technical support specialist for the College of Public Service, was raised in San Francisco and grew up taking public transportation across the bay area. When he moved to Houston, he found the network of buses and limited light rail line inefficient and hard to navigate. Instead of complaining, Lacayo decided to take action along with Dr. Noel Bezette-Flores. In June 2012, Lacayo attended the METRO Transit Academy, a transit education program for emerging community leaders created to foster partnership with the community and develop advocacy in the Houston region. Each person in the Academy was tasked with developing a transit solution by the end of the program. Lacayo was inspired to develop an interactive transit map that was easy to use and provided more information than the current map, which often crashed and was hard to read. Lacayo presented his project before the METRO board, CEO, and other officials and was offered a contract to develop his idea into an actual product. “The group loved my idea and they wanted to invest in it,” he said. “This was a huge project, but I really enjoyed working on it.” Lacayo was able to work on the project at METRO on Thursdays and Fridays, on loan from UHD. As such, the intellectual property rights belong to the University. But Lacayo was the designer andbuilder of the map and looks forward to the future of his project. “This map provides the big picture of the whole system, like parking availability and real-time HOV information,” he said. “Our next phase will include real-time bus arrivals, trace bus routes and provide alternate routes.” The map can be viewed on a computer, any mobile device, as well as tablets, at www.ridemetroapp.org/systemmap.
Summer 2014
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