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As such courage is not in overabundance, it is all the more satisfying to see private enterprise doing end runs around the problem. Using open data about transit vehicle locations, transit apps now compete to navigate you better through the gridlock. Some offer Toronto Transit Commission, Uber X, Car2Go and bike-share options on the same screen. Swiftly claims it can predict the next vehicle’s arrival better than its rivals, using its own algorithm.

I saw an opportunity to benefit the people around me

And for motorists, there’s Waze — a free, advertising-supported GPS navigation app that routes and reroutes you, as necessary, based on other users’ speed (passively monitored as they go), and any reports of accidents, constructions or gridlock they enter into the app (hopefully not while driving). The more users there are, the more data there are to optimize your commute.

In 2013, Google bought Waze for US$1.3 billion. But amazingly enough, it relies on a dedicated Wikipedia-esque community of volunteer map editors. Any user can edit any map: add a favourite restaurant, suggest a shortcut, improve the pronunciation of a street name, correct an erroneous turn restriction.

Kris Benson, who works in IT for the University of Alberta and manages Edmonton’s map-building community, says he got involved for reasons both altruistic and selfish.

“I saw an opportunity to benefit the people around me — because we’re talking about an app that was created to ease the morning and afternoon commutes,” he says. “So by having the maps accurate it meant that I had a 25-minute commute instead of what could be a 45-minute commute if I took the wrong (route) that had bad traffic or an accident.”