Crimes against GTFS

Things GTFS feeds do that are allowed, or nearly, and make everyone downstream suffer. Every feed in the public catalogs is put on trial daily; a feed that cleans up its act is pardoned automatically.

• Feed requires an API key: A great example of unnecessary government bureaucracy.
• Beauty queen: shapes.txt traced to the millimetre.
• Data ONLY: Megabytes of timetable, and not a word about who sent it.
• Dead link: The URL in every catalog that goes nowhere.
• Deja vu: The same shape, again and again, under a new shape_id each time.
• Disguised as HTML: 200 OK, here is a web page.
• Eternal service: Service until 2099.
• Every day is special: No weekly calendar, just a list of every day.
• Grand Central Everywhere: Every pole in the ground is a station.
• Groundhog Day: Same file, new date, download it again.
• Invisible ink: White text on a white route.
• Le Cochon: What Alstom and Bombardier called the og Acela and what I call your feed
• Null Island: Stops in the Gulf of Guinea.
• Russian doll: Open the zip, find a folder. Open the folder, find a zip.
• SHOUTING: SO EASY TO READ RIGHT?
• Ultra high speed service: The New Flyer is ready for takeoff.
• Time travel: Arrives before it leaves.
• Zip in name only: A .zip that compresses nothing.