Boston is leading the charge with apps like Citizens Connect, available in the iPhone App Store

After years of feeling envious over the fact that Boston’s transit authority is the MBTA while New York’s is the much more Twitter-friendly MTA, it looks like we can all take a little breather.

MTA Chairman Jay Walder recently noted that Boston’s MassDOT Board of Directors, which operates the MBTA, is quickly outpacing New York City in the race to develop rider-friendly applications and software products, like Boston’s T Tracker, which we’ve told you about before.

Contrary to what you might expect from so-called “open governments,” the cities’ transit authorities are not developing these applications in-house, but are instead opening up all kinds of data APIs so the best private developers in the country can access transit information, including delays and even the realtime GPS coordinates of trains, buses and ferrys. Developers working for private companies are then using the free data to create user-friendly interfaces for the masses. (more…)