Is this the best transit app idea ever?

Traveling by transit is rarely an A to B journey. You have stops in between. Maybe you need to grab a coffee or hop on bikeshare to complete your trip. But your trip planner can't account for that. At least not yet.

Sara Cantor and George Aye of Chicago-based Greater Good Studio have an idea for a transit app that will take into account various aspects of your trip. Here's their vision:

Or if videos aren't your thing, here's a description from the TED Blog:

They are currently designing a transportation app that will not only remind users of line closures, but will show them where to pick up a coffee along their route or remind them to bring an umbrella if rain is in the forecast. The app they envision could design a route to avoid staircases for someone with an injured ankle, or tell a user if they should take the crowded bus in front of them or wait a few minutes for a bus with a seat. The app will be created through crowdsourcing, with self-designated “Urban Agents” feeding data into the application to make it work.

Creating an app this powerful caught the attention of TED in the form of a $10,000 grant to help jumpstart the app's development. If you'll remember, last December TED announced that its $100,000 prize was going to the City 2.0, an idea rather than a person. As part of that TED broke up the cash into 10 smaller grants of $10,000 each. The transit idea is one of those. TED has given out seven grants so far and will announce three more later this year.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com