@pipeworx/511-sf-bay

Live departures, vehicle positions and service alerts for every transit operator in the San Francisco Bay Area, from the regional 511.org open-data API run by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1861+ live data sources. This is an independent, unofficial integration — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream provider.

Requires an API key — free, self-service and issued instantly at https://511.org/open-data/token.

• Platform key: PLATFORM_511_KEY

• Caller-supplied: _apiKey argument on any tool

Tools

Related MCP server: mcp-bart

One pack for ~30 agencies, on purpose

511 is the Bay Area's single regional aggregator — BART, Muni, Caltrain, AC Transit, VTA, SamTrans, Golden Gate and two dozen more all publish through it behind an agency code. Splitting it per operator would be thirty packs over one credential and one upstream. Call bay511_operators first to get the code.

Traps

The JSON is served with a UTF-8 BOM and JSON.parse throws on it. Stripped in readJson(); do not "simplify" that away.

Two response families on one host and key. Departures and vehicles are SIRI JSON. Alerts are GTFS-Realtime protobuf and go through the shared decoder in @pipeworx/shared (fetchGtfsRt). Same key, different content type.

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "511-sf-bay": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/511-sf-bay/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/511-sf-bay/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1861+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

No MCP client? Call it over HTTP

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/bay511_operators \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/bay511_operators. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Run it from npm

@pipeworx/mcp-511-sf-bay is a local stdio bridge to the Pipeworx gateway: your MCP client starts it with npx, and it forwards every call to the same https://gateway.pipeworx.io/511-sf-bay/mcp endpoint shown above. It needs network access; there is no offline mode.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "511-sf-bay": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-511-sf-bay"]
    }
  }
}

Without a key it calls anonymously, capped at 50 calls a day. A free account raises that to 200 a day: get a key at https://pipeworx.io/signup and add "env": { "PIPEWORX_API_KEY": "<your key>" } to the server entry. The key is sent as a Bearer token, the same way a hosted connection sends it, so calls are metered and billed exactly as they are there.

It lists only this pack's tools by default. Set PIPEWORX_META_TOOLS=1 to also list ask_pipeworx and the other gateway-wide tools.

Behind an HTTPS proxy: Node's built-in fetch does not read HTTPS_PROXY by default. Newer Node releases honour it when NODE_USE_ENV_PROXY=1 is set; check your Node version's documentation.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about 511 Sf Bay data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides

• pipeworx.io

License

MIT