Clever Commute is an up-and-coming information network where subscribers receive alerts on traffic and transit conditions in their area thanks to commuters who text in updates about trains, buses and traffic. It is, as creator Joshua Crandall described, a service where “only a few participate, but everyone in the community benefits.”

But that “few” is now a swelling 10,000—impressive, considering Mr. Crandall started the service in 2006 with the five guys he knew from his train commute from New Jersey to Manhattan.

It all started with Mr. Crandall’s observation that all commuters are constantly communicating, but not with one another. “One morning after a bad commute, I saw everyone on their BlackBerries on the platform and I thought, ‘Where were they last night?’” He saw the opportunity for a network where commuters could exchange information, and Clever Commute was born.

The service first connected commuters in New York and then Boston in 2007, and has since grown to include Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Portland, Washington D.C. and Baltimore.

And Clever Commute continues to grow. In talks with various institutional investors and major traffic reporting agencies, Clever Commute’s increasingly diversifying business model can only strengthen and expand influence. Posts on the service’s blog are accompanied with advertisements, the service is partnered with various social networking sites, and yup, there might eventually “be an app for that” on the iPhone.

Clever Commute illustrates the speed and influence of user-content communication networks, often alerting commuters of delays before transit authorities and news outlets. In fact, both New Jersey Transit and CBS radio in New York subscribe to Clever Commute, and use the service as a primary source, sending out helicoptors and representatives to investigate events reported by Clever Commute participants.

Despite the linked community’s exponential growth, Clever Commute’s users remain committed to the service and haven’t misused the increasingly connected network. Maybe it’s the website’s polite etiquette page or maybe it’s just commuter solidarity, but Mr. Crandall insists that no one has attempted “multi-level marketing” and most Clever Commuters are genuinely trying to help.

Ideally, Clever Commute will one day become the concrete stuff of “Good Gov.” As Mr. Crandall and surely his subscribers have noticed, the common denominator of many of the reported problems is infrastructural shortcomings. Issues with tunnels, switches, tracks and roads are all obstacles in our commutes, and interestingly, they’re all solvable. Not necessarily with a text message, but you gotta start somewhere.