Google Maps Adds Bike Directions

[djansen00]

Great news for bikers: the nerds at Google have added bicycling directions to Google Maps. It appears right alongside the other options, walking, car or public transit. It doesn’t work everywhere yet - I tried to find a way from my apartment to the local bike-polo court and Google Maps just told me it couldn’t calculate a route.

In San Francisco, though, everything is fine. I plugged in Wired HQ and the nearby Moscone center and got a straight three-block route. Too easy? Fine, what about Wired to Pier 39, tourist central (and home of a surprisingly good crab restaurant)? This, too, shows the same route for bikes and cars, but the alternative routes presented below are different. I guess that you get the most efficient route first, which is usually the same as you’d take in a car, with slightly more pleasant alternatives.

The service is, of course, in beta, and Google is soliciting feedback on the suitability of roads for biking. You can of course still do it the old-fashioned (and somewhat quicker) way: use the walking directions, which ignore road-rules and one-way streets.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/ ... irections/

It looks like the data for Michigan is pretty sparse....but its beta so hopefully that will change over time.

[c0nsumer]

Stuff like this is always easier for urban areas where there's less data to gather. Areas like ours will be very hard for bike directions, particularly as there's lots of places like this one (White Mill Dr. heading north) or this one (Remer Ave. heading north/south). These are well established bike/foot paths which drastically change local bike and foot routing, but exist on no maps as they are essentially just cut-throughs.

The maps also can't/wont take into account traffic volumes on small roads, bike lane stuff unless it's explicitly marked (and designated on electronic representations of roads), times when one should use the sidewalk, etc.

I have little hope for this being useful any time soon, save for possibly providing simple non-highway / tertiary road routing.

[jonw9]

It has the Lansing River Trail, and most of the MSU campus bike lanse.

However, plotting my path to work, it essentially has me riding down M-99/MLK for 6 miles, then taking a bunch of side streets zig-zag backtracking to the trail.

I think there need to be come sort of algorithm, that a 5 lane road should be avoided.

[c0nsumer]

I think there need to be come sort of algorithm, that a 5 lane road should be avoided.

That's the problem, though. It's not that simple. A five lane road with a 10' shoulder in a rural area which only sees periodic traffic may be an ideal bike route, while a two lane residential that's frequently used as a shortcut may not. Without more data (traffic on all routes, etc) that can't quite be done.

[jonw9]

I think there need to be come sort of algorithm, that a 5 lane road should be avoided.

That's the problem, though. It's not that simple. A five lane road with a 10' shoulder in a rural area which only sees periodic traffic may be an ideal bike route, while a two lane residential that's frequently used as a shortcut may not. Without more data (traffic on all routes, etc) that can't quite be done.

Admittedly, that is correct. However, the assumption is that a periodically traveled rural road would not have 5 lanes, due to the lack of traffic.

Maybe I am not aware of a way to set way points via google maps, to manually suggest alternatives.

[djansen00]

There is supposed to be more of that meta-data that is associated with the bike routes but I'm not sure how they get it or which exact elements are included. The brief bit I heard on NPR this morning mentioned traffic and elevation were variables being used to determine "best route". It sounds like they are definitely thinking through all the elements that would be needed to make this effective...it's just a matter of getting the data.

[jonw9]

Look like I wasn't the on;y one that saw some issues. Albeit that this is a beat system, and better than being ignored.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/goog ... MPkc7b3oaJ

[djansen00]

This was a funny comment in the article:

In Brooklyn, Google steers cyclists into the path of anti-bike Hasidic Jews by designating Bedford Avenue between Division and Flushing avenues in Williamsburg as a legitimate bike route.

Who knew? They probably get angry when their prayer shawls get caught in the spokes.