Google Maps Adds Bikes

I found this blog post about Google Bike There.  Not much there for Jackson, but we may be able to help them by contributing feedback.

EDIT: This was originally posted at: http://www.cyclelicio.us/2010/google-maps-bike-there-real-soon-now/

The www.cyclelicio.us blog has a lot of good bicycle information, check it out.

Google Maps Bicycling Directions now live for the United States and Canada.

Here’s a screenshot for biking directions from downtown Santa Cruz to the Santa Cruz Wharf. Below the static image is the embedded map from Google.

View Larger Map

Interesting findings on the service:

• By default, when you select Bicycling directions, the map shows the bicycling facilities it knows about with green lines (as shown in the static image above). With bicycling facilities show, though, you cannot embed the map into another web page. You must click on the “More” button in the map and turn off the “Bicycling” checkbox for embedding to work.
• The trip estimator takes road grade into account for trip time. Google Maps tells me, for example, the 6.7 mile trip it suggests from my home (elevation 500′) to the beach in Santa Cruz takes 36 minutes (about an 11 mph average speed). The reverse trip takes 48 minutes (8 mph average speed).
• You’ll see in the embedded map above that the bike directions assign a very high weight (or preference) to bike facilities, especially off street bike paths. To get from downtown Santa Cruz to the Wharf, I normally shoot straight down Front Street and then straight to the Wharf. Google Maps routes me to the San Lorenzo River path.
• The map takes one way streets into account and does not route cyclists the wrong way down them. It doesn’t know about the contraflow bike lane on Beach Street in Santa Cruz, though. I haven’t tried testing some of the other contraflow bike lanes I’ve heard about.
• Google Maps shows a green line for the railroad trestle bridge in Santa Cruz next to the Boardwalk, but won’t route bicyclists across that bridge, routing cyclists a mile out of the way instead. Walking directions, however, use the bridge.
• Maps doesn’t know about the bike access across the Santa Cruz Harbor.
• The 25 mile bike ride from downtown San Jose to my office in Menlo Park in reality takes me about an hour and 20 minutes. Google Maps estimates over two hours for this trip with a 10 mph average speed. The routing for this longer trip is pretty lousy, giving strong preference to the numerous bike paths in Santa Clara County instead of sending me along the faster and straighter road routes.
• This one’s pretty bad for the South Bay: “Bike There” doesn’t seem to know that the Santa Clara County Expressways are the preferred bikeways for longer distance cycling. For the trip from Cupertino to the VA Hospital in Palo Alto, Google Map routes me onto some less desirable roads away from Foothill Expressway.
• Google Maps knows about bike paths and pedestrian bridges. It doesn’t always know about some commonly used shortcuts, however. There’s a cut through for walkers and cyclists on Ivy Drive in Menlo Park, CA, for example, that neither walking nor bicycling instructions take advantage of. There is a button for users to provide additional input to Google and let them discover these shortcuts.

In summary, Google Maps “Bike There” is very very very cool. I list the shortcomings above for informational purposes and to remind cyclists to always do an on the ground reality check so you don’t bike off of an unfinished bridge or something equally ridiculous, but honestly I’m amazed the service works as well as it does. It seems to work best for shorter trips (under about 10 miles), but that’s reasonable — people going on longer rides will probably want to be a little more thorough in their planning anyway.