Tuesday
May152007
Google Maps for cyclists needed
Tuesday, May 15, 2007 at 8:20 How cool would it be if Google Maps were able to produce driving directions suitable for cyclists! It would use only safe streets, streets with bike lanes or bike trails, when possible. The directions would also include elevation information, so that cyclists could avoid hard hills, etc. This would be a fantastic tool and would most definitely encourage more people to choose bikes over cars for their daily commute.
Reader Comments (5)
Yeah, totally! I've been clamouring for that ever since Google Maps was first released.
There IS a mash-up that shows South Bay bikeways on the Google Map (http://www.vta.org/schedules/gmaps/index.html). And it's quite detailed, so you probably can "generate" driving directions manually using it.
starting it yourself can be good idea... i keep hearing that valley is flush with extra millions of dollars for stupid things like, sorry, myspace-alikes. Perhaps you can get this funded? ;)
i would use it - i have spent some time learning hills in city and though things like zig-zag path from Mission to Haight are known to most cyclists, there are definitely more ways to be discovered than i would even learn on my own.
I considered doing it myself. But first of all, I am not a web guy, so this would be an unfamiliar territory for me. Thus the chances of failure will be too great. I am not afraid to fail, of course. It's just that there's only 30 hours in a day (or is it 28? I could never remember). So I need to prioritize.
An excellent and very promising project: http://www.openstreetmap.org/