Ryan Avent says Google's still not evil as they add pedestrian-specific routing to Google Maps. I've never found it all that difficult to make the necessary adjustments just from looking at the map, but every little bit helps.
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Google Walks
22 Jul 2008 06:33 pm
Comments (18)
Yeah, the public transit feature (which is mentioned in the linked Google Blog article) is really useful, where it works. As I understand it, Google asks transit companies to submit their route information, and it will use that to provide public transit information anywhere those companies service.
Incidentally, I should also mention http://socaltransport.org/, which doesn't have Google's ease of use but does seem to have all the public transit services in the greater Los Angeles area aggregated; it's a great tool for people (like me) stuck trying to navigate LA sans car.
The real value added is the precision of distances. It's easy to make corrections in you head or on the page, but you lose the distance info.
London's transit site will give you point-to-point cycling route maps, favoring roads with bike lines or less busy roads to get you to your destination rather than main thoroughfares. So great.
Well that would have come in handy if they'd done that a few days ago.
I agree that you can usually figure it out based on a map, but when you want to screen grab a map and send it to someone who wants to walk from, say, the rail station to your office, it helps if the nice purple line Google draws doesn't go 3 blocks out of the way becuase of one-way city streets.
what a boon this will be to mass transit and cities, when all the major cell phone companies implement this into their products (or you can just go the google maps page on your cellphone.) Being able to find something quickly and being able to get accurate directions makes life more livable and enjoyable.
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Hopefully someday Google with partnerships with cities will also list the planned and the actual ETA arrival of buses, trains, and light rail to facilitate better planning.
Hopefully someday Google with partnerships with cities will also list the planned and the actual ETA arrival of buses, trains, and light rail to facilitate better planning.
For planned ETA, 'someday' was about a year ago in Honolulu.
Will be good when (non-vehicular) trails and paths are added to the google (Navteq) databases.
This is a good start in anticipation of people eschewing needless driving.
Now if only Google would incorporate bike trails in full...driving and walking directions pretty much combine the worst of both worlds when it comes to bicycling. Especially when sidewalk bicycling is prohibited as it is in most of the Twin Cities.
The point is that you _have to make adjustments_. Why should Google assume you're driving? Okay, that's what most people do when they look at maps. But it's nice that a place isn't assuming I've got a car and forcing me to think like a motorist.
Of course, if you are a Chinese dissident looking for criticism of the government, rather than a self-righteous yuppie narcissist, google will be less helpful. But who cares about those people?
OT: it looks like one of MattY's commenters won't be joining him at his new digs. If any of the comments on that post contain even the slightest bit of information or insight, let me know.
Noted humanitarian y81 has spoke up.
Out of curiosity, I called up google.cn and searched for falun gong. What I expected to see was absolutely nothing or maybe some wierd warning that I was a thought criminal. What I got was 40,000 pages of opinion denouncing them as a dangerous cult.
That's nasty slick. Maybe there is a horribly simple boolean way to stick in derogatory search terms without letting anything badthink in but in a completely revolted way as a PR and media research guy I'm totally floored and impressed.
I second the motion on Gmaps pedometer. I'm not overly impressed with the new Google feature. It seems to me that all it does is plot the most direct route but, unlike for driving directions, doesn't account for speed limits or one way streets. In fiddling around in some pedestrian-unfriendly areas, it does seem to steer people off of major highways, but still routes them into roads I would walk down for a million bucks. As others note, it doesn't take into account off-street paths. The directions took me around our neighborhood park, for instance. I agree with Matt. Just having a map and your two eyes is good enough for walking.
Maybe they can introduce mapping for bike routes and bike lanes, given all the incessant back-and-forth on bikers rights from McCardle, Ezra and the like.
Eh, for cities with lots of one-way streets, I think the walking feature is nice. Excepting for parks, it does give me a much closer mile estimate than it used to.
It sounds like a positive feature. I also like Mapquest's feature allowing you to specify certain routes to avoid.
It is certainly convenient to enter your address and a destination address into an online map site such as Mapquest or Google Maps to get step-by-step directions. I get the sense that many people take the printouts with them and get on their way without even looking at them first. However, the hi-tech mapping sites are not always reliable.
More: http://lowtechtimes.com/2008/07/23/theres-no-substitute-for-looking-at-a-real-map/
Comments closed August 05, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
In Portland (maybe some other places too), they map out public transit routes as well (including the transit schedules).
Posted by ben | July 22, 2008 6:59 PM