Google Announces Bike Directions
I had read rumors that it was coming soon. Today Google launched “beta” version of a bike route planner. Bicycling is now one of the 4 choices for directions, after Driving, Public Transit, and Walking.
You can add an overlay of bike routes by clicking “More” at the top right of the map. I can’t find a legend, but it looks like dark green is a bike route, green is a bike lane, and dotted is a signed bicycle route at least for Oakland.
The route-finder seems reasonably smart. On this trip, from my old place to the Temescal Pool, Google instantly calculates the route that it took me about a month and several tries to decide was the best. It avoids big hills by taking Linda Avenue, which cuts through a notch in the hills, and minimizes the time you spend on Broadway with its traffic.
A few problems are immediately apparent. The walking trails around Lake Merritt are not really suited for bikes, nor are they identified as bike lanes by the City of Oakland, nor in the East Bay Bicycle Coalition’s map. I suspect that many, many users will contribute corrections, and with Google’s ability to “release and iterate”, these problems will get slowly fixed.
