Google Maps learns how to walk

[ckd]

The Google Maps blog notes that they now have walking directions. It's beta, like almost everything Google does these days, but still looks like a good start.

Collecting good data for this is going to be the big challenge.

(In other news, Readercon was great. I took a fair amount of panel notes, and plan to distill them into one or more posts.)

ETA: if you're walking in an area covered by Street View, it puts little camera icons next to the steps, so you can see what the cross street will look like. Wow.

Comments

[ron_newman]

Cool toy!

Tying your two topics together, I asked it for directions from the Burlington Marriott on Route 3A to Horn Pond in Woburn. Check out the result. The car and walking directions are quite different. It even knows that the parkway on the west side of Horn Pond is open for walking but closed to cars.

[beable]

I'm going to see if they have walking directions from Boston, Ma to Paris, France.

I'm still sad that they took "swim across the Atlantic Ocean" out of the highway database.

[ron_newman]

But look what they replaced it with !

[beable]

That's awesome!

[miekec]

I was going to whine about the swimming, but this sure makes up for it :)

[mdyesowitch.livejournal.com]

I met a woman while I was working at Liz's who was there and she said it was lovely (or fab or something.) She thought she might know you, but she wasn't certain. I didn't get her contact info, but gave her mine, so even if you didn't meet, I can introduce you so you can compare thoughts, meet up at the next one, etc.

[kodi]

That's awesome! Of course, it doesn't do me much good right now, since hopstop is better for NYC, and the answer to "how do I walk there" in central NJ is "please don't."

There's something deeply satisfying about pulling up a walking route from LGA to YUL, though. (Only 6 days, 11 hours!)

[ron_newman]

I've walked in both Princeton and New Brunswick, NJ. Seemed OK to me.

[kodi]

You're right. Many of the cities in Central NJ are reasonably walkable. It's just when you try to walk between those cities (East Brunswick to New Brunswick, for instance) that you end up condemned to death. Unfortunately, I'm right between them, and the only place I can safely walk to is Highland Park.

[ron_newman]

Sounds like my walk from Jersey City to Hoboken a few years ago. Maybe they've improved Marin Blvd. since then.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Panel notes! Yip!

I need to try that on Googlemaps...

[sethb.livejournal.com]

It would be cool if they had bicycle directions, too.

[ron_newman]

For that, I'd use either the walking directions or the "Avoid highways" car directions.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

It won't show walking from work to home (10+ miles driving, 13 miles by bike).

"Avoid highways" doesn't work: it tried to route me over a "no bicycles" segment of MN 55 once. (Aside from the first few hundred feet, there wouldn't have been a problem, because there's a bike trail along the rest of it. But that first part was the only way to cross another highway.)

[ron_newman]

But if it's only a few hundred feet, why not just ride on it anyway?

[sethb.livejournal.com]

It seemed too risky.

Police use it, too.

[yendi]

I don't think there's a way for Google to tell you, "dodge that car door opened by the asshole who double parked and didn't check his mirror before getting out."

[sethb.livejournal.com]

I don't much worry about that. I figure 250 lbs at 25 mph will take off the door and only slow me down.

[miekec]

Awesome. You know, every time Google does something new and cool, I keep waiting for the M$-like other shoe to drop. As in, "demo only works for 1 nanosecond. Full version [BUY HERE] actually works".
Yet, it never does. Drop, that is. Most of their stuff just works. No monopoly (yet?), no proprietary, no nonsense. Is this just too good to be true?

[ron_newman]

This was a good Google idea but it's not well-implemented. See my comment here about its lack of local knowledge.

[ckd]

Yeah, or my later post on Thames crossings.