Among Google’s many almighty features is its new “Transit” page, which helps users create a custom itinerary and route using area public transit.

From the Dallas DART, to the Portland TriMet, to the TransLink in Vancouver, B.C., Google Transit helps pedestrians form a game plan for their trip on public trains, buses, ferries, and rail systems. The Google feature is especially useful for commuters who are venturing into new territory, or for tourists who aren’t familiar with local transit. The web system not only provides impressively accurate departure and arrival times, it lets users know how much money they’ve saved using public transit instead of a private car. (Pretty cool!) The site is still in its nascent stages, so not every city you’d hope to see is on the site (yet).

There’s also a petition circulating in cyclist communities urging Google to introduce a feature that would plan bike trips via bike lanes and designated bike routes.

From the petition:

We would like a 'Bike There' feature added to Google Maps - to go with the current 'Drive There' and 'Take Public Transit' options.

The feature would take into account actual bicycle lanes from the locality being mapped, and it would automatically plan a route for a bicyclist, possibly even providing the cyclist options for either the most direct route, or the most bicycle-friendly (safest) route. The Google Maps-based third party site, byCycle.org, provides these features for two metro areas - Portland, Oregon and Madison, Wisconsin, and there are countless other mapping initiatives around the world aimed at accomplishing the same goal. We hope that Google will consider building this feature into the core Google Maps service.

The so-called “Bike There Team” penned the petition and makes a case for their cause on their web site.

Via Meat Machine.

Photo via flickr by keso & Tidewater Muse.

Comments (2)

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Jono said:

Thanks for the link! Every time I check the Bike There rss feed, they've got something new happening. I looks like their cause is picking up some steam and despite my prior pessimism I couldn't be happier for them!

March 06, 2008 | url

frisbee said:

Great that such systems arise througout the world!In my country (Holland) volunteers (mainly) from the Dutch Cyclists Organisation (www.fietsersbond.nl) have created a route planning system only for cyclists. It works very well in two out of twelve provinces now, other provinces following soon. You can select the fastest, greenest, most comfortable and most interesting (siteseeing) route from any chosen place to the other. It estimates distance, cycle time and even the amount of carbon you can save and the amount of callories to be used. You can load it on to your GPS or print a detailed route desciption.

March 07, 2008

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