

Google Maps Adds Directions for Cyclists - hachiya
http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/google-maps-adds-directions-for-cylists/

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PanMan
Good news, let's hope they spread it to Europe soon. While Techcrunch proudly
post that 50+ million people bike in the US, that's only about 16%. Here in
the Netherlands it's almost 100%.

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yellowbkpk
The kind people at OpenStreetMap have been collecting bike paths and rendering
maps for quite a while: <http://opencyclemap.org/>

It has much more coverage than Google currently does, but doesn't do
directions.

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rmc
You can get cycling direction using <http://maps.cloudmade.com>, which uses
OpenStreetMap data, just like OpenCycleMap.

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zackham
This is great. Their walking paths work alright for this purpose, since there
are many paths you can get routed over that are not roads. This project will
add many new paths so that is a good thing. There are several issues with
walking paths that this will remedy though - for example, you can be routed
the wrong way down a one way street with walking directions, which I imagine
will not be allowed in the cycling directions.

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goodness
I just tried it with my old bike route to work. It actually did pick the route
I used. In this case, the route is just the shortest path instead of the roads
with the fastest driving time.

I also tried <http://maps.cloudmade.com> that someone recommended above. That
one didn't pick my route. It picked the shortest driving time route. I guess
this makes sense, since looking at <http://opencyclemap.org>, I don't see any
bike maps listed near my house.

Incidentally, I just noticed that Google maps also has an option to get
directions for public transportation, at least in my city. That's pretty cool.
I knew there were buses running near me, but I hadn't ever taken the time to
look them up.

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cullenking
This is exciting for our site, as our users want ways to see bike paths more
clearly as well as better auto-routing along those bike paths. Driving
directions crosses nasty highways, walking directions ends up routing over
gravel and the like, so hopefully their biking directions is the 'just right'
medium.

I am really surprised they didn't leverage the OSM data for bike routes. They
used a group I had never heard of (though the group sounds pretty cool --
railways to bikepaths!). I wonder if they'll expand/revise using the OSM
dataset.

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chaosmachine
Looking forward to seeing this expanded to Canada.

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kjhgfvbhn
Hopefully they base it on this www.cyclevancouver.ubc.ca/

It knows about cycle routes, alternatives to busy streets and can do routes
based on hill gradient.

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tlrobinson
Very cool, though I was hoping it have an option to take into account the
terrain, especially in San Francisco...

Or perhaps just a heat map showing hilly areas would be good enough.

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natfriedman
Or the Google Maps Terrain view? <http://bit.ly/blsELO>

You can drag the route around to avoid hills manually.

It would be nice if it did it automatically, to avoid the worst hills. To do
it optimally it'd need to know your weight...

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davidw
Your weight is just one factor. Others, some of which are more important are:

* Your fitness level.

* What kind of gearing your bike has.

* The weather.

* How much you actually feel like riding up a hill.

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rgrig
That sounds too complicated. They just need a slider between: * avoid hills
like plague, and * bring it on!

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yread
I've always used the walking path and it worked quite well

