I like maps a lot. I’m also into public transportation and bicycling. So yesterday was a pretty good day for me as far as the internet goes.
First, I saw Greater Greater Washington’s new map that overlays the Metro rail lines onto a Google Map along with all bus lines that have a headway of less than 12 minutes during the hours of 7am and 6pm. The goal of this map is to do for the main bus lines what the main Metro map does for rail: provide a diagram that at a quick glance can tell you how to get from point A to point B without messing around with timetables or the trip planner. The thinking is that if your wait is 12 minutes or less (like it theoretically is for rail lines), then you don’t really have to shoot for a particular bus arrival when planning your trip. This removes a lot of the hassle from taking the bus and helps users construct a mental map from bus lines in much the same way that is natural to do currently with rail lines.
As a bonus, GGW’s is a Google Map, meaning you can easily see what line runs closest to your destination. This is very much unlike the experience with WMATA’s crappy pdfs.
After getting all happy about the bus map, via BeyondDC I came across this sweet mash-up that uses Google Maps to give bicycling directions akin to the walking and driving directions already available. You can choose between the shortest route and the safest route, with the safest route restricting directions to bike paths. In either case, the site gives you directions that stick to bike-friendly roads and paths, and are really, really detailed, at least in my couple of test cases. Keep in mind that the site is still very much beta, meaning it’s way slow right now. Still, it’s really cool to have something like this out there.
Anyway, color me psyched about these new applications for getting around.
Photo from Flickr.
