GoogleBikeRouteMaps?

February 20, 2005 1:33 PM

Has anyone seen a good website that has bike route maps of major cities? Even better, a site that has "start" and "finish" options and directions by bike route, complete with distances and estimated time. My dream is a hack or filter for maps.google.com.
posted by FairWitness to travel & transportation (8 answers total)

To clarify, by bike route, I mean actual bike lanes and/or green highway "bike route" signs. Not the "avoid highways" option.
posted by FairWitness at 1:42 PM on February 20, 2005

I have never seen such a site. My local bike advocacy group publishes a map that show on-street routes that feature striped bike lanes or reasonable accommodation for cyclists. Pennsylvania has a web site showing the PA bike routes. I hope someone knows of such a site but I kind of doubt it. Maybe Google will make it happen.
posted by fixedgear at 1:51 PM on February 20, 2005

For New York City.
posted by Vidiot at 2:04 PM on February 20, 2005

If you wanted to spearhead the creation of such a site, you would probably find a lot of supporters. But I doubt one exists--I don't think there is the level of coordination.
posted by grouse at 2:23 PM on February 20, 2005

I've used Maps on us and modified the route type to be 'shortest' or 'avoid highways'. That worked pretty well, except for the fact that 'shortest' was up and down three huge hills. After I modified it by telling it to hit a different intersection, it worked pretty well.
posted by stoneegg21 at 2:26 PM on February 20, 2005

Portland, in my experience the most self-consciously bike-friendly city in America, has this to offer. Note particularly this route map. I wish us East-coasties could enjoy such zealous municipal bike advocacy (though the bike traffic tickets are a bit much).
posted by killdevil at 2:38 PM on February 20, 2005

Your 'actual bike lanes and/or green highway "bike route" signs' criterion sounds to me like an assumption that we live in a fantastical bike-friendly world where it's even possible to find a bike lane that gets you close to a given destination. But obviously it would be nice if we did.

To my knowledge, the best implementation of what you're looking for is the BikeMetro Los Angeles Bike Route mapper, which only covers Metro LA. One of the greatest things about it is that you can factor in your hill-tolerance in finding a route.

I think the best option is to start pushing hard on Google to add this sort of functionality. I understand it's pretty easy to do with GIS data that already exists, and it's just a matter of laziness/not caring about cyclists that has kept Mapquest/Yahoo! from adding this feature.

I, for one, am going to send feedback to Google Maps right now, requesting that they add bike-route-mapping feature, now that I've been reminded of it. It would be great if others did the same.

Also, the Chicago bike map, paper-oriented like NYC's.
posted by xueexueg at 3:03 PM on February 20, 2005

For the Twin Cities, Hennepin County has good map system that's updated about every 2 years (because it improves about that often). The Metropolitan Council publishes several maps and a commuter guide that are more core-cities-oriented. Minneapolis, itself, maintains several city-specific bicycle maps. Over to the east, Ramsey County has a less intense system map.

For Minnesota, overall, enthusiasts may make the best comprehensive sources, although the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources manages bicycle trails in many of its state trails, state forests, and state parks.

But, really, if you want a single source, you might have to pay (but not for the first 14 days).
posted by bafflegab at 5:02 PM on February 20, 2005