Today Google added a new feature to its extremely useful Maps service, allowing users to quickly view the layout of public transportation systems in more than 50 cities. While Google’s Transit site has offered automatic trip-planning for a number of areas for some time, the new feature makes it easy to determine at a glance if public transportation is even a viable option.
To activate the new ‘Transit Layer’, click the More button towards of the top of the Google Maps interface and check off Transit. The map will display an overlay of each of the available modes of transportation (note that while trains and subways will appear while zoomed out, you’ll need to zoom further in to see more regional buses and trolleys).
Don’t toss out your Tube map just yet though. These maps are geographically correct, unlike the ones provided my most major metro lines (which are typically simplified for ease of use), so using them to route a trip can be confusing.
This is really good stuff, especially for business travellers who do not have major travel budgets.
No Washington, DC or NYC? Weird.
It’ll be there shortly…
Note to Yahoo: This is why you suck balls. Start doing cool, USEFUL shit and people will maybe begin to kinda like you again.
They won me back when they launched this ever so user-centric site:
http://startwea...rple.yahoo.com/
LOLz
I second the “lolz”.
Where did you find that goofy site…it surely isn’t really Yahoo’s.
Not available for me under the more tab yet
Not that impressive for San Francisco — it’s not showing bus routes no matter how much you zoom in, and without that it’s pretty useless. Trains may be sexy, but buses don’t get stuck in the Market St tunnel.
When will TC stop jumping every time google sneezes? this is no freaking big deal at all. google does very little work with transit data–it all comes from agencies who spend their own time and resources to put it in the google format.
Hey Asspuppet, you probably never have been to city that has public trans.
Eat a donkey dick.
haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. excellent.
New goal for today: use “asspuppet” in a sentence spoken to a total stranger
Excellent!
Well done, Google!
This is fantastic. And it helps you re-envision the geography of cities of the world.
For anyone out there who wants to see infamously gridlocked and under-invested-in-transit Los Angeles become worthy of being added to this project, check out http://www.endinggridlock.org. We’re a nonprofit that is fighting for a fully built out mass transit system in America’s most traffic clogged city.
This is really moving towards a very detailed mapping of human dwellings/civilizations onto the virtual world. Really humungous task ahead for mankind…
cheers,
marvin
I’m not sure if it’s like this in most cities city, but in Seattle, it just has the effect of turning every street grey. There’s no way to differentiate between different routes, and basically every street has some bus or another running down it. It may make more sense for cities that have coloured lines like London.
strange… Denver is not showing up, just an empty map.
Hm, the new layer is great, but mashups like that existed for a long time. London travel suggestions by public transport are incredibly wrong, though. I won’t be switching from tfl.gov.uk for a while.