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Google leads, you pedal

Google leads, you pedal

By Lionel Beehner, New York Times | Updated: 6 June 2012 13:30 IST

Highlights

I had the route mapped out in my mind. I would bike from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, hit the taco trucks along the ball fields of Red Hook, Brooklyn, cruise through Prospect Park over to Brighton Beach for a quick dip, then hypotenuse it back to a b

I had the route mapped out in my mind. I would bike from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, hit the taco trucks along the ball fields of Red Hook, Brooklyn, cruise through Prospect Park over to Brighton Beach for a quick dip, then hypotenuse it back to a bar in Williamsburg to watch the World Cup finals.

Out of curiosity, I consulted Google Maps' new bike software on my computer, to see if its brainy algorithm would match my battle-tested sense of directions. It did, for the most part, but for a few snags: It sent me the wrong way on Smith Street in Brooklyn, then diverted me away from Prospect Park -- the borough's best piece of biking real estate -- and on the way back, like an overprotective concierge, it steered me away from the rough parts of Bedford Stuyvesant (normally I would have just bombed up Bedford Avenue).

Still, not bad for a piece of software created by some techie thousands of miles away.

"It's still an experiment of sorts," said Dave Barth, a product manager at Google Maps in Seattle. "We launched the bike maps without complete coverage because of the passion we were hearing among cyclists on the Internet."

The beta version for bicyclists is just a few months old, but it is already reshaping how bike enthusiasts travel. Spanning more than 200 cities nationwide -- and with plans to roll out bicycle routes internationally -- Google Maps relies on a mash-up of data, from publicly available sources like bike maps to user-generated information. It joins a host of other bike-mapping Web sites, from Bikely, which lets people share routes in cities around the world, to Ride the City, a geowiki (or self-editing map) app, available in 10 cities (including New York, Boston, San Francisco and Toronto) that allows users to edit their routes as they ride, to MapMyRide, which is geared more toward fitness training and logging workouts.

But the one with the most potential -- and the most buzz among bikers -- is Google's. There are three kinds of routes highlighted on its maps: bike-only trails (dark green), dedicated bicycle lanes (light green) and bike-friendly roads but with no separate lanes (dashed green). The algorithm factors in variables besides bike lanes, like confusing intersections, steep hills or busy streets, before spitting out the "best" route. The software includes more than 12,000 miles of off-road trails as well.

As more data is plugged into its software, and more trikes -- the rickshaw-like tricycles that Google deploys with camera and computers -- are dispatched to survey routes, the maps should improve.

"For Google Maps not to have bike directions is like the Gap not selling underpants," said Eben Weiss, the author of the BikeSnobNYC blog. "Even though it's not 100 percent reliable, it's still better to have it than in no form at all."

Yet the reviews within the biking community, notorious for its outspokenness, have been mixed at best. There are the technical glitches, like its unavailability on the iPhone (it's available only on BlackBerrys and Androids) or its clumsiness in syncing or saving routes to your hand-held device (not to mention the fact that these applications will drain the devices' batteries). Then there are those who say that the maps send bikers down the wrong way on busy one-way streets or through pedestrian-only zones in parks. Others complain that the algorithm is not expansive enough to know all the back streets and bike trails hidden within cities and suburbs.

When Chad Selberg, a longtime bicyclist from Minnesota who now lives in Brooklyn, recently typed his work address -- a bike shop in the East Village -- into Google Maps, he was surprised. "It wasn't even close," he said of the route bounced back at him. "But I guess if I was from out of town and didn't know my way around, it would have been a good route for me to take."

The application works better for longer, less-known routes, he said. When he recently biked up to City Island in the northern reaches of the Bronx, Google Maps found him a convenient route.

Of course, the maps' reliability varies from city to city, depending on the area's available mapping data, or GIS (geographic information system). Cities like Portland, Ore., for instance, have reams of publicly available data on bike trails that Google Maps can use to chart routes. "They've been doing high end, citizen-generated bike mapping stuff here for years," said Jonathan Maus, publisher of the popular blog BikePortland.org. Yet in suburban parts of Seattle or San Francisco, where cyclists are just as likely to take wooded trails as main streets, mapping every possible route poses obvious challenges. The maps are handiest for steering riders toward flatter, safer routes.

"It takes a lot of the guesswork out," said Renée Rivera, the acting executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. "Especially for those new to a city like ours who might be intimidated by all the hills."

The biggest problems arise in areas congested with cars or considered less bike-friendly. "I tried Google Maps for bicycling here in Rhode Island," a rider from that state recently wrote on a bike forum. "After the bridges, the route had me merge onto I-95 northbound. The suggested route sent me over the Newport and Jamestown Bridges, both of which prohibit bicycles. This is ridiculous, even for a beta version."

Sam Van Dellen had a far more pleasant experience. For his first wedding anniversary this summer, he and his wife mapped out a 60-mile ride from their home in Chicago to the Indiana Dunes. Instead of biking their usual route, he plugged his destination into the Google Maps bicycle application and found a 10-mile loop that got them around the traffic-congested arteries of Gary, Ind.

Mr. Barth says that as Google Maps software becomes more user-generated -- it has already been deluged with over 20,000 suggested corrections -- bikers will be able to edit the data on a hand-held device as they actually cycle. And for specific routes like the ones shared on Bikely, people can upload their favorite routes as part of Google's My Maps function, which can be searchable by other users. Google also plans to roll out its bike maps across cities in other countries in the coming years.

For more detailed information, try apps that are more city-specific. Spokes NYC (free) has a nifty interface that pinpoints bike racks and shops along your route. Cyclopath (free) allows users to edit -- as they would a wiki -- routes in St. Paul and Minneapolis. SF BikeMapper lets bicyclists in San Francisco choose their path type: shortest or flattest. And Andreas Kambanis, who writes the London Cyclist blog, has rolled out an eBook with 25 detailed cycle routes for London.

While cyclists say all this bike-mapping software is handy for planning trips, most agree it is more useful as a Plan B than a Plan A, which should be just a normal, fold-up bike map. "I never would rely on it 100 percent," said Mr. Maus of Portland, Ore. "Just as I wouldn't only rely on car directions from GPS. It's not as smart as a human being on the ground."

"Plus, you're not going to have as much fun exploring a new city," he added. "I'm happy to get lost."

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