Google Maps bicycle maps—how well does it work?

But, how well do these directions work? Well, I’ve now spent some time mapping out various bicycle directions, and the answer is “not perfect but pretty darned well.” They have a blog post about their methodology, which explains how an algorithm tries to help you avoid heavily-trafficked streets and steep hills and such. (Some of us like steep hills, of course.) And it does a decent job of it. But it’s in beta so there are a few things which need minor fixing.

For instance, let’s say I want to go from our office to Uptown. Since I’m lazy, I type in “55104” (our zip) and figure I can drag the marker to my start and end points. The Googles give back:

“We could not calculate directions between 55104 and 55404.”

Whoops. They think that 55104 is centered on I-94, and you can’t bike on I-94, so, no dice. Okay, I’ll type in the addresses. Here we go (no embedding yet). That’s just what I would have done.

Except, if I’m not in a hurry, sometimes I’ll trade busy Selby and Marshall for the wooded expanses of Summit. So I drag the marker and, well, it’s not perfect. It still takes me down Summit and then on to the Greenway, but I usually take a left off of Cretin on to Mississippi River Boulevard, which is totally legal and which it won’t let me do. Harumph. That seems to be a bad point in their data.

The second issue is that the route calculator assumes that I am going to obey all bike laws, and won’t ever turn myself in to a pedestrian to navigate a short section of one way street or no left turn. I usually take a left from Mississippi River Blvd. on to the Lake Street bridge, which is not allowed for cars, but which I can do as a bicyclist, either by crossing there (it’s sort of an unmarked crosswalk) or biking on the sidewalk across the bridge or, uh, darting across the street and on to the westbound traffic side.

And then there’s a little loop-the-loop to get on to West River Drive from Lake Street.

Still, it’s fun to map your routes and see what they suggest and what you’ve done before. You might be surprised how easy it is to get from point A to point B on a bicycle! And as far as the time estimates—I’m not sure what they’re using but in a pinch I can budget 27 minutes (or so) from Selby and Dale to Uptown. (More if I can catch a draft.) At rush hour, it’s quite a bit faster than driving!