Yesterday Google released a route mapping version for bicycling. Features include being able to use bike lanes and avoid big hills.


After looking at it for a bit I noticed that people were having some trouble with the application. Some people had routes returned that told them to ride on a cloverleaf for a freeway and in a few cases to ride on the freeway. Obviously this isn't only unsafe it's also illegal.


On the Minneapolis Bikelove forum site someone mentioned worries about using this for a city they traveled to and didn't know the roads. Some routes may be dangerous or in the case of the cloverleaf, a place where it was somewhere where it's legal to ride part of that road but not specifically in that area. This could actually create a longer commute and possibly some headaches. They do have functions to report these errors though. It's probably going to take some time to get the bugs worked out.


One thing I'm wondering is whether or not google will be able to keep up with changes that are being made to bike lanes and trails. For areas like Minneapolis the roads aren't going to change much if at all. Most have been the same place they were 100 years ago. The bike lanes and bike trails are changing though and at a speedy rate. What we see now in urban areas like Minneapolis will be very different in the next few years when it comes to cycling transportation. Lets see if they can keep up.


Check it out here