I'm waiting for routing along official bike routes. (San Francisco has a large network of those.)

unfletch

@aukreaz: and kayak across the Pacific Ocean to get from Los Angeles to Sydney.

HardcoreLilly

@nieske: Just watched In Bruges a couple of nights ago. Great movie! Definitely watch it before you go, it shows off a lot of the city.

HardcoreLilly

This reminds me how it told you to swim across the Atlantic Ocean to travel from New York to London.

aukreaz

It seems to stop showing the "walking" link at 6.3 miles, but you can easily get around that by entering a shorter route, select "walking", then enter a longer route.
Hopefully they do biking soon.

davidfg4

Sweet. They say it will only take me 27 days to get from my house to the west coast, I didn't realize that I was so close. ;-)

Duane

@nyccpa: The difference is that Google Maps works with places all over the planet, not 8 major cities in a single country.

PuritySyrup

w00t!

tinkernut

Yay! So nice to be able to tell how far it _really_ is to wherever I'm going.

shane10101

It used to be if you did directions across the oceans, it would tell you to swim. Can you activate Jesus mode, so you can walk over the water?

Git Em SteveDave is a poor substitute for LindsayJoy

It also avoids interstates.

But doesn't show me cutting behind the laundromat and in between houses on the way to work :)

Crashproof

Amazing how Google doesn't cover NYC's transit, didn't we damn near pioneer that sh*t?

Ricorich196

Oh, I've been hoping for this for a long time. Chicago is almost entirely one-way streets, and while it's easy to navigate a grid, the time estimate is nice.

The Public Transit option is hilarious. It's the right bus, but the drawn route looks like a snake, and goes into the Chicago River at one point. Ha.

amesville

@anagrama Google DOES have buses and trains but it only works for certain cities.
[www.google.com]

D Wiz

I'm glad to hear this. I felt ridiculous when I went to Sevilla for a conference and not until the 3th day did I realize I was following directions get by car from my hotel to the conference. It was a lot quicker to go through the center of the town.

Hopefully they'll add buses and trains next, as many have said.

anagrama

Now instead of the generic warning, all we need is a mashup of walking direction and crime maps ([crimebaltimore.com]) that tell you where not to walk :)

tanman

This is pretty cool (if you're in an unfamiliar city, anyway). I also noticed some other stuff that I hadn't seen before -- the "avoid highways" toggle and the "Public transit" option. All it needs now is to mash up with some traffic cams and give real-time ETAs.

abhowell

Been using hopstop for a while now and it already has this feature + a lot more.

nyccpa

Google transit had a basic walking time estimate but no real walking directions, hopefully they enhance it with this new development.

Astrophizz

Yeah, it definitely lets you walk against one-way streets. It also seems to take hills into account somehow. I'm in San Francisco, and to get to downtown, I have to either go over a steep hill and/or go through a tunnel. The driving directions will take the tunnel, but the walking ones for me take a longer route, actually backtracking a bit to avoid going over a hill. (At least, that's why I assume it's backtracking.) It seems a little too aggressive in avoiding hills actually.

gkanapathy

@RetroChristal: Hehehe. Talk about actual "cross-country".

chareverie

Just for fun I plugged in my address (in LA) and my grandfathers address (in Brooklyn). It gives me complete walking directions across the US. It will take me 41 days and 7 hours according to google maps. Though I bet it doesn't take into account anytime for sleeping.

RetroChristal

I'm happy to see a less car-centric approach to directions. I tried directions between my house and work. I frequently walk this so was curious to see what Google came up with. I guess if would be ok if I wasn't familiar with the area but the walking directions were the least pleasant way to go. Like @james I wish it was smart enough to tell you to cut through parks and university campuses - nicer walk than down the busiest streets. Still, a welcome addition to the maps.

kwbridge

I have long been a fan of Google Maps, but this makes it even that much better. Downtown SF is much easier navigated by foot than by car.

drinkwater

@downstairs: I totally agree. I think it makes it more useful since people who tend to walk to places that are a bit distant would take a bike with them or take the transits.

chareverie

In Maryland, the MTA has bus/train/metro routes included... It still needs some work (my trip to work changed by about an hour if I started it just a block away), but it's looking real good for me in Towson, Md.

RenRen

@downstairs: it's nice for estimating distances and walking times.

nieske

It's a very useful feature for us Europeans, since most of our cities aren't as car-friendly as US cities. For example, I was just checking out the route from the main square of Bruges/Brugge (Belgium) to the hostel where I'm staying next month, and there's definitely a difference! Yay for walking directions!

nieske

Wish they had bus/train directions and times integrated into this. Walking directions is somewhat lame... you're only going to walk a few miles at most- just looking at a map should be pretty obvious in terms of how to walk somewhere.

downstairs

I wish it would cut through parks and such. As said, it seems to just ignore traffic restrictions.

James

Most useful around these parts (Boston), it ignores one-way street designations for the walking directions.

I'd imagine it also ignores places where you wouldn't normally be able to turn left due to street signs and things of that ilk.

Seems like this should have existed for a while, but I'm glad to have it now

brackenthebox

Also, it will let you walk against traffic on one way streets: [maps.google.com]

kortina

It presumably allows one to walk the wrong way down a one way street and prevents you from walking down car only lanes and bridges. This is a good thing.

ShyamaliSthenelus

The other change is that it allows you to double back. Google's driving directions stopped doubling back about a year ago, preferring to route you in any kind of a circle. It made mapping my running routes difficult.

joelena

Great addition. I found the walking time estimates for public transportation quite accurate, now it shows the path too. There is a lot of scope for improvement. Would like to add that for the address I entered the default path was longer and more time consuming, but its good you can drag the path and create your own and still get distance and time estimates.

rohitdas

I too am waiting for "bike" to be added to the list. I do a bit of commuting AND touring by bike and would love to add and plan my routes with accurate times in my Google Maps...

Did you hear that Google?!

Twodeadpoets

Whoops, I spoke too soon. Looks like they have a whole page for taking public transit now.

fullerenedream

WHAT THE HELL. They had "take public transit" for Vancouver, but now it's gone! That was WAY more useful than walking directions! I used it all the time. It works a lot better than our transit website's trip planner, which is super broken. I will be very upset if they don't put it back on. I need it!

fullerenedream

The thing I noticed is that it does not take in to account "No Pedestrian" crossings. There are a few around where I live and it lets you cross major streets where I would never want to even try to cross, even if it was legal.

speaky2k

Aaaand now when I look I see the link for public transit in its usual spot. Not sure what happened there... perhaps I just need a nap...

fullerenedream

I don't see the "walking" link at all, even for a short route. Is there something subtle I'm missing?

Drakar2007

NM, the route wasnt short enough.

Drakar2007

Adam... Keeping it real is a Lifehacker strength. Does the caution really qualify as a "Dose of fear"? A dose of litigiousness at most.

m.c.cookie

Does this include walking through people's backyard and hopping fences?

Ken

it's definitely not only adjusting the time, i tried it with the start of my normal jogging route. I live in Stuttgart germany, near the "Marienplatz" and the route goes up hill to the "Königsträßle" near the TV-Tower. Going "by car" google maps directs me through the whole city up the motorways to the tower, on foot however it takes the "direct
air line (or foot line)" route up the hill.
THOUGH i have to say: I normally run up "Römerstraße" which is the straightest way, but the street consists of a lower an upper part, divided by a "pedestrian only" path.
Googlemaps doesn't seem to take that path in account an thus does not thnik one can walk through there and gives me an alternating and bit longer walk.

chabereaux

I did a quick test by having it do a walking route between 2 large cities about 200 miles apart... It won't let me plan to walk along the freeway, but instead directs me to walk on backroads

This is a probably a good thing - I don't want to get picked up by the cops for enjoying a walk or hit by a crazed truck driver who doesn't want to share the road.

englishman

@nyccpa: Hopstop looks great - i wish some of this would come to canada (specifically nova scotia) we have a transit system too :P

grahamr

Folks, Google Transit depends on the transit agencies to provide a very complex set of data (or outsource it to at least one company I know of that's specializing in it). It's not up to Google. That's why only a tiny number of towns support it so far.

Rhywun

Google is once ahead on top of the competition. I thought there live view street by street navigation was cool, but this is getting to the next level as well!

designerpcexpert

This is going to be GREAT for vacations! I love self-guided walking tours and now I can do it so much easier. I'm SO excited about this. :)

magnoliasouth

I was hoping it would allow crossing parks. I hope they fix that and allow manual overrides.

hterzian

I'd like Google to get a bit grander with this idea. Google Transit is a great idea, but it's hard to expand, but they should really try as hard as they can to get it as big as possible. Also, I'd like the ability to program in vehicles. For example, say you have a bike that you can ride at 15 MPH on average. When plotting a route, google should automatically show the price and time to take your car (gas money), your bike, or public transit. It'd be neat to see airfare, too, for long trips, as well as full itinerary planning. Perhaps you could list point a and point b, say you want to drive x hours a day and go to restaurants three times a day that are the best rated and within your pricerange. Then, it loads all the locations into a file you can load in a GPS device, an iPod or iPhone, or print on paper. I know it's big and ambitious, but it'd be really useful.

TVarmy