Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Google Maps is green: bicycles are coming!!


by Valeria Rocca

“Bicycling” is the new functionality for the American Google Maps customers seeking for routes!

In collaboration with Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (organization no-profit in favor of the atmosphere that proposed to create a total net of distances for all the lovers of the two wheels) to the usual distances covered by car, public means of transportation or on foot, Google offers 12,000 km of distributed bicycle distances on 150 American cities.

The service, still at its experimental stage, allows the customer studying the best way possible to do on two wheels.
Among the several functions the signaling of bicycle tracks, preferential lanes, roads to lowland intensity of traffic, climbing routes and the possibility to calculate the time necessary to cover the journey according to the kind of road.
Appropriate signaling do not lack, also for those who use the mountain bike.
The used code is simple and immediate: in dark green the roads exclusively dedicated to bicycles, in light green the municipal bicycle tracks and at last in green, but with dotted lines, the ways unprovided of bicycle tracks, but on which it is possible to go easily by bike, avoiding traffic and dangers.

The primary objective is to stimulate the use of bicycle as alternative mean of transportation. Its use, beyond a reduction of the atmospheric pollution and of the CO2 emissions, creates a new knowledge of the city among its inhabitants, and becomes the symbol of a more active and healthy style of life.
For further information go on www.mapsgoogle.com.

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