Google launches Maps biking directions with Bicycle Coalition data

Google Maps new biking directions feature shows safe-to-ride bike paths in green. It's not the path we'd take to Citizen's Bank Park, but hey, Google does no evil, right?

You could say we’ve been welcoming of spring and the onset of the 2010 Grapefruit League. A bike ride down to Citizen’s Bank Park in a few weeks? Count us in. But how best to get there?

Google has launched a beta and buggy version of its new bike-friendly Maps features, including directions that utilize Philly bike paths and landmarks of local biking facilities, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia reported this morning.

Read more

Google Building Maker released for Philadelphia, 49 other cities

So where do you begin? Google Building Maker was released yesterday for 50 cities, including Philadelphia.

Google is offering up Web-based tools to citizens that would help move forward the company’s ambitious plans to have 3D representations of every building in the world.

Philadelphia is one of 50 cities worldwide and just 21 in the United States that are part of the first wave of Google Building Maker, as the program was described in a company release from yesterday. Building Maker is a way to create geo-located 3D models of buildings that would be visible in Google Earth, with the intention of creating an impressively detailed Web atlas, though criticism already surrounds, as always, the heavy reliance on free citizen labor.

Read more

Google Transit and SEPTA finally play nice

A screenshot of SEPTA's new integration with Google Maps

Let’s face it — SEPTA isn’t exactly quick on adapting new technologies.

It took a group of determined Web developers and some HTML scraping to make the delightfully useful iSEPTA iPhone application, SEPTA has repeatedly delayed the implementation of smart cards and many stations (*cough* Tioga *cough*) still do not sell tokens or make change.

But for all of its feet-dragging and delaying, the area’s transit system has finally accomplished its long-requested integration with one of the Web’s most used tools for travel planning.

Read more