Newsletter
Anyone who has ever taken public transit in the last few years knows how frustrating it can be to have to deal with paper bus routes or even written data on when each bus, train, or other public transit might arrive. Thankfully Google Maps has come so far over the years that they have expanded their data on public transit in many areas, making it easier to get around without driving or the need to carry around paper route information. Coming from the Portland metro area in Oregon, this would have been a huge benefit to have all the route information in the palm of my hand when taking the tri-met or the Max train just 5 years ago. Today, Google is proud to announce that they have expanded the Google Maps public transit data in three new areas, but they also don’t want you to forget about a fourth area that was recently updated.
For starters, right here in the states, Chicagoans can now get tons of access to any transit data they need right within Google Maps. That means you can get all the way to the next Cubs game without having to hop behind the wheel and all by using the Maps app. Heading up north to Vancouver, Canada, Vancouverites now have access to Google Maps transit data as well, so if you choose to forego driving through the beautiful downtown area, you won’t be avoiding the massive amounts of traffic but at least you won’t have to drive in it.
Hopping on over to Great Britain,(this probably makes our own Tom Dawson pretty happy) Google Maps now has literally every single transit route in the country, listed within Google Maps. Literally every single route. That’s including transit times and information on busses, ferries, trams, trains, and tubes, and spanning over 17,000 different routes across the UK. As Google Maps points out, you’ll now even be able to use Google Maps to go from Land’s End to John O’Groats which is said to be a trip that will take one roughly 27 hours total by way of foot, train, and bus. Now that’s amazing. Remember that area Google Maps just recently added transit data to that we mentioned they wanted to remind us about? It’s Brazil. Just as a recap, Google Maps has transit data for every host city in Brazil. Anyone for a trip?
