Google Maps and Google’s My Maps tools are excellent for planning safe biking routes. Now Google Maps has another feature that could be an aid to those of us who enjoy riding bicycles.
Yesterday Google announced a new feature for the Google Maps mobile apps. The new feature provides real-time information about available bike shares in twenty four cities. If you live in one of the cities that is included in this update, you’ll be able to use the Google Maps mobile apps to find the nearest available bike sharing station and the number of bicycles available.
Unfortunately, bike sharing information is only available for 24 cities. The North American cities included in this update are New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Montreal, and Toronto. Hopefully, Google will continue to add to this list as there are many other cities that have public bike sharing systems. For example, Seattle has a good bike share system but isn’t included in the new update to Google Maps.
On the topic of bike sharing, the city of Seattle produced the following video about how to responsibly park your bike share bike.