Include Google Maps Bike Layer!FORUMS HOME SEARCH FORUMS

Adding the ability to see bike lanes would be useful for creating bike routes!

https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/layer-bicycling

Hi Nathan - thanks for the suggestion.  I think we may already have this covered though - the "Paths" maps highlights cycle paths (click the Key on the Paths maps for more info).

John

Hi John, 

That doesn't use the bike lanes overlay from Google Maps, it simplyswitches the map type to Open Street Maps. 

There doesn't appear to be a legend included, and I personally (and I'm sure is the case with many other people) aren't familiar with OSM, so it's not instantly obvious which are the bike lanes.

Correction, it appears there is a small legend in the bottom right hand corner. 

I think the "paths" button should possibly be renamed to OSM or similar, as it's not the usual experience that people would expect when using a Google Maps based application.

Just my 2 cents.

I'll put the Google Bicycle Layer onto our feature request list.  My main concern is that it would require another button/switch on the map and we are very keen to avoid cluttering up the map with too many buttons.  We originally labelled the "Paths" map as "Cycle", as it is predominantly for identifying cycle paths, but we found that it was also very useful for identifying walking paths, so that's why we switched to labelling it as just "Paths".  I'm concerned that "OSM" might be jargon to some people, although I do understand that some oher people would know what it meant.

John

Why not have the bike layer replace the "paths" button, and give users the option to use either Google Maps or Open Street Maps?

I think there could be technical reasons why that might be tricky.  We'll also need to look at the best design solution bearing in mind that we hope to be able to offer other "layers" at some point in the future too.  I'm sure we'll find a way to do it.  I've put it on the Feature Request list, so it's in the queue!

John

I'm pleased to say that we have now implemented this.  You'll find a new "Bike Paths" checkbox in the top right corner of the maps, which you can use to turn cycle path highlighting on and off.  On the Google street and satellite maps this will display Google's bicycle layer, as suggested below.  On the Paths map it will toggle between the OpenCycleMaps version of the OpenStreetMaps map and a new footpath version.

John

This is really useful! Thanks guys!

I'm still think having a "paths" and a "bike paths" button, is a little bit counterintuitive. The paths button actually change the map type, rather than showning paths, in the way the bike paths button does.

Personally I'd change "paths" to  "map" or "map type", but obviously it's up to you.

Nice to see the site developing.

That's 100% of my suggestions that have been implemented now ;)

I can see what you mean Nathan.  We couldn't call it "Map" though as we already have a map type button called "Map".  It could possibly be "Paths Map" or maybe "Footpaths".  We wanted to keep the highlighting of bike paths separate from the choice of map types but the OSM maps don't have a bike layer, so we've gone with what we felt was the most logical solution.

Thanks again for your suggestions - they've all been good ones!  I think it was you that suggested adding a facility to reduce combine and delete directions to cater for the maximum 100 limit on Garmin devices.  We've had some good feedback about this one in particular.

John