Easier Rider

Google just added bicycle routes for 150 US cities (including Providence) to Google Maps. I've played around with it a little bit, and it does a pretty good job. I plugged my commute in and one of the three routes that it gave me was very close to the route that I take when I bike to work. It's definitely worth a look, but make sure to do a sanity check before saddling up, because a lot of the so-called bike friendly roads are anything but. For example, in Providence, Google Maps seems to think Elmwood Avenue is a great bicycle thoroughfare. It may have a decent sized shoulder in many places, but in general, I find it best to avoid roads with more than two lanes or lots of traffic or lots of parallel parking and Elwood Avenue fails all three of these tests.

Walk on Water

Google Maps is a great tool and it keeps getting better. Their public transit and walking directions are nice new feature. The walking directions are really cool because Google Maps will gladly generate walking directions for any route, no matter how ridiculous it might be. Here's a nice leisurely stroll you might want to take the next time you need to go from LA to New York but aren't in a big hurry. Google estimates that it would take you 38 days to make the 2800 mile trek (assuming you don't stop anywhere along the way).

Michelle discovered an interesting routing for her trip to Falmouth. The walking directions have you hiking all the way up to Boston, hopping on a ferry to Provincetown, and then walking all the way around Cape Cod. When we first looked at it, we thought that Google was suggesting that you walk on water from Boston to Provincetown. While it may sound like Google is copping out by including a ferry ride in the walking directions, I doubt that pedestrian traffic is allowed on the bridges that span the Cape Cod Canal, so there technically is no way to walk to Falmouth. Perhaps the next release of Google Maps will include a swimming option.

West Side Story

Yesterday, I biked to work for the first time at my present job. It was actually the first time I've biked to work in seven years. This is the first job I've had in a while that has the facilities to support bicycle commuting (showers and bike storage) and is close enough to home that I can still make it to and from work in a reasonable amount of time when traveling by bike. I really should have done this a lot sooner, but it's taken me a while to find a good bike route across the west side of Providence. I figured out most of the route that I wound up taking last summer, but at the time, I felt like it had a couple of high traffic chokepoints that I wouldn't be able to make it through so I started looking for a new route that went up the more bike-friendly east side. After trying a friend's route across the west side that involved riding across Federal Hill, I decided to give my old route another try. After fighting the traffic on Dean St., riding around Olneyville Square suddenly didn't look so bad. As it turns out, the traffic on my route is not as a bad during the weekday commute as it is on a Saturday morning, since the most of the high-traffic areas are commercial districts that don't see as many shoppers during they week as they do on weekends.

Here's a link to the main section of my route. It goes from Park Ave. and Cranston St. to Branch Ave. and Charles St. I don't actually follow the route that I've mapped out between Park Ave and Webster Ave; instead, I follow the Washington Secondary Bike Path.

Hopefully, I'll be able to bike to work at least a couple times per week for the rest of the summer. It takes me just over twice as long to bike as it does to drive (40 minutes vs. 15). Unless gas prices shoot up by a couple more dollars per gallon, I'm not really going to be saving myself much money, but I should get some good exercise.