Google Maps can now give walking directions!

These guys are amazing.  Google Maps has refined their mapping and travel-directions tool so that a user can now seek not only driving directions but also walking directions.

To see how it works, I asked Google for driving directions from my office at NRDC to EPA’s Smart Growth Office.  Here are the verbal directions and the route, which is 1.3 miles in length:

From: 1200 New York Ave NW, Washington, DC 20005

Drive: 1.3 mi – about 5 mins.

1. Head northeast on New York Ave NW toward 11th St NW 0.2 mi

2. Turn right at 9th St NW 0.7 mi

3. Turn right at Constitution Ave NW/US-1 0.4 mi

To: 1301 Constitution Ave NW, Washington, DC 20004 

I then asked it for walking directions which, because I no longer needed to avoid one-way streets going the wrong way, produced a more direct route of only 0.8 mile, saving me half a mile:

From: 1200 New York Ave NW, Washington, DC 20005

Walk: 0.8 mi – about 17 mins.

1. Head southwest on New York Ave NW toward 13th St NW 0.2 mi

2. Turn left at 14th St NW 0.5 mi

3. Make a U-turn 144 ft [note: this is odd; see below re beta] 

4. Turn right at Constitution Ave NW/US-1 249 ft

To: 1301 Constitution Ave NW, Washington, DC 20004   

The tool will even pick routes through pedestrian-only passages and take terrain into account:

“Starting today, you can tell Google Maps that you want walking directions, and we'll try to find you a route that's direct, flat, and uses pedestrian pathways when we know about them. Just get directions as you normally would. If you're going 10 km or less (some call this 6.2 miles), we'll show you a link that you can click to get ‘Walking’ directions.” 

In some locations, though Washington doesn’t appear to be one of them, Google Maps will even give you transit directions and, now, combined walking-and-transit directions.  I love it.

Andy Schwerin, software engineer at Google, stresses that the new feature is in beta (someone please tell me why it’s called “beta”; thanks) and that there are some relevant features (sidewalks, pedestrian pathways, etc.) that are not complete in GM’s database.  For example, I wonder what prompted the totally unecessary direction to make a U-turn in instruction #3 above.

But, quirks notwithstanding, it’s a great start.  Google welcomes your feedback as they work to improve the tool. 

I bet MapQuest and other mapping services won’t be far behind on this one.