It’s time to bike

Over on the Official Google Blog, you can read a very, very exciting announcement: Google Maps now offers biking directions! As my teammate Shannon mentions in that post, we’ve been constantly asked when this feature will be made available. But as an engineer working on the directions team, I’d often get questions about why Google Maps didn’t already have biking directions. After all, we’ve had driving, walking, and public transit directions for some time, so what is it about biking directions in particular that presents an engineering challenge?

Well now that the good news is out, I can lift…