Just in time for spring, Google is helping you enjoy the great outdoors by adding bike trails to Maps.
Simply open up maps and search the location you’re looking for. Then click the “More” tab and select “Bicycling.”
The bike paths are highlighted in bright green:
If you zoom in, you can see that there are solid lines and dotted lines. The solid lines are greenway or bike trails. The dotted lines are bike routes on streets.
You can also get directions for bicycling, which takes the bike paths into account. Here’s an example of a bike route from Ballston Metro in Arlington, VA to Oakton, VA. It uses the popular Custis Trail which leads to the extensive W&OD Trail. (Click the image below for a larger view.)
Google partnered with the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy for the project. Over 12,000 miles of bike paths are now included in Google Maps. Data for bike lanes and recommended streets in 150 cities is also included.
source: Official Google Blog
Related reading
Six steps to improving your local search strategy
With local search proven to be one of the hottest SEO trends of 2017, it is projected to maintain its standing among make-or-break optimization factors in 2018. The competition between online and brick-and-mortar stores is heating up, and local search optimization can become a decisive factor in how a site ranks locally and, consequently, in how much traffic and clients it drives from local, on-the-go searches.
4 local SEO strategies for small and medium businesses
For small and medium businesses who want to compete on the same playing-field as much larger corporations with greater resources at their disposal, having a strong local SEO strategy is crucial.
How to find the perfect domain strategy for international SEO
As you look to expand the reach of your business to customers in different countries, your website setup and the content you have in place will need to change and evolve. Before you even begin thinking about content localization and local keywords for each market, the technical setup of your website needs to be considered. The first step of this process is domain strategy.
How creating relevant experiences can boost your clicks on local search ads
We all know by now that mobile has had a tremendous impact on our lives as consumers and as marketers. What we are still getting our collective heads around is what this change means for us as marketers.