Wouldn’t be great if Google Maps let you choose not only your origination and destination places, but also your mode of transportation? For instance, a lot of routes Google provides are optimized for motor vehicles. What if I ride a bike and there’s a pedestrian bridge that lops ten miles off the usual route? What if there’s a path from my home to my office that’s more bike friendly in that its level and doesn’t involve multiple hills or hidden driveways?
What if I wanted to fly somewhere? Is a direct flight available? Can I avoid connections at airports with known delays? What if I wanted to sail, say, from New Bern to London? Could Google find the most favorable winds and currents?
Google couldn’t simply rely on the public-domain Tiger census maps (from which many maps originate) to gather this information. It could, however, harvest the collective wisdom of Internet users: something Google is very good at. I wonder if the folks at the Googleplex are smart enough to make this work.