Google Maps rolls out cycle route feature in Estonia

Web mapping application Google Maps now displays cycle routes in Estonia.
The Google Maps app from Saturday Still, allows cyclists to ensure a journey can be completed by bicycle for the entire duration. Previously users may have come across dead ends even as these might be negotiable to pedestrians or drivers.
The app now shows cycling routes along cycle lanes where these are present, directing users to travel for instance along sidewalks where there is no cycle lane.
Estonian cyclists had long called for the feature, already common worldwide, to be added, and then-Tallinn deputy mayor Madle Lippus (SDE) noted the mayors of all three Baltic capitals last year sent a joint appeal to Google, calling for the change.

"The Tallinn team prepared the necessary map layer, and since then a great deal of work, communication and persuasion has gone into it, but finally the result is here," Lippus said.
This is not to say the feature is not fail-safe: For example users have shown that in Tallinn's Old Town, the estimated cycling speed has been set considerably higher than the 10-15 km/h permitted, including for motor vehicles.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Mari Peegel









