A statewide bike advocacy e-mail list circulated a request to sign a petition that encourages Google to add a "Bike There" option along side it's "Drive there" and "Take public transportation" buttons for getting from A to B. You can find a link to it at Google Maps Bike There.

I'm a bike commuter and recreational rider, so I'm all for more information on the safest, "best" routes. My questions are:

Has Google ever added content to Google Maps because of a petition? I'm not saying this won't work, just curious about a precident.

How labor intensive will it be to collect bike route data in comparison to say public transit data? I know there's bike data out there and more and more communities are hiring bike coordinators (my city and many neighboring ones do) but pulling together nationwide or even big-city wide data is a challenge beyond public transit.

What's the return for Google? As much as we love to think Google Maps is all about us, it's at least in part about advertising.

Could/should this be a mapplet? I know this means it's not right in the interface, but it'd be available and perhaps quicker to implement than waiting for Google to take up the challenge.

The new addition was announced yesterday. Ok, I get user ratings, but neighborhoods are interesting! Well, not so much for me. I did my generic local search "somerville coffee" and was offered the chance to refine by neighborhood. Alas, the neighborhoods (just 3) were in Boston (Fenway, Downtown, Kenmore Square).

- Mashable

I was totally into yesterday's NPR story about a group of researchers in walking the route of a new road from a remote village to the big city of Iquitos. It was all rough terrain and jungle and the idea was to explore the impact of the road on deforestation and human health, including the spread of malaria. The one statement that stopped me dead:

Pan has brought the only maps they have — Google Earth photos from 2003.

Later researcher Pan notes:

"I learned that the parts of the road that look on the satellite image as cleared are actually not as cleared as it appears. And there's not as many communities as we had thought there might be."

I have what are perhaps naive questions. Surely there are newer images available? Why then are they using old images from four years ago? Is there no funding to acquire newer imagery? If there is no or little funding did the researchers at least ask for a break on price from commercial providers?

"Because Google Earth doesn't keep accurate metadata, it's not a good idea to use Google Earth as evidence in court."

- Rick Crowsey, writing in the Jan/Feb issue of Earth Imaging Journal (article not online, so far as I can tell)

It's been two years since Google Earth blasted onto the scene helping neophyte and experienced geographers gain better appreciation for geography and their world. But where are we now? What's the future of globes? What are the next steps? Who will take them? Our editors have some ideas.

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Why would a press release about an updated real estate site for Chicago note its "extraordinary, proprietary interactive map and address search that lets users see everything there is to do and see around a specified location?" I understand "extraordinary" and "lets user see everything"; I guess proprietary still means not only "we are the only ones who have it" but also, "it's way better than everyone else's."

It did work on me; I checked out the site which offers a Google Maps-based search tool and that includes overlays of locations of restaurants, gyms, grocery stores, etc. It's sort of a combination local search/real estate search tool. Also of note, you can fill out a form to receive a free printed Chicago neighborhoods map. (pdf) I guess I'd have put that in the press release!

By the way, I found no sources for the data on the mapping app, but was disappointed that mousing over say a museum didn't reveal its name, but rather its address.