Mapquest unveils new bike routes mapping

Mapquest has announced a new "Bike Route" service in their mapping program.
As most of you know, Google already has a bike route option available for some of their mapping areas and is expanding that option daily.

I'm glad to see Mapquest jumping on the bandwagon, or in this case the tagalong.

What pleases me most is that it sounds like whenever/wherever possible, the bike route will involve trails instead of roads. I think that is critical for safety and enjoyability.

Hopefully the new mapquest bike
routes will direct bicycle riders
under roads instead of on them.

Here is a list of rules or criteria that Mapquest has applied to the new Bicycle Routes:

• Avoids roads where bicycle access in OpenStreetMap is set to false
• Avoids all limited access highways
• Favors bike specific paths (road segments that have bicycle access only – no auto or pedestrian)
• Favors walkways with no auto access
• Applies various weights to roads based on the maxspeed tag (ex. favors routes where maxspeed <= 30 mph)

For more details, visit the mapquest blog page by following this link.

Mapquest unveils new bike routes mapping