Over the past few months, Google Maps has received a ton of updates and QoL improvements. One might argue that some of them are superfluous but that's just how Google rolls. Today, Google Maps gets yet another new feature that will let you quickly discover bike-sharing stations around your location. You'll be able to see how many bikes are available for rental, and whether there are any spots open at your destination to drop off your bike. According to their blog post:
Bikesharing is booming as this two-wheeled technology transforms how people get from A to B in cities around the planet. With an estimated 1,600 bikeshare systems and more than 18 million shared bikes in urban centers worldwide, bikesharing has gone mainstream. And for good reason--it’s a convenient, affordable, fun and hassle-free way to get around. For the past year, travellers and commuters in New York City have been using Google Maps to both locate bikesharing stations and see exactly how many bikes are available at a station in real-time. Today, we’re rolling out this feature to a total of 24 cities in 16 countries.
Google Maps will show all the bike-sharing locations near you. An info card at the bottom of the screen features a navigation shortcut and a shortcut for calling the bike-sharing centre if that’s an available option.
The changes will roll out in 24 major cities in 16 countries. The list includes Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Budapest, Chicago, Dublin, Hamburg, Helsinki, Kaohsiung, London, Los Angeles, Lyon, Madrid, Mexico City, Montreal, New Taipei City, New York City, Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco Bay Area, São Paulo, Toronto, Vienna, Warsaw and Zurich. The feature will be available both on Android and iOS and should be enabled via an OTA update to the Google Maps application. We can expect a broader rollout to commence later on in the year.
