The New York subway in Google Earth

[mmcirvin]

So... Why doesn't Google Earth map the New York City subway system? Is its staggering complexity too much for the mind to encompass? Are they just chicken? Boston and DC are there.

One possible reason I thought of: Google Earth's treatment of the DC system is less than satisfactory because it's designed to map geography a little too literally. So in the stretch through downtown Washington where the Blue and Orange Lines coincide in the same tunnel, the lines just get overlaid transparently on the map to produce a Vomit-Colored Line, instead of drawn next to each other as on the typical idealized transit-system map.

New York's system is vastly more complex, with several lines sharing many of the tunnels. If you tried to represent the NYC subway the Google Earth way you would have absolutely no hope of visually differentiating all the different lettered and numbered lines that share many of the tunnels. On the other hand, the MTA's own map doesn't attempt to represent all the trains as separate color-coded lines, either; they've got labels that presumably you could put on Google Earth too (in a switchable layer). It would be nice at least for cross-checking station locations with the transit map, in any event.

Somebody on the Google Earth BBS suggested that it had something to do with the authorities cracking down on ipodsubwaymaps.com, but that was different: that guy was reproducing the MTA's copyrighted map instead of drawing his own map.

Google Maps is more scattershot: it at least shows subway stations for London, but not for Boston or DC and certainly not for New York. Somebody did make a mash-up showing the New York stations, which I could have used last weekend.

More: An anonymous commenter points me to this much better Google-based NYC subway map. Scroll to the edges for a laugh.

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

A buck says it's an INTERLECKTUAL PROPARTY issue!!!1

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

It might actually be one, of an odd nature. Since the MTA seems peculiarly reluctant to give out station addresses, they probably don't have any official source for where the stations are. So the obvious way to do it would be to rely on open source/amateur compilations, which already exist; but there could be rights questions about those.

[thette.livejournal.com]

I'd be happier if Google maps would extend the search function to Europe, at least.

[(Anonymous)]

This (http://www.onnyturf.com/subwaymap.php) has both the New York subway and Path trains on Google maps.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

That is excellent!

[pootrootbeer.livejournal.com]

It is. I just wish I could zoom in one level further; sometimes I want more detail than it provides.

Still doesn't answer the question of why Google Earth doesn't have even user-provided NYC train data available. Or why the 3D Buildings layer doesn't extend past Boerum Hill/Fort Greene in Brooklyn.

[kerri9494.livejournal.com]

Which is, totally freakily, the example given in the O'Reilly book that I got and started reading JUST LAST NIGHT on Google Map Hacks.

Weeeeird.

not so freaky

[(Anonymous)]

I wrote that tutorial in that book. Thus why I used my subway map as an example. BTW - the tutorial is a little out of date now, as the technology is changed from Google. Some new examples of how to do custom map types will be coming soon. Keep an eye on this page for a GMap v2 tutorial: http://mapki.com/wiki/Add_Your_Own_Custom_Map

Best,
Will
onNYTurf.com

[babynutcase.livejournal.com]

Google Earth is pretty piss-poor at all things NYC. I find that it works best to have both it and http://local.live.com/ going at the same time and cut-n-paste between them.

[babynutcase.livejournal.com]

I think the worst Google Earth feature is trains. They show lines going through buildings and lines that don't intersect with the train stations, etc.

[babynutcase.livejournal.com]

Another thing is just try and find street addresses for train, bus or subway systems online. They are like state secrets most of the time. Is it any wonder that public transportation is so under utilized? You have to be a genius to navigate it outside your local domain.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

That's actually one thing Boston's MBTA does right: they list station addresses on their own web site. New York doesn't. In fact, the thing that prompted this post was my quest to figure out the exact location of Sheepshead Bay Station near Brighton Beach. The way I finally did it was to look it up in Wikipedia: it didn't have an address, but it did have latitude and longitude coordinates, which I typed into Sam's father's DeLorme Atlas software!

[babynutcase.livejournal.com]

BTW I found you via this (http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?as_q=washington+trains&num=10&hl=en&c2coff=1&btnG=Search+Blogs&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&bl_pt=&bl_bt=&bl_url=&bl_auth=&as_drrb=q&as_qdr=&as_mind=6&as_minm=4&as_miny=2005&as_maxd=6&as_maxm=4&as_maxy=2006&lr=&safe=off)

[tims-garage.livejournal.com]

does google have a position on it's lack of nyc subways? they must have been asked a thousand and one times, but does anyone know why they haven't just thrown one in there? and does anyone know how best to contact the right person at google earth to ask for this? i don't want to just bitch and send emails to the wrong people.

ps- i love the onNYTurf map, but it seems a lot more finicky about finding places than regular ole' google. maybe google earth and onNYTurf can have a chat and combine forces for the sake of awesomeness?

Map Layer for google earth

[squirtpunk.livejournal.com]

If you just look on google earth's website you find a "hacks" page...

search MTA

http://www.gearthhacks.com/downloads/search.php?s=mta

the first listing worked for me.

download the layer, and youre done.

Супер блог!

[alfyaziq.livejournal.com]

Развивайте темы дальше. (http://7wp.ru/)