Mountain View, California — Traveling by subway may be an expensive headache especially during weekends, but thanks to Google Maps that continue to keeps getting better. Last year Google made an alliance with the MTA with the launch of transit directions inside of Google Maps. And today, the Google Maps team has announced the launch of a new layer on Google Maps that displays all of the NYC subway routes directly on the map that should help anyone in The Big Apple navigate the city’s maze of subways.
According to a post on the LatLong Blog that states: “You can now see New York’s subway lines spread out directly on Google Maps as part of the transit layer. To turn it on, just point Google Maps to somewhere in New York, click on the ‘More…’ button at top-right, and select ‘Transit.’”
Similarly, there have been many mashups in the past. For instance, Google recently unveiled the “Layer” attribute for Google Maps on BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Symbian S60, empowering users to overlay different types data on top of Google Maps, including stuffs like Wikipedia entries and your friends’ Google Latitude locations.
In addition to the stepwise public transit directions that Google Maps has been providing for a while, the new Google Maps NYC subway layer “will help you quickly navigate the New York City subway system.” The new subway map lines also operates on the mobile version of Google Maps. Google states that they provide transit directions for 436 transit agencies around the world.
You will need to update your Google Maps for Mobile app to the freshest Layer-supported version before you can use the NYC subway layer. To activate it, point Google Maps to somewhere in NYC, click on the “More…” button at top-right, and select “Transit”. You will then see all the subway lines pop up on the map.
Once you have done that, “just click the Layers menu and then turn on the Transit Lines layer.” Then, “When you click on any station name, a bubble pops up with the names of the lines that service the station, and all the other lines on the screen fades out like a magic”
Undoubtedly, lots of New York tourists – and many corporate executives who have been barred from using company cars — are likely to wind up being quite grateful for this offering.