Mapnificent
Above you’ll find a link to a new service called Mapnificent. In light of our moving to the city soon and my obsession with maps, this new site is a dream come true. You can choose a location on the map (Google Maps interface), set an amount of time that you are willing to take to go from said location (e.g. 30 minutes), and then it gives you an interactive region around the location that you can reach using public transportation within the set period of time. I’m sure they do it for non-public transportation too.
On top of that, you can also drop multiple pins, so that if you wanted to meet up with a friend for coffee and neither of you wants to take more than a set amount of time to get there - for instance, 15 minutes - then it will show all the coffee shops in the area that are 15 minutes away from both of you.
Seeing how useful and simple it is, I’m surprised that Google Maps did not implement a feature like this yet. It’s different in that it uses time as its main parameter for determining areas, as opposed to distance. How it’s doing that is worth looking into. I’m guessing it’s just honing all the different features of Google Maps (directions using public transport) into a more focused map interface.
Anyway, it’s still in beta mode, so there are definitely some kinks, but in general, it’s a pretty helpful application as well as a fun one. Check it out.
