Dump the pump with new transit agencies in Google Maps

Did you know:

• Individuals can achieve an average annual savings of over $8,000 by taking public transportation instead of driving and by living with one less car?
• For every $1 invested in public transportation infrastructure, $6 is generated in economic returns to communities?
• Public transportation saves 900,000 automobile fill-ups each day – or 4.2 billion gallons of gasoline per year?
• Switching to public transportation can reduce individual carbon emissions by 20 pounds per day or 4,800 pounds per year?

This is why transit agencies around the country are celebrating Dump the Pump day, sponsored by the American Public Transportation Association, today to encourage more Americans to take public transportation. Depends on where you are, you may get free passes from your local transit agencies today!

Now, you may wonder how you can plan a transit trip easily if you're not familiar with your local agency. The answer is - go to Google Maps. So far more than 100 agencies in the United States have made their data available in Google Maps through Google Transit Partner Program. Recently we have added several new agencies:

• Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Houston, TX
• VIA Metropolitan Transit in San Antonio, TX (data available tomorrow)
• Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake City, UT
• Metro St. Louis, St Louis, MO
• Foothill Transit, San Gabriel Valley, CA
• Riverside Transit, Riverside, CA
• Charlotte Area Transit System, Charlotte, NC
• Pinella Suncoast Transit Authority, St. Petersburg, FL

In addition, Los Angeles Metro, City of Edmonton, Houston Metro, and Calgary Transit have released their GTFS data feed to the public so that developers can create innovative transit applications to further promote the awareness of public transportation.

Now go to Google Maps on your computer or your cell phone, plan a transit trip, and go catch a train or bus. I bet your won't miss the congested highway or increasing gas price!

Posted by Jessica Wei, Strategic Partner Development Manager, Google Transit

Celebrating the Ocean in Google Earth with our partners

The last few weeks have certainly been busy for the Ocean in Google Earth team. On May 28 in Santa Monica, CA, Heal the Bay held their Bring Back the Beach 2009 fundraiser, supporting work to improve water quality and do beach health monitoring across California. This year, Heal the Bay wanted to celebrate with the theme “A Sea of Possibilities” to recognize those whose thoughts, words, and actions demonstrate the powerful impact of seizing tremendous opportunities for positive change. The Ocean in Google Earth team was honored to be receiving the "Walk the Talk Award" and hope this inspires even more people to use the Ocean in Google Earth to learn about the issues that face this part of our planet. Barry Gribbon, CEO of Homerun Entertainment, produced this great Ocean in Google Earth Awards video - check it out to learn more. You can also have a look at their 19th Annual Beach Report Card, which uses the Google Maps API, to see the most current information about the health of California's coastlines.

Then, this past Saturday, at the Aquarium of the Pacific's Annual Awards Gala in Long Beach, CA, Director Jerry Schubel presented their Ocean Conservation Award to the Ocean in Google Earth. The event honors individuals and organizations that take a leadership role in protecting the environment. In addition, the event raises money to support the Aquarium’s education and conservation initiatives, which include teacher training, environmental education, mobile outreach programs, scholarship funds, and propagation programs.


The entire Ocean in Google Earth team would like to thank our over 100 partners. This includes large media groups like National Geographic and the BBC; researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Scripps Institution of Oceanography; non-profits like the Cousteau Society; aquariums; universities; NOAA, the US Navy, the Australian Great Barrier Reef Park Authority, and other government groups. We've also had individual contributors like Ray Hollowell in Hawaii and Sheila McKenna in Bermuda who have added photos, videos and stories to the Ocean content layers in Google Earth. This also wouldn't be possible without the many Googlers who contributed their time. One of our fantastic engineers, Emil Praun, who was instrumental to solving the ocean and land boundary problem, was fortunate to be able to attend the event.

You may remember the story of how Ocean in Google Earth came to be, following a conversation between Sylvia Earle and John Hanke three years ago. And now, as of February of this year, hundreds of millions of Google Earth users can go take a dive and see the oceans for themselves. As a piece of software, Google Earth is only as good as what you do with it. A number of our partners have used this as a way to tell their stories, and now you can go explore and add your own photos and videos, and share what you find with others. We are very excited to continue to work with the ocean community to enrich this canvas and make it an even more powerful educational tool. The Aquarium of the Pacific is rolling out teaching kiosks which will have the embedded Google Earth plug-in featuring some wonderful ocean content.

As Sylvia always says, "With knowing comes caring, and with caring, there's hope."

Posted by Jenifer Austin Foulkes, Business Product Manager, Ocean in Google Earth

A picture is worth millions of voices

Every year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) gives assistance and shelter to millions of people forcibly uprooted from their homes. Some of them have lived in camps or ghettos for up to 20 years. The upcoming World Refugee Day on 20th June is an important opportunity for everybody to show solidarity.

Marie is a Burundian refugee in Rwanda. As a member of the Tutsi ethnic group, she and her family were attacked by Hutu rebels on several occasions. Now she and her family are waiting to be resettled; as she says, "I plan to work and start over my life with my family. It’s the most precious dream I have… to see them again."

Together with Google, UNHCR is putting refugees on the map - a virtual map - with a new Google Earth tour that shows UNHCR's refugee camps across the globe. Claudia Gonzalez-Gisiger from UNHCR says the tour is a powerful way for everyone to get an insight into the desperate conditions in which refugees live.

The Google Earth tour, set to the Rolling Stone's classic track Gimme Shelter, kindly donated to UNHCR by ABCKO as part of the organization's flagship Gimme Shelter Campaign, gives a human face to refugees from seven different camps across Asia and Africa, allowing you a small insight into the lives of refugees like Marie. Documenting and mapping refugees can help focus public attention on human rights issues worldwide, and hopefully provide a voice for persecuted children, women and men.

Posted by By Hannah Freya Anderson, UNHCR; and France Lamy, Google.org

Uncovering discoveries

What do cows, coral, craters, and now chameleons have in common? They all have been part of scientific discoveries made possible with Google Earth (if you guessed the letter 'c', we'll still give you credit). Last year we blogged about some of the discoveries we'd heard about, and now we're adding another one to the file. Two British reptile experts were able to find new species of chameleons and butterflies by scouting their research locations in Google Earth. By looking for mountains taller than 1,500 meters in southern Malawi, they were able to determine patterns in the imagery that indicated where they'd find a rainforest with the right conditions for their research. Over the past year at the site near Mount Mulanje, they've found more than 10 new species. You can read more about their research and see pictures of some of the critters here.

If you have your own story of how Google Earth or Google Maps helped you discover something - whether a new species or just a great picnic spot - let us know!

Posted by Elaine Filadelfo, Lat Long Blog Team

Discovering cities with the Transit Layer

Earlier this year, we announced the launch of the Transit Layer, a feature that makes it easier for citizens and tourists around the globe to access public transportation line information in their cities. We’re continuously expanding the coverage of Transit Layer, and have added support for transit systems in China, Japan and Russia, which are some of the most complex and remarkable metro lines in the world. The Transit Layer is not only useful to plan a visit, but also to see a city's history, structure of transportation systems, and daily life. Let’s take a look at the Transit Layers for Shanghai, Tokyo and Moscow.

Shanghai (China):

China has launched subway layers for 10 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Beijing's first subway line has been in operation since 1969 and Shanghai's subway system opened in 1995. Now, Shanghai has 8 metro lines, 162 stations and 225 km of tracks, making it the longest network in China, exceeding even the Hong Kong MTR. To get a sense of how widely used the subway system is, take a look at this image of the queues that can form during rush hour.

Tokyo (Japan):

Subways are the most popular and convenient transportation method in Tokyo; most of downtown Tokyo is easily accessible via subways.

The Tokyo Metro Ginza line (drawn in orange) was first opened in 1927. There were many trams at that time, but they have since been replaced by subways because of the increase in automobile usage and lack of capacity and speed. Thirteen lines are in operation today and they carry more than 2.9 billion passengers per year, making this the world's largest subway system.

One of the interesting things about the Transit Layer is that you can see the layout of the transit system. In Tokyo, for instance, you might wonder why the subways take a circuitous path around the central area and avoid it. This is because the area contains the Imperial Palace, which used to be the Edo Castle where the Shogun lived during the pre-modern era. Also, many of the subways are located under historically significant roads. Though Tokyo is filled with modern architecture, it has not been built from scratch, but rather it has been built on top of the old city.

Moscow (Russia):

The Moscow Metro is the world's second largest metro system (in terms of passenger rides) and quite possibly the most beautiful. If you ever come to Moscow, you should definitely visit the Metro (but it's best to avoid it during the rush hour if you have the choice!). Meanwhile, you can check out the Metro on the transit layer for Moscow, together with the bus, tram, trolleybus and monorail lines. We have also launched the detailed transit layer for St. Petersburg recently. All in all, we now provide Transit Layer coverage for 90 cities in 26 countries, including many of the worlds largest transit networks.

Posted by Issei Suzuki, Peng Chen and Vladimir Rychev, Software Engineers

Where in the world is ... (answers)

Great detective work, everyone! As always, I am continually impressed by how much of the new data the user community has found with only a handful of hints. Here are the answers:

1) The large 'satellite dish' from Golden Eye is now visible in high res.
-- Puerto Rico

2) Undergoing a name change in 1996, this city is was established in the 17th centry and rapidy grew into a major urban center.
-- Chennai

3)Check out how construction is going on the giant palm tree island
-- Dubai

4) Once a major maritime power, this former republic is now threatened by the rising tides.
-- Venice

5) Now the second largest city in it's country, this city was a major port of emigration.
-- Gothenburg

6) This city holds the Guiness World Record for most remote city from any sea.
-- Urumqi

7) The western most city in Africa has gotten an update
-- Dakar

8) This cosmopolitan and economic power house metropolis started out as a simple crown colony back in 1842.
-- Hong Kong

The following is a more complete version of the updates in this data push:

Updated Imagery:
Americas:
- Canada: Kamloops (BC), Fort St John (BC), Surrey (BC),
- USA: Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Champaign County (IL), Bentonville (AR), Harrison (AR), Roswell (GA), Hidalgo County (TX), Willacy County (TX), Greenville (SC), Pierre (SD), several counties in Florida, several counties in Ohio

EMEA:
- France: Finistere, Cotes-d'Armor, Loire-Atlantique, Orne, Oise, Pas-de-Calais, Loiret, Loir-et-Cher, Doubs, Cote-d'Or, Nievre, Cher, Creuse, Puy-de-Dome, Cantal, Haute-Loire, Correze, Dorbogne, Lot, Landes, Gers, Haute-Garonne, Gard, Corsica - Italy: Pisa, Venice
- Spain: Costa Brava, Navarra
- UK: Cambridgeshire, Workington, Swanage
- Sweden: Goteborg
- Senegal: Dakar
- Nigeria: Kaduna
- Saudi Arabia: Mecca
- UAE: Dubai
- Central African Republic: Bangui
- Mauritania: Nouakchott
- Sudan: Port Sudan, Juba
- Eritrea: Asmara

Asia:
- China: Hong Kong, Wulumuqi, Fuzhou, Hegang
- India: Calcutta, Chennai, Patna, Varanasi, Bhiwandi, Veraval, Ambala,
- North Korea: Nampo, Haeju, Kimchaek, Kanggye
- Japan: Mt Fuji
- Indonesia: Makassar
- Vietnam: Phan Thiet
- Tajikistan: Dushanbe
- Pakistan: Jacobabad, Vihari

New 2.5m Spot Imagery for: Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the western half of Egypt

Updated Terrain:
State of Indiana

Posted by Matt Manolides, GIS Specialist

Disneyland Paris in Street View

A couple of weeks ago, we were excited to announce one of the most intricate and extensive models ever made for Google Earth. Now anyone can see Disneyland Paris in 3D and explore its streets and buildings in tremendous detail. While the model was under construction, though, we were thinking of ways to make the experience even richer. Street View is one of our newest and most exciting technologies and we are always looking for ways to new exciting places to add to the growing list of destinations. Together with Disney, we thought bringing Street View to Disneyland Paris would be a fun and innovative way to experience a place virtually.

So, last October, as the last few rays of sunlight remained high enough in the sky, Disneyland Paris opened its gates early to our Street View car to capture some of the magic at street-level. We drove up Main Street USA (outside of Paris!), through Adventureland, and around Fantasyland and even in Walt Disney Studios Park.

Some furry friends showed up early too. See if you can spot Buzz Lightyear, Pluto and Baloo, among others! Check out the mapplet we created to walk you through the park as well.

Disneyland Paris was our first "special collection" in France, and we hope to capture more interesting and hard to reach places like race tracks, castles, parks and more.

Disneyland Paris is also the first amusement park in the world to be visible with Street View, and includes both Disneyland Paris itself and Walt Disney Studios Park:

Posted by Liz Ericson, Product Marketing Manager, London & Paris