Caption: A photo of bicycles in a row on a street. (Getty Images)
Have you ever travelled 40 minutes to a place that looked really good only to find out that it’s closed? Have you ever driven 30 miles to a strange and small town while the empty gas tank light is flashing, only to find out that the station is closed because its late on a Sunday night and the next closest gas station is now 70 miles in the other direction? Have you been 5 minutes late for a meeting because the road you were planning to take doesn’t exist anymore?
I have. And it sucks. Sometimes it’s a small thing, like being 5 minutes late. Other times it’s way more important because your pregnant wife needs that blue cheese and codfish sandwich at 3 am, and you’d better find it. And, sometimes it could be a life or death situation and you need to be there on time. We all rely on Maps for the simple things and the important ones, and it’s vital that we can trust it.
One of my driving forces as a Local Guide is to update Google Maps so that these kinds of things happen less and less. Every time I find something that is wrong on Maps I do my best to update it with the correct information. Normally its things like the time that a place is open, or an address that isn’t perfect or is slightly misleading. Other times I like to add things that are missing to the Map.
While living in Toronto for the past year I have been relying on the bike sharing system to get around the city. There are public bike sharing stations where, after you sign up for an account, you can borrow a bike for 30 minutes and then return it to another station somewhere in the city. A lot of these stations are not marked on Google Maps, and that makes planning a route or checking if you can get somewhere relying on these bikes a lot harder. Whenever I find a bike station that is not on Maps I make sure to add it with a location, picture, and some details about the bike sharing system in an effort to help others find these stations.
However, there are a lot of stations, 360 and counting! I’d like to urge other local guides in Toronto to help me out and get all of these stations on to Google Maps. Please have a look if you can find some of these stations on your next adventure around the city, and if they aren’t on the Map let’s work together and get them there.