Walk it off
By: TheYapps

TheYapps tell CVN that "The link is the official announcement from the Google Maps Team. Google has different development teams for all of the different google apps and they all have there own blog. Then, there is a google blog as well."

In a world of increasing fuel prices many people are constantly looking for ways to save money. Google has recognized this and released a new feature to "Google Maps: 'Walking Directions'" ( http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2008/07/pound-pavement.html ). This feature, unlike driving directions, ignores one-ways streets and such. But, it cannot yet allow you to cut across a parking lot or other locations like such.

Google warns, though, that this service may not yet produce the best results because there is a lot of unknown data that would have an impact on the directions they offer. There are many examples such as pedestrian pathways and streets without sidewalks.

"Walking directions work well for short trips in urban areas, but we don't always know if a street has a sidewalk, or if there's actually a special pedestrian bridge for crossing a busy street. There are still a lot of pedestrian pathways we don't know about, and they might save you some time if you find them. We're working on collecting new data on pedestrian pathways and on more effective ways to solicit your feedback, so that we can steadily improve this feature and get you where you need to be as efficiently as possible."

You should be cautious when using this service in new unknown areas. This is probably the smart move, considering Google hasn't yet incorporated any "avoiding the hood" algorithm.