This just in: now when you search for directions in Ann Arbor on Google Maps you can choose to see suggested bike routes!  This is great.

I did see what it might say for my normal bike commute, and it was pretty good.  I come from the West Side and normally bike on Washington, which is the first suggested route it gave me.  However, what Google doesn’t know is that there are some non-motorized paths I take that make the trip a little nicer for me.  Still, it’s really cool that these directions are now available.

If you take the bus to work in downtown Ann Arbor, you might be looking for some ideas of how to pass the time.

A recent blog post from Suite101.com gives some good suggestions of ways to both get things done and have some fun while on the bus.  Here’s a rundown of the suggestions.  Feel free to add your own ideas in the comments section:

Ideas for getting things done and having fun while busing to work

• Entertain yourself: Listen to music, watch a movie, play a game on your portable device
• Exercise your brain: Do a crossword puzzle, sudoku, or learn a new craft like knitting
• Get some work done: Work on your laptop, write up to do lists, spend some time planning things you have to do
• Be social: Chat with other passengers
• Be creative: Write, draw, think
• Be lazy: Take a nap

Any other suggestions/ideas?

Get your bike road ready in 5 easy steps. Learn some walk safety tips. Check out how to use Zipcar.

Drive Less.  Save More. is an Oregon-based program to encourage people to–well–Drive less and save more!

One of the neat things they have on there website are how-to videos related to different modes of transportation.

Check it out here.

In the olden days, if you had a suggestion for bike parking in downtown Ann Arbor, it wasn’t very easy to figure out how to get that request considered.   Starting today, the DDA is making is easier for anyone to request bike parking downtown.  The DDA now has an online bicycle parking request form.

According to the DDA, you can use this form for the following reasons:

If you know of a downtown location that could benefit from additional bicycle parking, you have noticed a hoop in need of repair, or an abandoned bicycle – we want to hear from you. Please use the following form to make requests related to bicycle parking in the DDA area.

So consider yourself empowered to request more downtown bike parking.

Click here to check out the bicycle parking request form.

Some great new services for downtown employees and employers from getDowntown:

If you’re a little hesitant about busing, biking or carpooling to work downtown, you’re not alone. The world of sustainable transportation can be a little daunting.

That’s where we come in.  The getDowntown Program has experience with every commuting option you could think of (except maybe a pogo stick).

To make your life easier, we’ve created this handy Commuting Question form. All you have to do is type in your commuting question and we’ll send you a personal response.  Please note, this service is only available for employees/employers  in downtown Ann Arbor.

Click here to send us a Commuting Question.

Don’t have a question now?  Our Commuting Question form is on our website whenever you need it: getdowntown.org/resources/commutingquestion.html

Attention Downtown Employees, Managers, Admin Assistants, and HR Directors:

Wish you had a packet of commuting information for your employees?  Wish you could get all of your commuting materials delivered to your door? Wish granted!

You can now request materials from the getDowntown Program for all commuting options to downtown Ann Arbor.  From AATA Ride Guides to bike maps to new employee orientation guides, we have it all.

And every order comes with a free getDowntown pen!

Please note: this service is only available to downtown Ann Arbor employers/employees

Click here to request commuting materials from getDowntown.

FYI from the AATA.  I signed up for these alerts and received my first one recently.   See more below:

Interested in receiving AATA e-mail alerts?

E-mail alerts on bus service changes, service disruptions and other local transit information are now available from the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority (AATA) with its new service – MyRide.

Interested subscribers can receive e-mail alerts on bus route and schedule changes, detours, delays, press releases, board meeting notices and meeting minutes as soon as the information can be made available.

MyRide alerts are sent to subscribers on only the topics they choose. Subscriptions can be changed or cancelled at any time.

To sign up for MyRide, go to http://www.theride.org/EmailAlertSubscriptions.asp and complete the New Subscriber form, which asks for a primary e-mail address. A secondary e-mail address can be entered and there is an option to add password protection.

AATA wants to assure subscribers that TheRide will use e-mail addresses only to deliver the requested information and will never share e-mail addresses with anyone, for any reason.

http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/university-of-michigan-spinoff-shepherd-intelligence-systems-pursues-bus-tracking-technology/

This past semester, some students at the UM have been working on an app that would encourage people to walk (to work, downtown, etc).  As the Director of the getDowntown Program, I was asked to provide some feedback and support to the students.

The students have moved to the final stages of the creation of the app.  Check out the walking app and its super cute mascot Mibo here.

If you are interested in some of the other aspects of developing the app (usability testing, etc) , click on the tabs in the blog.

What I think is most exciting about this app and the others I’ve been seeing is that there appears to be a lot of potential to really make commuting easier.  Exciting times ahead for sure.

In a recent post, I discussed some cool new transportation apps that might make your commute easier.  Now there is a site that tries to aggregate those apps in one place.  It’s called City-Go-Round and you can use it to search for transportation apps in your community.  It’s from the makers of Walkscore.  The goal of City-G0-Round is to “help make public transit more convenient” by doing three different things as noted by T4America:

. . . cataloging the hundreds of smartphone/web applications people have created to make riding public transit easier, putting pressure on agencies across the country that have not released their public data, and raising awareness of the need for government agencies to open up their data.

Check out City-Go-Round here.

Wired recently wrote a story on some of the Iphone apps that are out there to help you on your commute.  Whether you are biking to work, hopping on the bus, or just stuck in traffic, these apps could be useful.

While I don’t have an iphone, it’s clear to me that apps are the next big thing (as are smart phones in general).  And it’s looking like they could make sustainable commuting much easier.

We’ve even been helping some UM School of Information students develop an application to encourage you to walk to work (and have fun!).

So my question to you is, if you had to design the best app for sustainable commuting (walking, biking, busing, carpooling, zipcar, etc.) what would you design?

My ideal app (with a nod to Menlo’s Rich Sheridan for the inspiration) would be one that allowed you to choose how you wanted to get to work for the day depending on what you wanted to get out of it (the fastest, the one that would let you burn the most calories, the most beautiful).  So if I wanted to burn some calories on my commute, the app might tell me to consider biking to work and then would pull up a suggested route.  Of course, the app would also let me choose a commuting type and then show me the best route.  For bus info, the app would show me in real time where the buses are (like SIS’s application) and would suggest a route.

This app would also have a map feature which would show suggested bike routes (with bike parking locations), bus routes (with stop locations), Zipcar locations and suggested walking routes ALL in one map.

If you want to design something like this for getDowntown (umm . . . for free?) let me know.  Otherwise, I’d love to hear your ideas as well.