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Google Maps

according to google earth, it's august 31 2009. i wish they'd post the time in addition to the date.
 
The white tents visible outside the St. Lawrence Market along the Jarvis sidewalk are there on Saturdays - but not Sundays, when the Antique Market vendors set up beneath the colonnade and on the sidewalk.
 
There's a good chance that this is aerial, not satellite, photography. And as such the photos were taken over the course of more than one day.

Ajax GO station's lot is completely full, while Pickering's is perhaps only 20% full. Erindale and Cooksville are both pretty much 100% full, Meadowvale is half full, and Lisgar is completely empty.
 
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Interesting. I haven't looked much outside the city; but I haven't seen anything inside the city to suggest it isn't a Saturday. The shadows in Ajax look more like the afternoon than the mid-morning that the Toronto shadows suggest.

The westbound GO train that has just left Scarborough station suggests the time is about 25 minutes after the hour, compared to about 5 minutes after the hour at Exhibition ... which means either there were some late trains, or it's not satellite.
 
Google has added some of its Google Earth functionality to Google Maps. You can now view 3D maps, including downtown buildings, and visualize topology right in your browser.
 
Google has updated the mapping for the Toronto area (and beyond, presumably). At first glimpse, I see:
- More building footprints, including outside of downtown.
- Green space delineated in the rural GTA
- PATH
- Hwy 400 to just south of Nobel (but not the bit south of Sudbury, and the 410 extension got a little messed up)
- More roads in yellow (for some reason)
 
I just opened up my Google Earth and noticed that a lot of Toronto neighbourhoods are now labeled (whereas it used to be just one red dot at Yonge and Bloor labeled "Toronto"). The red dot for Toronto on GE is now located in the main foyer of Old City Hall.
 
CDL.TO said:
Google has updated the mapping for the Toronto area (and beyond, presumably). At first glimpse, I see:
- More building footprints, including outside of downtown.
- Green space delineated in the rural GTA
- PATH
- Hwy 400 to just south of Nobel (but not the bit south of Sudbury, and the 410 extension got a little messed up)
- More roads in yellow (for some reason)
Click to expand...

I also note that all the trapezoid flowerpot county road shields have been suddenly replaced by the pentagon highway shields, resulting in about 30 Highway 1s across Ontario and no longer distinguish between real highways and county roads. (Downloaded highways generally sported their old highway designations as well as county designations before this week).

Other peculiarities:
- The Brampton Mormon temple is labelled as Denver, Colorado
- Toronto City Hall is marked as Toronto Archives, which is actually on Spadina Road

The building footprints appear to be about 3-5 years old, and go way out into the suburbs.
 
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The reason for the changes is because Google has dropped TeleAtlas in favour of their own data collected during their Street View project. While their coverage of Toronto was not too bad, for the rest of Canada TeleAtlas was garbage. For example, they would show NO MAJOR ARTERIALS in many Canadian cities, such as Montreal and Ottawa! Since the change, I've noticed more improvements to the data than setbacks.

Fortunately, unlike TeleAtlas, Google is known to correct problems with their data very quickly. So hopefully we will see some very accurate maps in the near future.
 
I've been reporting all sorts of problems, but they seem to be responsive. They did reply to my complaint about the county roads, and they said I was right, and let me know when they would have them fixed.

If you want to see something funny, try getting directions between Montreal and Burlington Vermont. The map generator doesn't recognize the I-91 crossing north of Burlington, so it takes you the long way around through New York State (I-89). Even stranger is the path that's determined to Burlington from any point south of St-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
 
CDL.TO said:
Google has updated the mapping for the Toronto area (and beyond, presumably). At first glimpse, I see:
- More building footprints, including outside of downtown.
- Green space delineated in the rural GTA
- PATH
- Hwy 400 to just south of Nobel (but not the bit south of Sudbury, and the 410 extension got a little messed up)
- More roads in yellow (for some reason)
Click to expand...
Almost all county and regional roads are now in yellow, as they should be. Before the change most county roads were in white, and it was almost impossible to distinguish a county road from a gravel concession road. As for the markers, I think Google might be confused as to the difference between provincial highways and county roads - Ontario is pretty unique with how much of its highway network is municipally owned. Forested areas are shown around most urban areas in Canada. You can really see how heavily forested the Maritimes are. Entire countries in Europe are mapped this way.

I'd like to see Google differentiate 4 lane at-grade expressways (like Hwy 11) from 2 lane highways, kind of like MapArt does. It's a fundamentally different type of road.
 
As of today, Google has added bicycle directions to its Toronto map. I appreciate the move, but it feels like they need more info to make the feature really useful (Use the Don Trail? In December? I'll pass.).
 
I noticed that Bing Maps now allows a bird's eye-style isometric view using their 3D buildings in central Toronto. Makes Toronto look like a model. Very cool.
 
This might be old news, but I noticed that Bing's Toronto imagery is more up-to-date than Google's now. (The regular aerial, not the bird's eye.) Based on construction, I'm guessing fall 2012?
 
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