Small Businesses Get a Boost From Google Bike Maps

Biking enthusiasts were cheering Wednesday after Google added biking directions to its Maps pages, but small businesses off the beaten path may also be thankful.

Molly Brogan, spokeswoman for the National Small Business Association in Washington, said that Google’s new biking directions could enable more people to get to small-business establishments, many of which lie on or near bike trails or on bike-friendly streets with specially designated lanes.

“Increasing access to small businesses, whether on a bike or a in a car—if it helps get more people in the door, then that’s a good thing,” Brogan said in an interview Wednesday.

Cliff Groleau, manager of the San Diego Bike Shop in San Diego, California, plans on using the new tool to bring in more customers.

“I generally give people directions over the phone by pulling up Google, and now that they have biking directions: That’s awesome!” Groleau said.

Google teamed up with the nonprofit Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, which furnished 12,000 miles of biking trail routes throughout the country that are now outlined on Google’s maps when selecting biking directions.

The website also provides directions using streets with bike lanes and other streets recommended for bikers. That functionality now exists for 150 cities such as New York, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Portland, but Google plans on adding more information and is encouraging readers to suggest additional routes as well as send feedback on existing routes via its “Report a Problem” tool.

Google says it received a petition with 50,000 names, all calling for the addition of bike routes to its mapping tool.