"Now that I have this gizmo, I'll never have to look at a map and figure it out for myself again!" is already the majority attitude among car drivers.

Any reasonably intelligent person who explores, learns, and can read a map can outthink the machine when they need to devise their own itineraries. That people heedlessly abdicate so much personal awareness is indeed sad. In most cases they are not even saving time.

Its about as sad as all the people who have not read a book since TV came along.

The site returns the same route for "safest" and "fastest" for my commute from Greenpoint to midtown.

It happens to be (almost) the route I normally ride (which is the fastest), but it's far from the safest. There's hardly a bike lane along the whole thing, and Greenpoint Ave, Van Dam, and Queens Blvd are teeming with trucks and expressway-bound traffic all day long.

It tacks on around .75 miles, but it's much safer to ride up Franklin to the Pulaski bridge, and hit the QBB from that direction.

I just tested a route from the West Village to Forsyth Street in Chinatown that I ride regularly. Their "Safest Route' involves riding a quarter mile on Canal Street, hardly what I would call a safe road. The suggested route also takes me 5 blocks north of my starting position, in the wrong direction, just to get on a west side bike path, when there actually a west side highway crossing only two blocks away.

The safest way from the West Village to Chinatown in my opinion is to take Bleecker all the way to Mott Street. Turn right Mott and stay on the small streets to your destination.

Makes me wonder about some of the other routings it would come up with.

It is just another tool. Some people will use it exclusively. Just fine for them. Others will use it sometimes or to plot a place out they have never been. That's great too. Others like me will use it sparingly or not at all, preferring to get lost or to chart my own course. Or maybe use it to discover another alternative route and use just part of it as a recommended route or - good heavens - maybe to change up a routine ride.

And ALWAYS as you say carry the foldable map the city prints and distributes. As an aside, back in '97 while volunteering for T.A. and handing out maps at the Bike NY finish line, I heard some old timers bickering about the city wasting money to print a bike map saying, "What do we need something like that for?"

I tried to 66th & CPW to Katz's Deli and the actual safest route would be to cross over to the Hudson bike path and then cut back over when you get downtown. I tried it again for Little Italy and it still used streets only. I guess I could see using it if I needed to get somewhere quickly but if I had a few extra minutes, I would still figure out my own route.

Still it's a very good application and while I respect what "bicyclist" said above...I don't think there is anything wrong with using it as a starting point and then adjusting your route to deal with construction, traffic, etc.

Great job! And I second galvo's comment, heck what a great way for the inventors to possibly make a little more $$$