Oregon Public Broadcasting

If it's not there already, Portland Oregon is fast on its way to becoming Bike City USA.  Almost 7% of Portlanders commute regularly by bike. That's more than any other major U.S. city and nearly 10 times higher than the national average. And now when you use Google Maps to get from Point A to point B in Portland, you can choose to bicycle there instead of driving or walking. Google rolled out the new service earlier this month. Casey Negreiff took the map service for a test ride.

Any way you go from my house to my kid's school, you have to cross the railroad tracks that bisect Portland from north to south.I know the best way to get there, but today I'm putting my fate in Google's hands. I'm adopting the mindset of someone new to bicycling around Portland.A second after I submit my start and destination info, Google's computers spit out a route on a map that's been highlighted with solid and green dashed lines, indicating streets bicyclists might find more hospitable.

A portion of the Google Bike map Casey used for his trip.  Streets highlighted in green are designated bike roads in Portland.

The first leg sends me up the street I live on - a two lane arterial with a speed limit of 30 miles per hour. "It's not an ideal bicycle street. It's dirty, but it's straight. The lights are well timed."Now the ride gets interesting. Following Googles' directions, I turn left into an unmarked, unpaved alleyway that parallels two perfectly good, paved residential streets."It's a gross muddy alley. I can see in to people's back yards. It does have the benefit of having no cars in it. And no dogs so far. There's some kitty cats."You probably wouldn't want to cruise down muddy alleys on your carbon fibre racing bike. Good thing I ride a heavy duty clunker.Now I'm back on pavement. "And this is gladstone. Ahh. This is, oh, twice as wide as 52nd. But parking, bike lanes, and a 25 mph speed limit."The cushy bike lanes end and per Google's directions, I head north, into an industrial part of town. Here's the part of the trip I enjoy the least.The directions call this part Southeast Pedestrian Trail. Sounds nice, huh? Maybe you're picturing one of those paved paths, populated by oblivious rollerbladers and kids on bicycles.But it's not. It's a rickety structure made up of two staircases, wooden planks and a chain-link fence that allows pedestrians -- not bicycles, people in wheelchairs, or moms with strollers -- to cross the railroad tracks in relative safety but absolutely no comfort. Adding to the ambiance is graffiti and glittering shards of broken malt liquor bottles.There's another cyclist preparing to hoist his bike up and over the bridge. I'm tempted to just walk my bike across the tracks at this point. But Ira Castaneda points out that can be deadly. "People have died on these tracks, I know that much." "You've got no qualms with having to port your bike across this?" "No. I used to run this thing for fun," he said.So up and over I go...I make it to school with plenty of time to spare, and think about how on the way home I'll have to carry two bikes up and over the rickety bridge.Melissa Streng and Julia Raskin used Google Maps to plan a bike trip. Their experience was similar to mine: full of surprises."At first it was really nice. The roads were really pretty. And then it started getting really hairy with really really big trucks and like a lot of traffic," said Raskin."That eventually led us to a golf course where it just ended. The road just ended," added Streng.To improve the service, Google's asking users to offer feedback. There's already a lot of that on bicycling websites.  Several posters on bikeportland dot org say that the service ignores designated bicycle routes or puts them onto treacherous streets when viable options are close by.I reported the problems I had with my route. Google says it could take a month for changes to be made.The service is still in its beta form, meaning it's not quite ready for prime time. I tried to get someone from Google for this interview but they didn't get back to me in time.I'd say overall, my Google Maps experience wasn't too bad, except for the part where I had to carry my bike.  I'd recommend using the "street view" function when it's available to see what you're getting yourself into.