A cou­ple of cool new fea­tures have arrived at Google Maps.

First, the images used in the satel­lite tiles have been updat­ed, and with images of a high­er res­o­lu­tion so you can zoom in right down to the small­est click on the slidey thing.

The old images pre-dat­ed the bypass, so it’s good to see more up-to-date images.

Also, the images appear to have been tak­en on a bright sun­ny day and the city looks absolute­ly gor­geous.


View Larg­er Map

Sec­ond thing is Google Tran­sit, which lets you plan jour­neys using pub­lic trans­port (click on Get Direc­tions in Google Maps).

Welling­ton is the first city in Aus­trala­sia to have Google Tran­sit, as report­ed in this envi­ous arti­cle in the Her­ald.

Alan’s already had a bit of a play with it:

 

And we’ve had a look and it seems pret­ty use­ful — much eas­i­er to use than the famous­ly crap Metlink web­site.

There’s still a few things that need to be tidied up (it seems to think that the Air­port Bus dri­ves across the har­bour), and it would be great to be able to spec­i­fy which type of pub­lic trans­port you want to search for. But we’re most­ly enthused by this new addi­tion.

We still haven’t been able to find out how to get to Welling­ton­ista Tow­ers, though…