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Jun 8, 2006 12:52 pm US/Eastern
TechStyles: Find Your Way Around NYC
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
Millions of passengers every day ride the subways in New York City, but even the most native of native New Yorkers can get lost when they go subterranean.
Maybe it's something about loosing a sense of direction when you go underground, or perhaps it's just disorienting to not see a horizon while you travel? Whatever it is, we've all experienced the problem of taking a subway we're not familiar with, or trying to get someplace we don't often go: getting lost on the subway.
Enter Web site HopStop.com, a unique take on online mapping tools that instead of providing turn-by-turn driving directions, provides subway-by-subway-by-walking-by-bus directions.
Chinedu Echeruo said he created the site, in part, to solve the very problem he had: finding his way on the subway.
"[It] comes from personal experience, I mean, even New Yorkers who've lived here for several years still have difficulty navigating the subway maze…I though there has to be some technology that would basically solve the problem of getting from Point A to Point B."
On the site, you simply enter in your starting address and ending address, you can also go by landmarks -- great for tourists -- like JFK, Times Square and MoMA.
It then spits out where you need to go, what direction you'll walk and what subways and buses you'll take.
And, you don't need to be on a computer to get the information. The site also gives users the option to use their PDA (like a BlackBerry or a Treo), text information from your cell phone or simply call their number and speak the locations you're going between.
There's also a handy feature almost all of us who come above ground in an unfamiliar neighborhood can appreciate: A 360-degree panoramic picture of where you'll come above ground with an arrow pointing in the direction you'll need to walk.
One feature the site doesn't yet have, but is working on, a way to navigate the brief but troublesome weekend and overnight service changes. Though they were able to address the long-term problem that affected the A, C and E lines after the subway fire last year, overnight construction or weekend service changes aren't always long enough to include in your routing.
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