On days when everything runs smoothly, taking public transit is one of the best ways to get around town. Not only is it cost-effective and efficient, but it also lets you stay hands free so you can sit back, relax and maybe even read a few chapters of your favorite book. But unexpected delays or overcrowded vehicles can quickly turn your ride from enjoyable to stressful. Starting today, Google Maps is rolling out two new features to help you better plan for your transit ride and stay more comfortable along the way. 

Live traffic delays for buses

When you have an important meeting, a date with a friend, or a doctor’s appointment, often the first thing you’ll do is check the transit schedule to make sure you can make it on time. Unfortunately, transit schedules don’t always reflect real-time traffic conditions that impact your ride, which can cause a lot of unnecessary stress when you end up arriving later than you thought you would. 

To solve for this, Google Maps is launching live traffic delays for buses in places where we don’t already have real-time information direct from local transit agencies. You’ll now be able to see if your bus will be late, how long the delay will be, and more accurate travel times based on live traffic conditions along your route. You’ll also see exactly where the delays are on the map so you know what to expect before you even hop on your bus. 

Crowdedness predictions

There’s nothing more uncomfortable than being packed like a can of sardines on a hot, sweaty train. We’re introducing transit crowdedness predictions so you can see how crowded your bus, train or subway is likely to be based on past rides. Now you can make an informed decision about whether or not you want to squeeze on, or wait a few more minutes for a vehicle where you’re more likely to snag a seat.

You’ll start to see these features roll out on Google Maps in nearly 200 cities around the globe on both Android and iOS today. Interested in learning more about crowdedness trends in your area? Check it out in this post.

Editor’s note:In honor of Juneteenth, we’re sharing this story about a Google Earth Outreach project that highlights African American history. In today’s post, Justin Reid, Director of African American programs, and Peter Hedlund, Director of Encyclopedia Virginia—both of the state humanities council Virginia Humanities—talk about documenting slave dwellings using Google Street View.

On Virginia’s rural farms, in city townhouses, and beneath grand plantations are spaces where enslaved African-Americans lived from the 1600s until sometimes long after Emancipation. Every day, people pass by these slave dwellings, which are often in disrepair, with no idea who lived there. These dwellings and other African-American historic sites are an important part of Virginia’s history—yet out of the nearly 250,000 cultural and historic resources documented by the state, only one percent are officially identified as reflecting African-American history.

It’s easy to forget about the painful yet important parts of American history when we can’t see them. By immersing ourselves in the places where enslaved communities once lived, we are confronted with a history that cannot be ignored. So to virtually preserve these living spaces and give people access to them, we created custom Street View imagery for tours of a dozen slave dwellings throughout Virginia, which date from the late 1700s to the mid 1800s.

How virtual preservation opens doors to slave dwellings

The Street View tours also play a role in virtual preservation. Many of the dwellings are in poor condition—even in worse shape than when we started photographing them a few years ago. By creating the virtual tours, we preserve the dwellings for future generations.

For the tours, we consciously chose a range of dwelling types and locations to highlight how ubiquitous slavery was throughout Virginia—from the Eastern Shore to Mecklenburg County. People tend to think that enslaved people only lived on rural plantations. But we have tours of slave dwellings in urban cities like Alexandriaand Richmond, which challenge the stereotypes of how enslaved people lived.

Ensuring enslaved people’s place in history

The Ampthill slave quarters, where Justin’s great-grandfather may have lived as a child, illustrate the challenges of documenting dwellings. Previous owners of Ampthill thought one of the structures was a post-Civil War weaver’s cottage. When we brought Jobie Hill, a preservation architect and founder of Saving Slave Houses, to Ampthill, she immediately identified the building as a pre-Civil War slave dwelling. So many slave houses are misidentified, which hurts efforts to document them.

We hope that if more people are aware of slave dwellings and view our Street View tours, more sites can be documented and perhaps preserved—and more of us recall the enslaved people who are too often left out of our historical narratives. The people and the places they lived in deserve to be part of the American story.

When I began training for my first marathon 12 years ago, planning my routes was a big challenge. I’d often write directions on my wrist or carry a crumpled up paper map in my pocket. I’ve run many more marathons since then, and just last month, ran the Boston Marathon for the first time. But my training for Boston was vastly different because of my work at Google. I’m on a team that helps businesses—like those who build location-enabled fitness apps—to integrate data and insights from Google Maps into their products. So this time around I relied on a few of those apps to train, instead of my usual primitive methods (pro tip: paper maps don’t handle sweat very well).

Today’s the last day of National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, so I’m highlighting a few companies that are using Google Maps to keep their users (like me!) in the zone. Here are a few of my personal favorites and how they use Google Maps Platform.

While zombies chase me as I train for the Tunnel Marathon in September, I’m hoping to break my personal record and qualify for the next Boston Marathon. Whether it’s discovering new running routes around the world on my treadmill or exploring new trails with my Garmin (still managing to get lost sometimes!), I’m proud to be a part of the team that brings Google Maps to fitness companies to keep us connected and moving.