The Google Blog announced the availability of extremely comprehensive transit information throughout the New York metro area. Google Maps now plots transit information for subway, commuter rail, bus and ferry services from the Metropolitan Transit Agency (MTA), the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, New Jersey Transit and the City of New York.

I am from New York and I cannot express how much I appreciate having this information. It tells you schedules, arrival times and several options. For example, plotting 900 Broadway to Grand Central Station. I am given four options, three by subway and one by bus, ranging from 12 minutes to 23 minutes.

Here are the options I see on the left side:

Here is an embedded map, with those details:

View Larger Map

This is also available on some mobile devices as the Google Mobile blog says.

Here is a video demonstration:

Related Topics: Google: Maps & Local | Top News

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz