Already recognized in some quarters as the most feature-rich of the major mapping sites, Google Maps has announced the addition of public transit data in more than 50 cities around the world.

The new Transit Layer is available as a choice under the MORE button on the Google Maps interface:

Once selected, the Transit Layer will display public transportation lines/routes for the area you’re viewing. Google describes it as a “virtual metro map on top of Google Maps.” It doesn’t provide full schedules and routing details like Google Transit does, but it will show the transit lines in the area. A full list of the 50+ cities announced today is available on the Google LatLong blog.

Several months ago, one report praised Google Maps as the most feature-rich of the four major mapping sites, ahead of MapQuest, Yahoo Local, and Live Search Maps.

You’ve seen the Earth Day logos, now comes several Earth Day related announcements from Google. The most significant of those involves the expansion of Google Transit to nine new US locations, including San Francisco, Denver, Millwaukee, Ann Arbor and Holland, MI, Kansas City, MO, Framingham and Cape Cod, MA.

Here’s more from the Google LatLong blog. Other green related initiatives and announcements launching in celebration of Earth Day can be found on the Official Google blog.

The Google LatLong blog announced that Google Transit now supports certain areas in Europe.

Google Transit is a tool to help you find public transportation options for your trip or commute. Google Transit supports travel southeast of the UK, SBB, Switzerland, VBZ, Zurich, Switzerland, Turin, Italy, and Florence, Italy. Yes, Google Maps and Google Transit are also integrated for the available European options mentioned above.

Here is an example route for Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Careggi to Piazza Leopoldo Pietro:

Google Operating System reports Google Transit data can now be found in Google Maps for select cities.

If you plot driving directions between Norwalk, California and Orange County, California, you should see an option on the left for “Directions: Drive There – Take Public Transit.” Clicking on “Take Public Transit” will plot Google Transit data within maps.

After you click on the transit link, you are given various ways to take public transportation between the two locations. Here is a picture of that in action:

Here is an embedded map:

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Google May Start New York Transit Guide to Boost Ads from Bloomberg reports that Google Transit will soon support the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area.

Currently Google Transit covers about 15 U.S. cities including Burbank, Humboldt County, Orange County, San Diego, Tampa, Honolulu, Duluth, Las Vegas Monorail, Reno, Eugene, Portland, Pittsburgh, Austin, Dallas and Seattle. Two of New York’s largest transit companies, New Jersey Transit and the MTA have both confirmed working with Google to provide maps and schedules to Google.

Greg Sterling was quoted when asked about the potential ad revenue Google can earn from such a program.

Google probably got about $500 million in sales last year from local ads, or about 8 percent of its U.S. revenue of $6 billion, said Greg Sterling, an analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence in San Francisco.

Adam Darowski blogged about getting some really bad advice from Google Transit, specifically asking him to “cross an eight-lane highway on foot.” So how did Google respond?

Joe Hughes of Google Transit sent Adam a Superman cape and a letter apologizing for the inconvenience. Here is the letter:

Dear Superman,

Reading your blog post about Google Transit at SXSW made us wonder if you were losing your powers—I mean, how hard could it be to leap over a simple 8-lane highway intersection, man of steel? We’ve enclosed a new cape—hopefully it will help you find your powers again.

…seriously, though, Adam, we’re sorry that Google Transit sent you on such an expedition, and we wanted to let you know that we’ve since improved our routing, so that it returns more plausible walking sections at the start & end of transit routes.

Cheers, Joe Hughes Google Transit

Now that is funny!

Google is known for doing things like this. In the past, Adam Lasnik from the Google Web Search team sent acetaminophen for the headaches AdWords were causing one advertiser. Adam also sent a pen to Ask.com after they made a funny blog post about their Google pen running out of ink.