Share Your Kisses with Google Maps

The Toronto Kiss Map wants to know about your kisses. Whether it's a first kiss, a last kiss, a hot and heavy kiss or just a peck on the check of Aunty Maureen then Toronto Kiss wants to know all about it.

The Toronto Kiss Map is a user contributed map of kisses that took place in Toronto. The map comes from Firefly Creative Writing, so contributors are also encouraged to the tell the story behind their kiss.

To add your own kiss to the map you just need to click on the map to show the location where the tongue fencing took place. You can then share your story about the kiss in 500 characters or less.

Canadian Dogs Go Postal on Google Maps

Global BC has created a Google Map of dog ownership in Vancouver based on dog licence records mapped by postal code.

The heat map shows that there are more dog owners in the districts around the University Endowment Lands. More analysis by Global BC shows where individual breeds of dog are most popular in the city. For example, pit bull owners predominantly live in east Vancouver, "in a line more or less along Nanaimo St".

Global News produced a similar article last month looking at dog ownership in Toronto. The Toronto article includes a nice map with a drop-down menu that allows you to view heat maps of the ownership of different breeds in the city.

Toronto for Rent on Google Maps

Mapitat is a great Google Map's based application for finding properties to rent in Toronto.

Mapitat allows you to search for properties by price range and by number of bedrooms. You can also filter the results to show only properties that meet your requirement of amenities (for example, laundry, A/C, parking etc).

A really nice touch is the 'Add to Favorites' feature. If you add a property to your favorites list then its map marker is changed from green to red. This allows you to bookmark interesting properties as you search the map and helps you easily find them again when you want to go back and check the details on a property.

Armistice Day on Google Maps

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 Germany signed the Armistice agreement marking the end of the First World War.

Remembrance Day ceremonies take place at 11 am across the world today to commemorate those who have died in the line of duty.


Canada Remembers is a Google Maps animation of Toronto Second World War casualties from Global News.

The map shows the homes of Toronto Second World War casualties on a month by month basis. It is possible to pause the animation or to use the time-line below the map to show the casualties for a particular month. The map markers are categorised to show Army, Air Force, Navy and Merchant Marine casualties.

Toronto is Dangerously Trendy

Toronto is Trending

Toronto is Trending has one of the coolest welcome screens I've ever seen on a website. When you go to Toronto is Trending you are presented with a full-screen video of Toronto. Twitter speech bubbles then appear above some of the moving pedestrians in the video and follow them down the street.

If you switch to the 'map view' you can then see the latest Tweets and check-ins made in Toronto on a Google Map view of the city. The map also displays a number of hotel, ticket and package deals.

The numbered map markers let you see how many people have checked into particular venues. You can select which category of venue you wish to see displayed on the map using the icons at the top of the map.

Altogether if you want to find the most happening venues in Toronto right now then you need to visit Toronto is Trending.

Toronto’s Most Dangerous Intersections

Global Toronto has mapped out Toronto's most dangerous intersections for pedestrians. By looking at the accident history data for 1337 intersections in the city Global Toronto has been able to identify which pose the most danger to pedestrians.

Global Toronto devised an 'accident ratio' for each intersection by combining two sets of data: accidents by intersection from 2000-09 and the average daily pedestrian head-counts at each intersection.

The Google Map shows in red the intersections that have the highest accident ratio.

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Toronto Video Guide on Google Maps

My City Lives

Here is your personal video guide to the city of Toronto. My City Lives is a platform that allows people in Toronto to share their experiences of the city’s public spaces and organizations by posting videos to a Google Map.

The submitted videos are represented on the map by thumbnail images of the videos. To watch a video you just have to click its thumbnail.

It is possible to refine the videos shown on the map by 'Most Viewed', 'Food', 'Coffee', 'Date Ideas', 'Missed in Connection' and 'Nuit Blanche'. It is also possible to refine the results by a custom search.

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Remembering WWII with Google Maps

Second World War Casualty Map

Just in time for Remembrance Day Patrick Cain has released this Google Map commemorating the 3,224 Torontonians who died in World War II.

During the Second World War Toronto kept a file of typed index cards at the city clerk’s office of soldiers killed in action or at German prisoner of war camps. The cards fill 12 boxes. Patrick has spent over 55 hours digitising the records and then geocoding the records to the homes listed as the next-of-kin address of those killed.

The result is this Google Map of Toronto residents killed in the war. The poppy shaped map markers indicate addresses. Where two or more people were killed in a household a number is displayed to show how many.

Patrick Cain has written a post on Open File called Remembering Toronto's Fallen from World War II. The post explores his reasons and methods for creating the map.

World War Two Timeline Project

The World War Two Timeline Project is an interesting attempt to chronologically and geographically, map the events of World War Two using the open source Simile Timeline. Using the map it is possible to view the major events of World War Two on a Google Map.

You can use the timeline, at the top of the map, to plot the progress of the war on the map. It is also possible to navigate the events of the war via tags. These tags include countries as well as subjects such as naval, aerial and land. The map creators say they have not finished adding data, so this map should become an even more useful resource over time.

Declassified Military Aerial Images Map

The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monument of Scotland are busy mapping declassified military aerial photographs on Google Maps.

The Aerial Reconnaissance Archives have millions of military reconnaissance images of locations throughout the world declassified by the UK Ministry of Defence. The archives range from Second World War Allied and German Luftwaffe reconnaissance photographs to Cold War imagery.

To date RCAHMS have mapped reconnaissance photographs in Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland. Using Google Maps to display the photographs means that users can compare the present day satellite view of locations with reconnaissance images from the past (mostly from World War II).

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Toronto's Transit Planners on Google Maps

TTC Trip Planner

If you live in Toronto you are lucky enough to have two public transit route planners, the TTC's own TTC Trip Planner and MyTTC. Both trip planners will help you plan the best route on Toronto's public transit system and display your route on Google Maps.


MyTTC

In a straight fight between the two trip planners MyTTC wins out on usability. MyTTC places the journey details of a planned trip beside the Google Map. The TTC Trip Planner however places the details above the map which means that you need to scroll your browser window to compare each stage of the journey to its location on the map.

Simply placing the trip details beside the Google Map means that MyTTC is far easier to follow. Each bus-stop or station listed in the trip details can be easily located on the map. Stops on the journey in the details can even be highlighted on the map simply by hovering over the station name.

MyTTC has also integrated Street View into its trip planner. This can be very useful just for getting a picture of the exact bus-stop you need to get off at. This is particularly handy if you have never visited an area before.

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The Toronto Star Map of the Week Ends

Patrick Cain, the author of the Toronto Star's excellent Map of the Week feature, has now left the paper, so unfortunately the column has come to an end. The Map of the Week feature launched in mid-2008 and every week published a new Google Map mashup.

The maps ranged from reports of sexually transmitted disease or postal codes of drunk driving suspects, to maps looking at dog ownership in Toronto. Invariably the maps were on subjects important to the lives of those who live in Toronto.

Over the two years the column attracted around 1.4 million page-views. In Patrick's last column for the paper he picks out some of his highlights. Here are just three of my favourites:

Toronto in 1878

Two maps using the Google Maps interface to present detailed 1878 atlas sheets of the east and west ends of Toronto.

2010 Toronto Centre Byelection Maps

A series of Google Maps examining the poll results of each of the political parties in the Toronto Centre Byelection.

Drunk Driving and Subway Location Map

This map looks at license suspensions from drunk driving and at the locations of subway stations. The map shows a correlation between the home locations of drunk drivers and their distance from subway stations.


It has been hard picking just three maps. I've really enjoyed reading Patrick's column over the last two years and I wish him all the best in his new endeavours.

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Toronto Google Maps Mashup Round-up

Toronto Star: Map of the Week - Car Ownership

This week's Toronto Star Google Maps mashup is a map that shows car ownership in the Greater Toronto Area (although the title of the map, 'GTA Car Ownership Map', did make me wonder if it was a map of people who owned stolen cars).

The map is a heat map of car ownership as a percentage of households, using data from the 2006 census. The Map of the Week blog has an interesting analysis of the data. The analysis show a correlation between car ownership and income. The map also show some correlation between good public transportation links and low car ownership.

Rent Compass

Rent Compass can help you find properties to rent in Toronto and other Canadian cities.

You can search for properties by price, property type and by location. The results of your search are handily displayed on a Google Map. The map uses different map markers to show whether the properties are houses for rent or apartments.

If you click on the 'more details' link in a property's map marker a lightbox style window opens with the full details. If you want to be able to search for rental properties whilst on the move Rent Compass is also available for the iPhone.

Bring My Own Wine
This Google Maps mashup shows the location of bring your own wine restaurants in Toronto.

If you click on a map marker you can get the address of the restaurant and the corkage fee. The restaurants are also listed under the map.

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Google Map of Toronto Free Parking

Toronto Free Parking

Apparently there are hundreds of free parking locations in Toronto, just a few minutes walk away from most of the city's important hubs. The secret is knowing where they are located. Thankfully, Toronto Free Parking is willing to share the secret.

Toronto Free Parking uses the Google Maps API to show the location of free parking locations. The map uses different map markers to indicate how long it is free to park at each parking spot (1,2 or 3 hours).

Clicking on a map marker will open an information window with details of the parking spot's location and the times during which free parking is available.

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Toronto Transit Planner on Google Maps

Toronto Trip Planner

The Toronto Transit Commission have released a new trip planner to find a route between two addresses in the city. The planner can show you the best route using the city's subways/RT, buses and streetcars. The Trip Planner can also show you a “Walking Only” option.

To use the trip planner users have to enter a starting point and a destination and the time of travel. It is also possible to select options for accessible routes, bus routes with bicycle racks and to show points of interest near stops/stations.

After entering the details of a trip the trip planner will return the suggested route, including times and suggested transfers. If you select the 'view the details of this trip' option you can also view a Google Map of the selected route.

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