Google maps now wheelchair friendly

Google has added a new feature to its Map service providing wheelchair accessible information for locations, however, currently only available to users in the United States according to Business Insider.

The accessibility data was crowd-sourced from people who are regular Google Maps users that respond to questions such as cost, operating hours, addresses about places they have visited.

This feature was delivered as a side project by a team of Google’s employees who used the famous policy of Google: Employees can spend 20% of their time working on other projects unrelated to their main jobs. Popular services such as Gmail, AdSense, and Google News all started as 20% projects.

This feature is useful not only for wheelchair users but also for people such as parents with prams who need easy access to a building.