Google shows Houston no love

Google recently announced two exciting new features. One is street view, a new feature of Google Maps, which allows you to see street-side views of locations in many major cities. Right now, the feature is available only in San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Miami, and Denver, and there are plenty of interesting things to be seen, aside from the feature being helpful if you're traveling to a new location. Google has also started incorporating Google Transit into Google Maps and Google Earth. Transit helps you - well, maybe not you - plan trips using mass transit in several American and Asian cities. Included: Burbank, Orange County, and San Diego in California, Honolulu, Austin, Pittsburgh, Reno, Duluth, MN, and a few others. Google Transit shows subway, light rail, and now bus stop locations and has a trip planning feature as well.

We're kinda proud of our little town, so we can't help but wonder where Houston is in all of this. Google's been friendly to Texas - there are even rumors of a full-blown office opening up in Austin - but Houston can't seem to catch a break. We think Houston, what with our car culture and all, would be a fabulous place for testing out street views. Plus, we'd love to catch a local celeb - say, Dan Patrick - coming out of an adult bookstore. As far as Google Transit goes, an article last year in USA Today indicated that even in auto-centric cities, many people, especially minorities, still rely on mass transit. With Houston's ethnic and socioeconomic diversity, we'd bet many people would be able to take advantage of Google Transit here as well. Metro does offer a trip planner of its own, but it looks like Google would be happy to partner with Metro: in a blog entry, Google said that they would like to hear from local transit agencies that are interested in being included in the project. Maybe the pressure should be put on Metro to make this happen, then?

We continue to be Google loyals because they're always adding to and improving their features. We just hope that when they're looking to expand their street view or transit offerings, they'll finally look to Houston.