A fellow user of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) has created a wonderful hack for Google Maps using Greasemonkey. By installing the script in Firefox, it is now possible to get addresses to overlay on the CTA system map. This was a feature seriously lacking on the Transit Authority’s own site and has caused many frustrations for me in the past. This is an awesome feature. [thanks]

Here are some step-by-step instructions on how to get this to work.

Using the Firefox browser go to http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/.

There’s a link called “Click Here to Install Greasemonkey” – click on that. Be sure you’re letting Firefox accept downloads. (If you are not then a warning message will come up right below the location bar of the browser letting you know and instructing you to click on a button to allow downloads from that site.)

Next, go to http://www.holovaty.com/code/firefox/greasemonkey/cta_google_maps.user.js
Once you’re on that page (it’ll just be script) then under the Tools menu of Firefox choose Install User Script.

That’s it. Next time when you go to http://maps.google.com/maps you’ll see a new link on the page: CTA map. You can click on it whenever you want to view your address on the CTA map.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 19th, 2005 at 9:43 am and is filed under Chicagoland, Crooked Timber, IT/Comm, Products/Services. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.