View places, traffic, terrain, biking, and transit
With Google Maps, you can see things like:
- Traffic for your commute
- Transit lines in a new city
- Bicycle-friendly routes
- Satellite imagery
- Information about the landscape
- Places nearby
Tip: You can see traffic info, public transit options and local places of interest in just a few seconds. Learn more about nearby places and travel.
Get traffic, transit or terrain info
- On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Maps app
.
- On the top right, tap Layers
.
- Tap the view that you want:
- Default: The normal Google Maps view
- Satellite: A view from above that shows individual buildings and objects in more detail
- Terrain: A view that shows mountains, lakes, and other landscape features in more detail
- Tap the map details that you want to include:
- Transit: Public transportation information, like train lines and bus routes
- Traffic: Flow of traffic on the roads. Note: Traffic information isn't available everywhere.
- Biking: Bicycle paths that you can take
- To turn off a view or hide map details, tap it again.
What the colors and symbols mean on the legend
Traffic colors
The color code shows you the speed of traffic on the road.
- Green: No traffic delays.
- Orange: Medium amount of traffic.
- Red: Traffic delays. The darker the red, the slower the speed of traffic on the road.
Note: Gray or blue lines on the map show your routes.
Traffic incident symbols
Traffic incidents include these types of delays:
- Crashes
- Construction
- Road closures
- Other incidents
To see details about what happened, click or tap the icon.
Note: For road closures, you'll see a dotted red line where the road is closed.
The lines on the map show bus, subway, and rail routes. To see more information and upcoming trains or buses, choose a station stop icon 
To see station stops, look for transit icons like ,
, or
.
Tip: When possible, the colored lines on the map match the transportation agency's color system. For example, the “A” line in New York City is colored blue by the Metro Transit Authority (MTA), so it is blue on the map.
The colors show you the type of bicycling paths.
- Dark green: Trails that don't have auto traffic.
- Green: Dedicated lanes are roads that are shared with cars and have a separate bike lane.
- Dotted green line: Bicycle friendly roads are roads that don't have a bike lane but are recommended for cyclists.
- Brown: Unpaved trails are off-road dirt paths.
See the elevation of the landscape, like mountains and canyons. Contour lines overlaid on the map show elevation and gray numbers show altitude.