Who needs government when we have Google?

Yesterday, we reported that DDOT’s suggestion for a new and (slightly) improved D.C. Taxi Zone Map is being needlessly hamstrung by the lovely people over at the D.C. Taxicab Commission. They feel that city streets on the new map appear too bright and, you know, visible. Lucky for us, technology, in its quest to make the world as we know it obsolete, has intervened.

We stumbled upon this Google Maps mashup of the D.C. Taxi Zone Map, made using Google’s new My Maps feature. The map is eminently readable, with zone boundaries that are clear and distinct from the streets, which are also clear. Why is it that one guy with a laptop can accomplish more in 20 minutes that an army of city officials and bureaucrats can in as many weeks?

Created by DCist operative El Greg, so far the project includes an overlay of the zone map on the Washington area. If you mapped directions between two points, you could figure out your cab fare pretty easily. Perhaps, when My Maps inevitably expands to include scripts and other advanced features, some industrious person will add a fare calculator or mobile access (not that we’d drop hints or anything…).

Screencap from El Greg’s Flickr page