Mapquest's Gas Cost Calculator - The real cost of your trip...

Lifehacker reports that MaqQuest has added a gas price calculator to its mapping site. It's interesting that this feature seems to have been missing from mapping sites - routes can be adjusted, traffic severity and patterns can be included, and time estimates are accurate down to the minute, but gas cost hasn't been an available (or at least not a prominent) metric. After all, the monetary cost of a trip may influence a user's calculation about whether to take the trip at all - if the choice is to drive farther to find a better price on a purchase, for example, this may help the user discover that the nearer, higher price is actually a lower total cost. Or even make the purchase online, eliminating another car on the road and reducing the carbon footprint of the purchase. Not bad, for just a little more info made available to users!