Also... one thing I often do when mapping an unfamiliar running route on mapmyrun, is to go to the aerial/satellite view. That not only gives me a pretty good idea of the level of traffic/whether a road is a major artery, it tells me what the neighborhood looks like and whether I would enjoy being there, whether there's a shoulder, and if so, how wide it is, and also where the stop lights are when I need to cross a major road.