McDonald's trip planner

Derrick Lang at the AP has a short piece on McDonald's Trip Planner here and here. The 'trip planner' shows all the McDonald's along the route between an origin and destination that you enter.

I'm quoted in the article and Derrick made a good point when he interviewed me: Why is it necessary to have such a feature on McDonald's website when you can't drive very far anywhere in America without seeing a McDonald's or at least a billboard telling you where the next one is.

His article concludes: "There's one question the McDonald's Trip Planner doesn't answer about its listed locations, something many travelers wonder about: Just how clean is the bathroom?"