Google Maps just fucking SUCKS now

[pderocco]

I'd like to interject one item of praise for Google Maps, if I may. At some point in the recent past, they finally figured out how to make a GSV camera that stitched the images together into a 360VR perfectly. For years, we had to look at telephone and power lines that didn't line up, discontinuities in fences, broken stripes on the road. Now their 360VRs look like they were created by professional photographers, rather than an automatic device sitting on a pole above a car. Bravo.

[D-Dey65]

^
Ehh, when they do something good, you've got to give them credit for it.

But one thing they still haven't done is fix the ability to edit directions, road trips and such. Earlier today I was trying to find out how long it takes normal people to walk from the Florida Hospital Health Village SunRail station (now the AdventHealth Sunrail station) to the 7-Eleven on the northwest corner of Princeton Street and Orange Avenue (FL 527) and back. I say "normal people," because the station representative thought I walked exceptionally fast, and I've been told I walked fast in the past. So when I was trying to find out the average walking speed, Google Maps placed the route in a nearby parking lot and one local street, neither of which was part of my route, and it wouldn't let me remove these locations from my route.

[vdeane]

But one thing they still haven't done is fix the ability to edit directions, road trips and such. Earlier today I was trying to find out how long it takes normal people to walk from the Florida Hospital Health Village SunRail station (now the AdventHealth Sunrail station) to the 7-Eleven on the northwest corner of Princeton Street and Orange Avenue (FL 527) and back. I say "normal people," because the station representative thought I walked exceptionally fast, and I've been told I walked fast in the past. So when I was trying to find out the average walking speed, Google Maps placed the route in a nearby parking lot and one local street, neither of which was part of my route, and it wouldn't let me remove these locations from my route.

Are you doing this on desktop or mobile?  Mobile never had the ability to edit directions, but I can do it fine on desktop (even for walking), minus the glitch where the start/end markers don't appear until the route has been dragged to modify it.

[D-Dey65]

But one thing they still haven't done is fix the ability to edit directions, road trips and such. Earlier today I was trying to find out how long it takes normal people to walk from the Florida Hospital Health Village SunRail station (now the AdventHealth Sunrail station) to the 7-Eleven on the northwest corner of Princeton Street and Orange Avenue (FL 527) and back. I say "normal people," because the station representative thought I walked exceptionally fast, and I've been told I walked fast in the past. So when I was trying to find out the average walking speed, Google Maps placed the route in a nearby parking lot and one local street, neither of which was part of my route, and it wouldn't let me remove these locations from my route.

Are you doing this on desktop or mobile?

Desktop. I can't eliminate a thing.

[kphoger]

But one thing they still haven't done is fix the ability to edit directions, road trips and such. Earlier today I was trying to find out how long it takes normal people to walk from the Florida Hospital Health Village SunRail station (now the AdventHealth Sunrail station) to the 7-Eleven on the northwest corner of Princeton Street and Orange Avenue (FL 527) and back. I say "normal people," because the station representative thought I walked exceptionally fast, and I've been told I walked fast in the past. So when I was trying to find out the average walking speed, Google Maps placed the route in a nearby parking lot and one local street, neither of which was part of my route, and it wouldn't let me remove these locations from my route.

When I pop in those directions, the main problem is that it won't route you along the sidewalk between the station and Princeton Street.  The only actual walking portion is from the railroad crossing to the 7-Eleven entrance.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/SeH2aZy51Ro8anzPA

But I can just drag the endpoints to make it 'good enough'.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/j42phNu6Vi8jbGKZA

And then I can drag my route whichever way I please.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/Whg5veWALkQbUSah8

It's all because the train station isn't placed on an actual street or sidewalk or anything on the map.  So Google has to try and approximate a routable starting point instead.

[vdeane]

Yeah, Google's directions are sensitive to what actually exists as a routable path, which doesn't correspond 1:1 to their actual map data; this is why it takes several rounds of updates for new roads to be "fully functional", as the visible map, the traffic layer, and routing are 2-3 separate data sets.

[D-Dey65]

When I pop in those directions, the main problem is that it won't route you along the sidewalk between the station and Princeton Street.  The only actual walking portion is from the railroad crossing to the 7-Eleven entrance.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/SeH2aZy51Ro8anzPA

But I can just drag the endpoints to make it 'good enough'.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/j42phNu6Vi8jbGKZA

And then I can drag my route whichever way I please.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/Whg5veWALkQbUSah8

It's all because the train station isn't placed on an actual street or sidewalk or anything on the map.  So Google has to try and approximate a routable starting point instead.

Well, when I did this, it started me at McRae Avenue and the parking garage northwest of the station, and when I tried to drag the "eastern" terminus to a more appropriate spot, it went completely outside of the range of the actual walk, and never let me eliminate anything.

So, judging by your second link and the actual spot I stood in, I'm going to guess it should've been a 3-4 minute walk. According to that station rep though, I seemed to have been quicker. Either that, or she just lost track of time. 

[jp the roadgeek]

Put in an edit to fix this exit from Exit 13 to Exit 1, and it was rejected.  Even GSV shows it's now Exit 1 (has been for almost 2 years) and there's an OLD EXIT 13 sign on the gore. 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/WiH9o8njpWFYznis5

[D-Dey65]

More questionable content.

On a map of Florida State Road 2 at the intersections with John M. Bethea State Forest, there's a claim that an abandoned gas station off of SR 2 is "Landing Zone 9."
https://www.google.com/maps/@30.5160436,-82.2363603,238m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDMyNS4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
I'm going to go out on a limb, and guess that the real "Landing Zone 9" is somewhere else nearby and Google put in that brush-covered former Chevron gas station by mistake.

[CovalenceSTU]

Put in an edit to fix this exit from Exit 13 to Exit 1, and it was rejected.  Even GSV shows it's now Exit 1 (has been for almost 2 years) and there's an OLD EXIT 13 sign on the gore. 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/WiH9o8njpWFYznis5

Google doesn't like to accept road edits very often. Around here we have a railroad overpass that was bypassed 18 years ago (with satellite imagery and recent GSV showing such) and my edit was still rejected.

[bandit957]

Google doesn't like to accept road edits very often.

That's why I like OpenStreetMap.

I fix a lot of OpenStreetMap data in my area.

[bandit957]

Just out of curiosity, I had Google map out a bicycling route between two points in my area. It listed the longer route before the shorter route. Why?

The route it listed first is 17 minutes or 2.2 miles. But the alternate is only 14 minutes or 1.9 miles.

Also, I guarantee you that you can't go 2.2 miles in only 17 minutes on our roads around here using a bicycle. Our roads are horrible for cycling.

Try mapping out this route yourself: Kroger Marketplace in Newport, Ky., to the town of Southgate, Ky.

[kphoger]

Just out of curiosity, I had Google map out a bicycling route between two points in my area. It listed the longer route before the shorter route. Why?

The route it listed first is 17 minutes or 2.2 miles. But the alternate is only 14 minutes or 1.9 miles.

Also, I guarantee you that you can't go 2.2 miles in only 17 minutes on our roads around here using a bicycle. Our roads are horrible for cycling.

Try mapping out this route yourself: Kroger Marketplace in Newport, Ky., to the town of Southgate, Ky.

It also has a greater elevation gain. 

[pderocco]

Just out of curiosity, I had Google map out a bicycling route between two points in my area. It listed the longer route before the shorter route. Why?

The route it listed first is 17 minutes or 2.2 miles. But the alternate is only 14 minutes or 1.9 miles.

Also, I guarantee you that you can't go 2.2 miles in only 17 minutes on our roads around here using a bicycle. Our roads are horrible for cycling.

Try mapping out this route yourself: Kroger Marketplace in Newport, Ky., to the town of Southgate, Ky.

I'm not a cyclist, but I occasionally ask Google for a bike route (or a ped route) if it refuses to give me an auto route due to construction. But I've noticed that it often prefers routes that are less used by cars, I presume for safety reasons. It'll route you along some state highway, then get off on some adjacent road for a stretch, then back to the state highway.

[Max Rockatansky]

2.2 miles in 17 minutes on a bike ought to be cake for anyone who has at least of average physical health.  I usually run at 8-8.3 MPH and almost every single cyclist I encounter blows past me no problem. 

[kphoger]

2.2 miles in 17 minutes on a bike ought to be cake for anyone who has at least of average physical health.

We're talking about Tim, here.

[cjw2001]

Just out of curiosity, I had Google map out a bicycling route between two points in my area. It listed the longer route before the shorter route. Why?

The route it listed first is 17 minutes or 2.2 miles. But the alternate is only 14 minutes or 1.9 miles.

Also, I guarantee you that you can't go 2.2 miles in only 17 minutes on our roads around here using a bicycle. Our roads are horrible for cycling.

Try mapping out this route yourself: Kroger Marketplace in Newport, Ky., to the town of Southgate, Ky.

I'm not a cyclist, but I occasionally ask Google for a bike route (or a ped route) if it refuses to give me an auto route due to construction. But I've noticed that it often prefers routes that are less used by cars, I presume for safety reasons. It'll route you along some state highway, then get off on some adjacent road for a stretch, then back to the state highway.

Back when Google Mapmaker was still a thing, we could mark road segments as bike preferred, bike avoid, or neutral.  I'm assuming that those attributes are still available to Google internally.

[Rothman]

Had an issue all day with Google Maps hanging on my phone when trying to continue with a multidestination point route.  Hit the continue button and got spinning wheel of death.  Restarting my phone temporarily fixed the problem.

Navigation services seem to be an oligopoly...

[Michael]

I was just looking around the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, and I noticed that the streets had actual lane markings, complete with yellow center lines and turn arrows.  I've only ever seen crosswalks and the dotted lines on freeways.  I took a look locally, and I didn't see anything more than crosswalks and the dotted lines on freeways.  I also took a look in Times Square, and in addition to full markings like Atlanta, there were also red bus lanes.

Now that I have a positive thing out of the way, I'll complain.  For the last few weeks, trying to look at photo spheres in the app just gives me an endless loading circle.  I updated the app in August when I was forced to (I'll talk about that below).

Last year, I got warnings that my Maps app would need to be updated on August 1st, and sure enough that day I got a full-screen notice that would only let me upgrade.  I wouldn't have as much of an issue with that if the app didn't load normally for a brief second before the popup.  It's as if it does a check "if version <x then force upgrade".  Some websites do a similar check too.  Gannett-owned sites and sites built with Wix come to mind.  Gannett sites work perfectly if you spoof your useragent, and Wix-built sites work without JavaScript but without lazy loaded images.  In all these cases, what's wrong with saying "you're using an old [whatever], you're on your own"?  With Maps, I suspect there may be an actual technical reason since in the months leading up to the forced update, roads started looking glitchy as if the polylines had missing points.

As for the updated app, the only good thing is the Street View layer and Street View thumbnail.  Before updating, I'd found myself on several occasions wishing that I could see where Street View was instead of dropping a pin and seeing if I could use Street View or not.  It's also nice to have a thumbnail to tap once zoomed in enough instead of having to drop a pin.  This feature has been glitchy lately.  When first loading the app, I have to drop a pin first before the thumbnail shows up, then after clearing the pin it works normally.

My biggest complaint about the updated app is that place listings have been shuffled around into a less intuitive layout. I can't remember the exact old layout (and I can't find a screenshot), but I do remember that the header picture and links for directions, call, etc. weren't as intrusive.  Also, looking at photos of a place wastes literally half the screen compared to the old layout that used the entire screen.

Directions now take up most of the screen as well.  With the old layout, you could collapse the steps to get an overview of the route, but now  the directions take up probably 80% of the screen.

Searching clogs up your history, and it's really annoying to have to delete something if you want to keep it clean.  The "recently viewed", along with Recents on the desktop version drives me nuts too.  What's with Google's obsession with recent activity?!  I suppose I could use Incognito Mode like I do in Chrome, but I haven't tried to.

I've noticed the app does mini updates even if you turn updates off.  When I first updated the app in August, they changed it so just tapping the map dropped a pin instead of hiding the GUI.  A mini update changed dropping a pin back to tap and hold but they didn't revert the tap to hide GUI, and I wish I could hide it, especially the weather bubble.

Lastly, I both like and hate the new transit directions.  Being able to see a bus route on the map is handy, but looking at a schedule has too much whitespace compared to the old layout (the modern tech "lots of whitespace" trend drives me nuts in general), and looking back to before the stop you selected shrinks the list to 1/4 of the screen!

[vdeane]

Is it just me, or does Google no longer include Amtrak in transit directions?

Searching clogs up your history, and it's really annoying to have to delete something if you want to keep it clean.  The "recently viewed", along with Recents on the desktop version drives me nuts too.  What's with Google's obsession with recent activity?!  I suppose I could use Incognito Mode like I do in Chrome, but I haven't tried to.

Glad I'm not the only person really annoyed by that.  At least on desktop, refreshing clears it (at least with my other history things disabled).

Last year, I got warnings that my Maps app would need to be updated on August 1st, and sure enough that day I got a full-screen notice that would only let me upgrade.  I wouldn't have as much of an issue with that if the app didn't load normally for a brief second before the popup.  It's as if it does a check "if version <x then force upgrade".  Some websites do a similar check too.  Gannett-owned sites and sites built with Wix come to mind.  Gannett sites work perfectly if you spoof your useragent, and Wix-built sites work without JavaScript but without lazy loaded images.  In all these cases, what's wrong with saying "you're using an old [whatever], you're on your own"?  With Maps, I suspect there may be an actual technical reason since in the months leading up to the forced update, roads started looking glitchy as if the polylines had missing points.

They just want to force everyone onto the "new the" (ie, worse thing).

[kphoger]

Is it just me, or does Google no longer include Amtrak in transit directions?

It does for me.  I just asked for transit directions from Chicago to Macomb, IL, and my two options were the Illinois Zephyr and the Carl Sandburg.

[DTComposer]

I was just looking around the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, and I noticed that the streets had actual lane markings, complete with yellow center lines and turn arrows.  I've only ever seen crosswalks and the dotted lines on freeways.  I took a look locally, and I didn't see anything more than crosswalks and the dotted lines on freeways.  I also took a look in Times Square, and in addition to full markings like Atlanta, there were also red bus lanes.

This is something Apple Maps currently has a leg up on in terms of detail (in the cities where this is available) - not only does it have the lane markings and arrows and bike lanes, but it shows where the bike lanes are painted green on the road (Google just shows them as green throughout), it shows when lane lines switch from dashed to solid (Google shows all lane lines as dashed, even when marking a turn-only lane), and it shows where there are advisory words painted on the pavement (PED XING, KEEP CLEAR, etc.).

(It should be noted that it does not show where route markers are painted on the pavement, likely to avoid confusion with the map's route markers.)

[Molandfreak]

Google literally had it right the first time with the Rockingham Bypass. Now it has US 220 on the bypass and actual US 220 is now an unnamed road.

[pderocco]

I was just looking around the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, and I noticed that the streets had actual lane markings, complete with yellow center lines and turn arrows.  I've only ever seen crosswalks and the dotted lines on freeways.  I took a look locally, and I didn't see anything more than crosswalks and the dotted lines on freeways.  I also took a look in Times Square, and in addition to full markings like Atlanta, there were also red bus lanes.

This is something Apple Maps currently has a leg up on in terms of detail (in the cities where this is available) - not only does it have the lane markings and arrows and bike lanes, but it shows where the bike lanes are painted green on the road (Google just shows them as green throughout), it shows when lane lines switch from dashed to solid (Google shows all lane lines as dashed, even when marking a turn-only lane), and it shows where there are advisory words painted on the pavement (PED XING, KEEP CLEAR, etc.).

(It should be noted that it does not show where route markers are painted on the pavement, likely to avoid confusion with the map's route markers.)

If they keep this up, someday we'll even have ... aerial imagery.

[Scott5114]

What's with Google's obsession with recent activity?! 

If they have an excuse to keep someone's data around, they can then sell that data to someone else.