Google Maps just fucking SUCKS now

[JayhawkCO]

All of a sudden, GMaps has Chaffee County CR306 (the road that goes over Cottonwood Pass between Buena Vista and near Crested Butte) listed as CO306. As this whole route for paved a few years back, I had to double check to make sure that CODOT hadn't designated it a state route. If it had been, it would have been only the third seasonal state route in Colorado (after CO82 and CO5). But nope. Just a goof.

[jlam]

All of a sudden, GMaps has Chaffee County CR306 (the road that goes over Cottonwood Pass between Buena Vista and near Crested Butte) listed as CO306. As this whole route for paved a few years back, I had to double check to make sure that CODOT hadn't designated it a state route. If it had been, it would have been only the third seasonal state route in Colorado (after CO82 and CO5). But nope. Just a goof.

It was SH 306 up until 1984 per Wikipedia. It's not like this is a new occurrence either; a bunch of former highways are still on Google Maps.

[JayhawkCO]

All of a sudden, GMaps has Chaffee County CR306 (the road that goes over Cottonwood Pass between Buena Vista and near Crested Butte) listed as CO306. As this whole route for paved a few years back, I had to double check to make sure that CODOT hadn't designated it a state route. If it had been, it would have been only the third seasonal state route in Colorado (after CO82 and CO5). But nope. Just a goof.

It was SH 306 up until 1984 per Wikipedia. It's not like this is a new occurrence either; a bunch of former highways are still on Google Maps.

It's not a new occurrence for that happening in general, but it is new that that particular stretch of road is listed as a state highway. In addition, unless you actually have GMaps plan a route, it doesn't show up as closed right now. Not that this happens a lot probably, but if you're just looking at the map without actually having the software navigate and you want to go between Denver and Crested Butte, you might think that it's open all year long.

[jlam]

In addition, unless you actually have GMaps plan a route, it doesn't show up as closed right now.

Sure it does.

[pderocco]

All of a sudden, GMaps has Chaffee County CR306 (the road that goes over Cottonwood Pass between Buena Vista and near Crested Butte) listed as CO306. As this whole route for paved a few years back, I had to double check to make sure that CODOT hadn't designated it a state route. If it had been, it would have been only the third seasonal state route in Colorado (after CO82 and CO5). But nope. Just a goof.

It was SH 306 up until 1984 per Wikipedia. It's not like this is a new occurrence either; a bunch of former highways are still on Google Maps.

They come back from the dead like zombies. I reported one ancient route in the Los Angeles area that had reappeared, they took it down, and then a few days later, it came back. It's hard to imagine a workflow that would lead to so many errors like that.

[TheCatalyst31]

All of a sudden, GMaps has Chaffee County CR306 (the road that goes over Cottonwood Pass between Buena Vista and near Crested Butte) listed as CO306. As this whole route for paved a few years back, I had to double check to make sure that CODOT hadn't designated it a state route. If it had been, it would have been only the third seasonal state route in Colorado (after CO82 and CO5). But nope. Just a goof.

It was SH 306 up until 1984 per Wikipedia. It's not like this is a new occurrence either; a bunch of former highways are still on Google Maps.

They come back from the dead like zombies. I reported one ancient route in the Los Angeles area that had reappeared, they took it down, and then a few days later, it came back. It's hard to imagine a workflow that would lead to so many errors like that.

Iowa has a lot of these zombie highways, since they decommissioned a bunch of short state highways in 2003. I'm not sure why Google is pulling in highways that were removed before they launched Google Maps, but at least that's not as bad as highways that were removed before the World Wide Web existed.

[JayhawkCO]

In addition, unless you actually have GMaps plan a route, it doesn't show up as closed right now.

Sure it does.

Looks like you have to zoom in quite a bit. From a route planning perspective it doesn't. And on mobile, if I zoom enough, I see a "closed winters" label but no red lines like you show.

[Michael]

As of May 11th, the broken photo sphere issue I've been having in the app has been fixed!

As an aside, I realized I forgot to mention in my last post in the thread that I hate the tags that appear at the top in the app just as much as the weather bubble since they take up so much screen space.

A complaint I recently noticed is that the "Show slider" button when zooming on desktop is now gone.  I sometimes used it instead of scrolling or clicking plus and minus since I use older computers that are slow with the "new" maps.  I put new in quotes since the forced upgrade is already around 10 years old (Wow, already?!).  Yes, I still don't like it, but reluctantly tolerate it.  I think part of the reason that it's slow is that Maps now seems to render maps as SVG paths instead of PNG tiles.  If I turn off labels in Satellite view (I thought the setting was gone but it's buried in the More button in the Layers flyout) zooming gets somewhat faster/smoother.  I'm guessing my older GPUs (one integrated, one a video card) can't handle modern SVG acceleration.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I like the new app split screen view for Street View.  Before, it was hard to figure out exactly where I was and which direction I was pointing.  It also makes it easier to move longer distances, especially when you get "trapped" in a spot.

[vdeane]

Yesterday I leaned that the web version of Google Earth has gotten a LOT more capable than it used to be, to the point where it can load KML files (which I haven't tested) and view historical imagery (which I did and is why it's now one of my bookmarks).

[Sapphuby]

Yesterday I leaned that the web version of Google Earth has gotten a LOT more capable than it used to be, to the point where it can load KML files (which I haven't tested) and view historical imagery (which I did and is why it's now one of my bookmarks).

I like this feature as well, but I think it doesn't have historical imagery dating before 1984/1985, and good luck finding something you want because the dates are sporadic sometimes. That's why I'll still use historicaerials for what I really want.

[vdeane]

Yesterday I leaned that the web version of Google Earth has gotten a LOT more capable than it used to be, to the point where it can load KML files (which I haven't tested) and view historical imagery (which I did and is why it's now one of my bookmarks).

I like this feature as well, but I think it doesn't have historical imagery dating before 1984/1985, and good luck finding something you want because the dates are sporadic sometimes. That's why I'll still use historicaerials for what I really want.

The same is true of the Google Earth desktop application, which has supported historical imagery for quite some time.  I use the USGS archive for older imagery; it has more than Historic Aerials, often at higher quality, and without the watermark, ads, and intellectual property issues (the latter may not matter much for casual browsing but as I use historic imagery on my website and sometimes roadmeet tour notes, it's important).

[bandit957]

USGS has older imagery now?

[Molandfreak]

USGS has older imagery now?

All Landsat imagery has been in the public domain and available for download since 2008.

[pderocco]

Seems odd that Google Earth has historical aerial imagery but not historical Street View, while Google Maps is the opposite.

[bandit957]

USGS has older imagery now?

All Landsat imagery has been in the public domain and available for download since 2008.

I looked at their site and have no idea how to access this.

[bugo]

The same is true of the Google Earth desktop application, which has supported historical imagery for quite some time.  I use the USGS archive for older imagery; it has more than Historic Aerials, often at higher quality, and without the watermark, ads, and intellectual property issues (the latter may not matter much for casual browsing but as I use historic imagery on my website and sometimes roadmeet tour notes, it's important).

The only thing here is that Google Earth's aerials typically go back to the 1980s, while Historic Aerials can go back nearly 100 years in some cases.

[Rothman]

USGS has older imagery now?

All Landsat imagery has been in the public domain and available for download since 2008.

I looked at their site and have no idea how to access this.

Topoview, I'd bet.

[Molandfreak]

USGS has older imagery now?

All Landsat imagery has been in the public domain and available for download since 2008.

I looked at their site and have no idea how to access this.

https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/

[bandit957]

Topoview, I'd bet.

I think I finally found it!

[bandit957]

USGS has older imagery now?

All Landsat imagery has been in the public domain and available for download since 2008.

I looked at their site and have no idea how to access this.

https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/

This doesn't have the older imagery though.

[bandit957]

A few days ago, I put in a really complicated route on Google Maps on my smartphone. Later, Google lost the whole thing.

Also, there's no longer any way to enlarge the text size on Google Maps on your smartphone, so text is almost impossible to read now.

[vdeane]

USGS has older imagery now?

All Landsat imagery has been in the public domain and available for download since 2008.

I looked at their site and have no idea how to access this.

https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/

This doesn't have the older imagery though.

It's not as simple as just browsing a map.  You have to pick a point, select a date range, select which dataset to use (I use the aerial photo single frames), search, and then download the appropriate results from the left (which requires an account).