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Comment by oceliker | Hacker News Reader

> If I could, I'd usually choose the lowest stress route!

Apple Maps sometimes features alternate routes that are "simpler" or with "fewer turns", which I think is a very nice feature. I'd rather not cut through small side streets just to save 1-2 minutes.

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I almost always take the simpler route, especially in areas I’m not familiar with. It’s a very nice quality of life feature that doesn’t get mentioned much.

I'd love a simpler route choice in Google Maps. It very telling that they don't provide it - do they use their own product.

Me too, I too would love an option saying Fewer Turns (same way as Fewer Transfers in public transport option). While we are there, it might be not possible, but would live an option with Route with Left Turns with Traffic Signals only. Many times a main road is through way, & a small crossing road has stop signs on both ends.

Absolutely. I wish Google would do simple, sane routes by default, emphasizing roads that were meant to be thoroughfares. I feel bad, and carsick, treating a quiet and winding neighborhood like a highway. And I hate all the traffic that goes along my residential side road presumably due to Google Maps.

I hate when google thinks I want to save 1 minute by making lightless right turns straight into a rush hour traffic jam.

I haven't heard it mentioned often as a nice feature. However, it used to be a regular complaint from people I know that GPS would send you on awkward routes through tiny streets with many turns. That's something I haven't heard in a while.

Google definitely sometimes still does it. Which as I said elsewhere, is particularly annoying when there's snow and ice in the winter.

I’ve found Waze to do the opposite, which suits me. It’ll often show me new routes when the obvious ones are slow.

It seemed to be more aggressive than Google Maps. I thought that was interesting since they’re both Google. Different engine? Different default options? User intuition wrong?

It’s definitely more aggressive, and I think it to give users a choice. Most people don’t want to be cutting through side streets and things just to save a few minutes if they don’t know the area well enough, so Google Maps picks the friendliest route, and only gets aggressive if the traffic is terrible, whereas Waze tries to shave every second it seems like.

My biggest problem with Waze's routing isn't that it's at times complex, but that it sometimes wants me to do things that feel precarious. I've had occasions where it has me cross a super busy 4-lane street in the dark, at a spot that has no traffic light with everyone going high speeds in a slight curve. No thanks!

Only because Google bought them a few years back, they were independent before that and probably still have autonomy when it comes to their route calculation. Google was mainly after their data and maybe some of their staff.

Sometimes I wish I could ask it for the opposite: Give me the fastest route even if it requires a lot of maneuvres such as small streets, U-turns, cutting through somebody's private driveway, illegal turns, armed robbery.

I've started to noticed "no through traffic" signs around my town on the side streets Google Maps likes to send people down. I'm not sure if Google Maps has updated itself yet, but I find that rather interesting.

I’ve always wondered how enforceable those signs can really be. We’ve got some here that are so ambiguous I’m not even sure where they don’t want you to go.

Every once in a while a patrol car will show up parked near the signs, ticketing sign scofflaws (where I am at least). Been caught up by one of these a couple of times. So really it is in some sense a numbers game

Ironically, if there were a feature that only cut through small side streets and avoided larger streets, I'd use that all the time!

The bike route feature does that, but please don't drive cars on bike paths.

At least keep just two wheels on the ground if you’re gonna...

Yeah; in most cities, doing that doesn’t make sense, but in Silicon Valley, side streets can be 4x faster during rush hour. It’s not due to congestion; the light cycles are punitively long, to the point where intersections sit idle for 30-60 seconds at a time while there’s a multi-block (and multi-light) backup sitting behind red lights.

(Source: my pre-covid commute was always under 15 minutes on side streets, but regularly 45-60 minutes on main roads.)

Especially when on a bicycle or walking.

Try the cycling routes

Thanks for ruining residential streets and making it more dangerous for children to play where they live!

Apple Maps once sent me through what turned out to be a private apartment complex in order to avoid a signaled intersection. Not only is this probably illegal, I'm sure the owners would not appreciate it.

Maps makes it pretty easy to report a route like that. I've done so before.

Same; with a lot of the routes Maps considers faster, it doesn't seem to take the extra effort and more acceleration / deceleration into consideration. It really should optimize for the /intended/ route, because city and road planners know what they're doing. Only exception being if the intended route is blocked, but in those cases the certainty that the alternative route goes down a lot because lots of people will be taking the side roads.

Google maps often sends me on unsealed roads to save a few minutes, when driving in the country.

Don't get me wrong, I love this feature but I can understand others would not.

Be careful out in Utah/Nevada.

Unsealed. What a fascinating and more specific word I just learned today for what we call gravel roads.

That being said, you really have to watch that. There is a popular google maps cut-through near me that takes you down a road we call "bridge out" for, well, obvious reasons. At least once or twice a year the local tow truck operator has to figure out how to haul a car out of the creek down there.

There is another road that has been closed long enough that there is now a 30-40' oak tree in the middle of it, and yet google maps thinks it is an appropriate cut through between highways.

You really have to watch that in the country. The data is not great sometimes.

Oh right, i was adjusting my language for an international audience. We call them dirt roads mostly here, I think on account of them being mostly dirt, though they often do contain gravel. Up north some of the dirt roads are so thick with dust you need to leave a few minutes between car / road train so the dust settles enough to see.

But yeah, I have been sent on 'roads' that are just a little more than overgrown goat tracks, or across private land.

TBH I would try a lot of these roads even if I didn't use google.

Google Maps sometimes seems as if it goes into an "I feel like a country drive" mode. Particularly in the winter when there may be blowing snow and icy patches on narrow roads this is particularly sub-optimal. And even in summer, given enough turns, I usually end up messing something up so I lose whatever 1 minute I was going to save.

Oh god google maps did this to me during a blizzard once. Going from plowed primary arteries to secondary side streets that might as well have been skating rinks was NOT COOL.

"But it's 2 minutes faster!"

Not when I'm going half the speed and starting to slow down halfway through the block to make sure I don't slide right out into traffic.

Especially since some of those side streets don’t exist

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