Jun 17

Google Map Oddities

by in google, travel, weird

I’ve been using Google maps quite a bit in the last few months to get me from point A to point B in cities that I don’t know too well.

Most of the time the maps are accurate and the directions are good.

So what about this one?

Google map sydney

Granted, there could be some very good reasons why Google wants to route me by this rather circuitous route (and yes I did specify “walking”, so it’s not a “one way system” issue) but it still strikes me as odd ..

So much for the shortest distance between two points being a straight line …

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7 Responses to “Google Map Oddities”

  1. From Robin:

    Looking at streetview the “Orange road” is raised above street level. So perhaps you have to take the circular route to get around it?

    Posted on June 17, 2009 at 9:17 am #
  2. From Michele Neylon:

    You could be right, but I guess the easiest thing is for me to actually try it on foot and see what happens :)

    Posted on June 17, 2009 at 9:22 am #
  3. From Ken Guest:

    how does it fare in http://www.openrouteservice.org/ ?

    Posted on June 17, 2009 at 9:41 am #
  4. From Ken Guest:

    also http://yournavigation.org/ should fare better too

    Posted on June 17, 2009 at 9:51 am #
  5. From Luke:

    You should look at the new motorway between Nenagh and Limerick. It’s on Google Maps, but not due to open until December 2009 (due to seven month delay).

    Posted on June 17, 2009 at 11:24 am #
  6. From Francesco:

    That´s just because Google has gathered so much personal information about you that it knows there are a number of t-shirts, movie memorabilia and tech gadgets shops on that route that you cannot absolutely miss ;)

    Posted on June 17, 2009 at 11:55 am #
  7. From Daragh Mc Grath:

    I’m guessing that they haven’t mapped the footbridge (under the monorail) which is why they are sending you the long way. A little odd, given the Google Maps dev team looks straight down onto this! :)

    Posted on June 19, 2009 at 1:00 am #