My best guess is it’s a busy road so it’s dangerous and not really meant for bicycle and walking. I’ve done 13 miles yesterday to get a comic book on a bike and this right here is the distance between my house and a friend’s house I told I can come on bike because what I just did gave me a feeling I could do it but my ass hurts so not right now. But yeah I want to see how this would play out. Before I would walk but I took a bike to a comic book store because it would’ve closed if I walk and I ended up getting there in time. Took longer than expected something that should’ve been an hour probably took 2 or 3 hours. So yeah I can do half of that for sure.
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Another reason is because it’s easier to close/change bus routes as opposed to doing the same on roads, so it’s a bigger job for Google to keep on top of. They struggle enough with roads, so closed bridges, paths, and parks can be a total nightmare - especially when councils or towns “forget” to update.
I’ve seen that same warning for walking. I think it’s just Google saying “good luck with that; we’re not legally responsible”. I think those warnings have shown up more since cars would follow the GPS with zero common sense and drive into a lake or something.
Good point. It does read like a liability disclaimer.
I’ve noticed that Google doesn’t always get the speed limit correct on more rural roads.
Or it can’t tell if a temporary, lowered speed sign has been posted in a construction zone, for example.
Or as I’ve seen when they have got the lowered speed because of roadworks, but then keep the low speed after everything is finished. No, I think I can drive faster than 50kmh on the motorway.
I encountered a couple of highways recently in Illinois recently where they clearly set the speed limit to the highway number (highways 30 and 40 by memory)
The warning makes sense when you consider gmaps randomly tells you to ride into the traffic on major highways.
I’ve never had that one happen and, until recently, that was the only navigational aid I had. It’s still the only one I use on my motorbike.
Dwight did try to warn him…🤷♀️
Mostly it’s just CYA for google since cycling is more dangerous than driving (due to the people driving), so there’s more surface area for them to get sued.
But yeah
- turns and crossings that look safe on a map don’t have very much data on whether they’re actually safe, because google has a thousand times as much information about drivers than cyclists.
- google sometimes suggests routes that can’t be traversed, legally or at all, by a bike. Same reason.
- sometimes google suggests avoiding something a bike doesn’t actually have to worry about. This is actually the category of error I see the most: google sends you around something when you could simply walk your bike through it, or ride through it, because you’re not a car.
A lot of the bike routes are mapped using car data. If you are biking on a one way street and have to turn around, maps will route you around the block (uphill) like a car, even if there’s a sidewalk you coukd bike or walk down instead.
It’s not super great for biking data, but it works. It tends to miss protected bike lanes, though.
In Australia Google maps has issues with routing cyclists on 80km busy truck transit roads that have no bike lanes, footpaths or shoulders. You’ll regularly get stuck behind lost uber eats cyclists whose map took them through a motor vehicle only underpass.
The other day google maps decided to reroute me from a quiet, wide street with no bike lane that was otherwise perfectly safe, and tried to send me through a nightsoil alley, down a heritage stock run that was paved with cobblestones and crossed over a storm drain 4 times in a zig zag.
Yeah, “safer” because there’s no cars I guess, but not suitable for bikes at all.
I don’t think it has trouble with bike routes.
Often Google tries to have me cycle on a trail that has zero snow removal in the winter. So there’s that.
isn’t that normal for trails through country? plus, cycling on snow is pretty stable
I live in the city though. It could easily recommend I use the street if it knew that winter is a thing. And uh… Idk, maybe cycling through deep snow works on a fat bike, but with a normal bike with winter tires like mine, I can’t just blast through 30+ cm of uncleared snow.
normal bike with winter tyres
You don’t need fat tyres. Fresh uncleared snow is the best to cycle on, it literally compresses under the tyre and gives you traction. You know when you squeeze a snowball so tight that the surface almost becomes sticky? It’s exactly like that
Hmm, i see.
I’ll have a new bike with different winter tires this year but last year my bike would get dangerously destabilized by the smallest amount of leftover powder snow trail from the snow clearing machines, so I stayed well away from uncleared roads.
But for one, as you say, that was forgetting about how uncleared snow is not the same, and also, new tires this year.
I’ll give it a try next time. It’ll probably be safer to avoid the cars for a little bit longer anyway.
Huh, so this is snow tossed from snow-clearing machines and isn’t freshly fallen snow? Maybe what I’m saying doesn’t apply then. I think it should be okay since it should(?) compress the same, but I legit don’t know. It could be different
Leftover powder on the road is a different beast. It’s often mixed up with a little bit of sand, and it’s been crushed into a powder that doesn’t feel like natural snow at all. It doesn’t stick and it slips like fine sand. Not a fun time. A little pile of 2-3 cm of the stuff was enough to almost make me completely lose control last year. Scary stuff.
Ah fair, thanks for the extra info. Take care out there!
It’s 100 % because they don’t really know if bikes can go on the roads it tells you. Their focus is clearly on cars, and they don’t feel comfortable in their guesses on bikes, specially considering that the risks of bad injury skyrocket if you ride somewhere where you shouldn’t.
I think it mainly means that Google invests a lot more money in the quality of its navigation for cars than bicycles, meaning that they think it’s pretty likely that the cycling directions might lead you into a place where it might not be a good idea to cycle.
And it’s still shit. It reccomends an illegal left turn and I see every day someone that tries to make it.
Google maps became an ad platform.
Fortunately no one is forced to use it in a world where OpenStreetMap and apps that use it exist (OSM is exactly as good as volunteers made it).
I am for work. no other app has Good ETA, traffic, and multi node route planning, decent readable design.
Waze (owned by google) - no multi node
OSMand - unreadable design
organic maps - no good ETA
mapy.cz - no local traffic
Magic earth - to be tested
Circuit - it would be an overkill for my use case
Google maps sometimes even sends you down an unpaved road even if it isn’t nescesary.
Source: It happened to me several times.
You might be interested in CyclOSM to plan your routes
Biking is also pretty dependent on the individual and their setup. The elevation changes, distances, sustained speed, and terrain one individual and their equipment can handle can vary drastically with another person. Not to mention someone’s tolerance for whatever the weather might be doing at the time while you’re completely exposed to the elements on a bike or walking.
It’s just them taking a “your results may vary” approach while covering their own ass.
Anecdotally, while driving in Colorado, I put in a destination that I was driving to in bike mode on accident. The destination was like 80 miles away from where I was and involved climbing and descending a mountain pass. Google Maps was very optimistic about how long it would take me to bike there…all without knowing my anything about my health, the kind of bike I have, if I would be able to bike at that elevation, etc. (being Google they probably knew)
I can barely even beat the estimated time from google maps while using an e-bike.
I think it means try Organic Maps
I use organic maps for biking and walking and it’s a lifesaver. It actually takes me along bike paths rather than massive high speed stroads and even gives an elevation graph for the path it gives.
Have you tried StreetComplete? It let’s you tweak OSM to help develop the map.
Organic Maps allows mapping, too.
“We make more money from cars. We half assed the walking instructions. Good luck and fuck you.”
It’s just a legal safety net that they cannot know whether at the moment the route is cycling-safe. So while you can follow their route, real-world situations might differ and hence you need to think for yourself.
Over here they show the same warning for pedestrian and car routes. Which is sad, because it tells me that enough people blindly drive into shit based off of a routing app that they need to tell people to please not turn their 2 braincells off, as much as a difference that is going to make…
The route may not include possible bike (out even pedestrian) specific route options, such as curb cuts, parking lot connections, or other paths commonly used by bikes. It may also route you on roads that may not be bike safe.
I do a lot of biking and for me Organic Maps has proven to be worthy of the navigation.
