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I strongly suspect that the place where I live was used as a trap street by Google Maps for years. It is a newly constructed apartment building in the outskirt

I strongly suspect that the place where I live was used as a trap street by Google Maps for years. It is a newly constructed apartment building in the outskirts of a small town. A small alley at the corner of the street where I live, which doesn't have any apartment numbers, was shown heavily distorted in the map (actually stepping over my building). Beyond a desire of accuracy, I complained to the Google Maps because the distortion was extending to the part of my street where my apartment's doorstep is located, and delivery men were having problems to find my address. After several months sending bug reports, they finally fixed the corner layout. I think this is an actual example of trap street because the accumulation of symptoms (supposedly no one living at that particular point, low traffic street, remote area, recent construction). If I'm right, this example shows that placing such traps can have an impact on the people living there.

maxerickson 11y ago
In the US they sourced at least some of their data from the Census TIGER data (In my town it still shows a big jag that is particular to recent TIGER data...). The older editions of the TIGER data tended not to obsess over street level spatial accuracy, I think it was mostly used as a catalog of where a given address would be, so a few dozen meters was fine.
tghw 11y ago
You can edit data in Google Maps directly. It still has to be approved, but it often goes faster than trying to do it with bug reports. https://www.google.com/mapmaker https://www.google.com/mapmaker
- Splines 11y ago
  I've done this - works pretty well and is easy. I added my address since it was new construction and friends were getting routed about a mile away to a different street. Satisfying to say "remember how google maps couldn't find my address? I fixed it". A bit of the IKEA effect going on there.
minikites 11y ago
> If I'm right, this example shows that placing such traps can have an impact on the people living there. Definitely not the first time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agloe,_New_York https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agloe,_New_York

maxerickson 11y ago

In the US they sourced at least some of their data from the Census TIGER data (In my town it still shows a big jag that is particular to recent TIGER data...). The older editions of the TIGER data tended not to obsess over street level spatial accuracy, I think it was mostly used as a catalog of where a given address would be, so a few dozen meters was fine.

tghw 11y ago

You can edit data in Google Maps directly. It still has to be approved, but it often goes faster than trying to do it with bug reports. https://www.google.com/mapmaker https://www.google.com/mapmaker

Splines 11y ago
I've done this - works pretty well and is easy. I added my address since it was new construction and friends were getting routed about a mile away to a different street. Satisfying to say "remember how google maps couldn't find my address? I fixed it". A bit of the IKEA effect going on there.

minikites 11y ago

> If I'm right, this example shows that placing such traps can have an impact on the people living there. Definitely not the first time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agloe,_New_York https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agloe,_New_York