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With auto-discovery of routes, Google might be picking up the most popular routes, but that does that does not mean they are the best ones. For example, on Stra
by Mediterraneo10 8y ago
With auto-discovery of routes, Google might be picking up the most popular routes, but that does that does not mean they are the best ones. For example, on Strava heatmaps you can frequently see routes that are heavily cycled, but they might also be extremely stressful because one has to share the road with traffic. In fact, most cyclists might only be using them because they are sports cyclists with very thin tires unable to explore and find other options. The great thing about OSM is that it only takes a single mapper to find a nearby alternative and add it to the map.
> At least I've had rather good experiences using Maps for biking.
You wouldn’t in many countries around the world. Google Maps is considerably inferior to OpenStreetMap for cycling in much of the Western Balkans, Africa, and Patagonia.
- matt4077 8y agoFunny you should mention Albania: It's exactly where I learned never to doubt Google Maps. Specifically, never to assume that "It's like ten meters between these two points... I don't see a reason why we would need to go all the way around". (There was a 30m deep gorge) More to the point: Given enough position data, Google should be able to assess all those road parameters you mention, far better than manual entry could ever do at scale. They could easily notice, as but one example, when locals routinely take different routes than they would suggest and modify their data accordingly.