I generally swear by Google maps, but did notice that Google prefers to not take shortcuts. Just recently in Seattle area, Google would have me take I5 in traff

I generally swear by Google maps, but did notice that Google prefers to not take shortcuts. Just recently in Seattle area, Google would have me take I5 in traffic, while manually dragging a dot onto a smaller road would have the same Google tell me it's going to be 7-10 minutes faster that way. Then you'd remove the dot and it's back to I5, +7 minutes to driving time. I've seen similar cases before, including e.g. a slowww light next to my house you can avoid by driving, however slowly, down a residential street with 0 traffic. This is presumably because of the tragedy of the commons that would ensue if it directed people there.