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Ha, it makes the same route planning mistake I did years ago when I was in Rome. I was staying near the Colosseum and for one of my runs, thought I’d run on th
by js2 6y ago
Ha, it makes the same route planning mistake I did years ago when I was in Rome.
I was staying near the Colosseum and for one of my runs, thought I’d run on the Appia Antica, because oldest road in the world, into Parco della Caffarella because it looked like a really nice park with lots of trails.
Well, next thing I know I’m running down a one-way cobblestone road with cars coming toward me and there’s no entrance into the park because there’s a huge wall between the road and the park. The road had walls on both sides in fact. I didn't want to turn around because I’d have the cars to my back. So I hugged that wall as close as I could and trusted the shit out of Roman drivers. Eventually I found a way into the park.
Here’s the route Trail Router gave me:
• https://ibb.co/k8m18xq https://ibb.co/k8m18xq
Here's the run I did that day:
• https://ibb.co/pK6xqMX https://ibb.co/pK6xqMX
The road starts out looking great:
• https://ibb.co/998GQk3 https://ibb.co/998GQk3 (my picture)
• https://ibb.co/DYXkBt5 https://ibb.co/DYXkBt5 (google maps)
But very soon you're on this:
• https://ibb.co/vJcCSXr https://ibb.co/vJcCSXr (google maps)
Well, it was all worth it because eventually I got into the park and I'm still alive:
• https://ibb.co/52VgT1W https://ibb.co/52VgT1W
• https://ibb.co/dbvG6f5 https://ibb.co/dbvG6f5
• https://ibb.co/ZTPknP3 https://ibb.co/ZTPknP3
• https://ibb.co/VWxrwnB https://ibb.co/VWxrwnB
I know you're at the mercy of map data. I don't know how unique this situation is. I always appreciate a new route planning tool. I usually use a combination of Footpath Route Planner, the heat maps from Strava, and Google Maps street view and satellite view. It's definitely a pain to do that for every trip. Maps are definitely not optimized for pedestrian safety, and things like sidewalks and shoulder-width are often inaccurate or just not there on the maps short of bringing up street view.
- samcrawford 6y agoThanks for the feedback, appreciated. The reason it suggested that route was (1) the park, as you found, and (2) the Via Francigena hiking route (https://www.viefrancigene.org/en/ https://www.viefrancigene.org/en/ & https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6201614 https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6201614) follows this road. One item for consideration in the future is allowing users to flag unsafe portions of a route and then having that visible to other users (and also influence the algorithm).
- js2 6y agoAllowing users to flag unsafe portions sounds like a good work-around. FWIW, I'm looking at the routes it's planning from my home and they aren't safe. It's sending me down heavily trafficked country roads with little to no shoulder. I'll email you some screenshots. Thanks for the new app regardless!
- samcrawford 6y agoFor anyone else experiencing something similar, try the 'Avoid potentially unsafe roads' option in the settings menu. This tells the routing algorithm to always avoid 'secondary' and 'tertiary' roads without explicit sidewalks (these are OpenStreetMap road classifications). This isn't on by default because in some countries/regions, such roads are very reasonable to run on. Clearly there's a better middle ground though, which might involve highlighting potentially problematic parts of the route in the UI. Thanks again js2 for your email and all your feedback!
- ajmurmann 6y agoHah, I made the exact same mistake. I didn't realize the park was behind those walls, I assumed that I must had gotten the location all wrong.