How do I get a map that avoids using the easiest route to get somewhere?

August 9, 2023 4:16 PM

Both easy routes to get to a town I need to go to are blocked off entirely for the next two months. How the hell do I get some kind of alternate route there?

So I drive from my town to Country Town, about a half hour away. There are two easy direct routes to said town on country roads. Both of which are now (supposed to be) totally blocked off for the next 1-2 months. I literally CANNOT USE THE EASIEST ROUTES TO GET THERE, which is all Google Maps offers me. The other options are a bunch of confusing other country roads and/or having to get on the nearest freeway (not very close to this town as its only freeway access is going to Semi-Country Town farther away from here) to get onto the other country roads. I cannot get maps.google.com or mapquest or Waze to figure out some route for me that avoids the blocked roads, and no app recognizes that those roads are blocked off. Last night I tried to figure out a way there by driving to a location supposedly between the two and still had a very hard time getting there and trying to go back, Google still tried to take me on the easiest/blocked route. How the hell do I get a reasonable route to come up on a phone map? Or get a map to show what's blocked off and reroute me? Or anything? I can click and drag on a laptop to adjust the route, but Google WON'T let me use or save that route and continues to send me the easy-peasy route I cannot use.

Please note that I do not have good sense or direction worth a damn, so "figure it out for yourself" is not going well already and I'm going to have to deal with this for a few months. Nor do I want to have to drive entirely to Semi-Country Town (a route a friend in a similar situation suggested yesterday, which is even worse) and then loop back around to go back here, that's ridiculous.

I also do not have an iPhone, so anything meant only for iPhone is a no-go.

I can't believe that we're in the 2020's and technology can't seem to figure this out. Is there any way to get around these issues?

posted by jenfullmoon to Travel & Transportation (18 answers total)

I would get myself a paper map of the area and work it out. I'm not sure if your bad sense of direction applies to paper maps as well, but it if does, I'm happy to work out some alternate routes for you if you want to send me a MeFiMail!
posted by cooker girl at 4:22 PM on August 9, 2023 [6 favorites]

I would have suggested Waze, because that's all crowd-sourced and usually very good about that sort of thing. So I'm interested to hear what others suggest.
posted by canine epigram at 4:23 PM on August 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

Maybe not an immediate solution, but you can report the closures to Google here. Google will (probably) eventually note the closures, either from reports like this or a total absence of cars using Google navigation passing through those routes, and will begin offering ways around them.
posted by pullayup at 4:29 PM on August 9, 2023 [6 favorites]

I would call the town hall for the town you want to go to and/or the town that is doing the work on the roads. I am pretty sure they will tell you the detour route or an alternative route to get there.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 4:31 PM on August 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

If you can work out a route by hand, you should be able to get Google Maps on your phone to save a multi-step route.

1. Tap the blue "route" icon in the lower right hand corner. Set your start location to your home, and the destination to a position partway through your hand-made route. You can do this with an address (annoying) or "choose on map" (annoying in another way, you get to put down a marker at whichever intersection etc that you're using).
2. Tap the three-dots button on the upper-right hand corner, tap "add stop." Select the next one, and then maybe your final destination, or maybe you'll need to do more intermediate stops to force Google to not use the wrong road.
3. Tap Done.
4. Tap the three-dots button again and "add route to home screen".
5. Agree to add it to your home screen.

Now you should have a new shortcut on your home screen that will open Google Maps with your saved route ready. It seems like you'll have to do it a second time to save a reverse route, rather than being able to automatically tell it to give you the route backwards.

It's a shame there's no obvious way to save a route in the app, but this seems like it might be a good enough way to do it.
posted by BungaDunga at 4:35 PM on August 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

nb I've never actually driven using one of these multi-step routes but Google Maps does support it and it seems like it should work just fine, the dumb parts of setting it up aside.
posted by BungaDunga at 4:36 PM on August 9, 2023

This sounds like a fun project. Feel free to memail me if you'd like a human (me) to create a route for you.
posted by hydra77 at 4:47 PM on August 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

I have done this, but on desktop, not mobile. This site explains how. You have to start in the My Maps section of Google Maps (Saved - Maps - Open My Maps). On a phone, it is just as BungaDunga explains above. I found it to be frustrating, but it is possible.
posted by Francolin at 4:58 PM on August 9, 2023

You said that you can use your laptop to click and drag to create a usable route. Once you've done that, do the 1990's version of wayfinding and print out the turn by turn directions (both ways) and keep them in your car. You might want a suction cup to clip the directions to your dashboard so you can see them while you drive. The first few times you might also want to use the trip odometer to help you calculate when you are coming up on the next turn.
posted by metahawk at 5:01 PM on August 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

Google should hopefully pick up the closure once it's actually in effect. If it doesn't could you memail me?
posted by potrzebie at 5:12 PM on August 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

Add extra stops to the trip, on the route where the roads are open. Add more halfway in between those stops if it's still sending you to the closed places. Send yourself a link to these directions.
posted by yohko at 3:55 AM on August 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

Take potrzebie up on that generous offer. They can report the closures, which should make GPS work.
posted by theora55 at 10:34 AM on August 10, 2023

Response by poster: Well, yesterday was a mess. I was told on Tuesday the road was blocked off (by the aforementioned friend saying "drive to another town" since he drives over there several hours earlier than me). Thursday I tried to figure it out myself without GPS and got lost like an idiot, and then was told by other people in the same boat when I got there, "oh, it wasn't blocked off today." So despite the signs saying it will be blocked off for a month, apparently it may or may not BE blocked off from day to day (?), so I can't really report it as being blocked off. Does anyone know of some way to figure out ahead of time when it's blocked off from day to day short of driving there, finding out the hard way, and being stuck? I caved in and downloaded Waze even though I dislike it/find it hard to follow, because I guess that may be the only way.

I apologize, but dear god, I don't understand the Google My Maps directions at all. Literally nothing that happened when I opened that lined up with the easy-peasy instructions. I can't even find "Add directions," much less the rest of it :( All I see are "untitled layer" and "individual styles" and "import" and I have no idea what any of that even means.

I apologize, honestly I think I'm too stupid to understand these answers and clearly I should not have asked :( The only thing that worked yesterday was plugging in the location of a business in the middle of nowhere, driving to said business, and then have to re-put-in new directions. Google Maps will do multi-route things on a laptop but not on the phone, I guess that's the best I'm going to get here.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:05 AM on August 10, 2023

Ugh, that's so frustrating. I fully understand when something is supposed to be easy, but somehow it just doesn't click in my brain the way that it does for other people.

One tip regarding Google Maps: On a phone, you won't be able to grab and drag to make new routes (as you can on a desktop computer), but you CAN add a stop to a route. Route your location from A to B. After it makes that map, look for the three horizontal dots next to the first location at the top of your screen. Click those, and choose ADD STOP. It will put the new stop at the bottom of the list, but you can grab on the three horizontal bars and drag it up to the right spot.

I also think that Google is generally quite reliable in telling when a road is actually closed. Maybe it's because I'm in a larger city, but it's always quite on top of the data within a few minutes.
posted by hydra77 at 12:02 PM on August 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I note that I live near a large city where they perennially do road work late at night on the freeways, and Google has NEVER warned me of this happening. I've been known to circle round and and round while Google tells me to take the exit that's categorically blocked off for the night and doesn't register. So honestly, I dunno if it'll register here. (Maybe there's a difference between in-city and the roads between them?) Meanwhile, Google does like to tell me of speed traps, but 9 out of 10 times there actually isn't one, so....???? How do it know? Or not know?

I fully understand when something is supposed to be easy, but somehow it just doesn't click in my brain the way that it does for other people.

Yes, EXACTLY. I'm interested in technical things and my brain cannot comprehend them!

I'll see if the dot dot dot thing works when driving next. I don't think I can get this going while sitting still now, but maybe later.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:12 PM on August 10, 2023

Hey, if you are talking about what's going on in Sacramento area, it's fine to report those as road closures. They do change without warning, but that has caused deaths of local people in the area due to car accidents. It's okay to report them and we have a MeFite who can do it.
posted by yueliang at 1:13 AM on August 11, 2023

Response by poster: I have MeMailed potrzebie with the press release and map info!
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:50 AM on August 11, 2023

Response by poster: Well, this stupid thing resolved itself. They seem to have closed the road for a couple of random days, then de-activated the signs and never closed down again :P
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:19 AM on September 11, 2023