A thing that I wonder

[dianec42]

Waaaaay back in the early days of the intermanets, when Mapquest et al were new, you could plot a route from Point A to Point B, and some of these sites would actually give you a CHOICE of routes... avoiding highways; fastest, shortest, etc...

How come they stopped doing that? And to my Googlish friends: Doesn't that seem like it would be useful? You could add it to Google Maps! People would love you even more!

Seriously... my sat nav does this, why can't teh intrawebz???

Comments

[usqueba.livejournal.com]

How come they stopped doing that?

I've wondered that myself. Any more, it's easier to use a Thomas Guide.

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

I just did that today with Mapquest: "Avoid toll roads". There were at least two other choices, but I was just trying to avoid a nasty snarl on the Mass Pike.

[jim-p.livejournal.com]

I myself have tried playing with "find fastest route" versus "find shortest route" via mapquest. The results have been... interesting...

[dianec42.livejournal.com]

Hey, those options were NOT there the last time I looked at Mapquest! Innnnnnteresting.

[dmk.livejournal.com]

They come and go. Sometimes they're only available on long trips, other times the options totally disappear for months.

[dianec42.livejournal.com]

In that case, howzabout if I bitch and moan about unstable UI? (-:

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

Waaaaay back in the early days of the intermanets

Why am I reminded of Homer thinking about Lisa's "saxamophone"?

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

What I really want is point A to point B via road C.

Or even a "new directions with this as the starting point" link from my first destination.

[dianec42.livejournal.com]

I still want "Show me all of the [foo] along the route", where [foo] is variously Mexican restaurants, branches of my bank, gas stations, etc.

I hear rumours there's an Alpine product that does that. I wouldn't know, I just labor over the map database builds...

Now, points of interest NEAR a route would be hard. I think that's what I REALLY want. (If there's a WaMu a block away from my route, will I ever know?)