Yesterday I plotted walking directions from 536 Broadway, NYC to 266 Broome St, NYC. I use Google Maps multiple times a day, but something about this route confused me. Instead of starting just outside 536 Broadway ON Broadway, the directions started around the corner on Spring St.
I happen to know this building very well, having entered and exited nearly 1,000 times over the past 2.5 years. A start point on Spring Street does make sense if you know about the side entrance to the freight elevator and backup staircase. So I pulled up Google StreetView to see if the start point was near this side entrance, and what do you know?
I haven't been able to test this on other buildings because I couldn't think of any I knew well enough to verify, but that's where you come in. How well does Google Maps optimize your walking route, and specifically, have you found a case where it optimizes the actual building exit?
And now, for a series of rhetorical questions:
How would Google even know to do this without either having building exit information or tracking people's flow to and from an address? Did I make this happen by using Google Maps on my iPhone?? Do I have to live with this!!?? Will Google now erase me from the Internet now that I've revealed its secret???!!! And most importantly, can Google optimize when and how I should get to the nearest bathroom based on hygiene levels, toilet paper supply and previous occupant??!?!?!
Finally, I found a wormhole in Google StreetView once. I think it could really cut our fossil fuel dependency if Google released the locations of these wormholes for the benefit of humanity. I'll try to find the exact location and share it with you all before Google silences me.