Byte by Bite

Differences in driving directions and times

by Marv Dealy

I’d been using the tools at Mapquest to figure out what a trip to Friday Harbor would entail, what I could do along the way, and what to do on the way back. All this was brought on by the urge for a road trip that had followed the acquiring of the logical follow-on to the venerable painted VW bug—an xB.

Out of mild curiosity more than anything else, I decided to cross check results from Mapquest against the other two services, and that’s when I discovered that apparently Google thinks I’m going to swim rather than taking the ferry to Friday Harbor from Anacortes, Washington as it said the trip from Portland, Oregon would take 13 hours and 28 minutes and cover 286 miles. That compared to Mapquest’s 6 hours and 9 minutes to cover an estimated 289.2 miles and Windows Live Local’s guess of 269.7 miles and 6 hours and 24 minutes.

Well, that did it. The urge for a road trip combined with the need to tell you, the readers, what the real driving distances and times are will find me in Lake Chelan, Washington by the time you read this, as I’m heading there after having sailed in Friday Harbor. I’m keeping track of actual driving times (including stops for lattes from every drive-up stand I see, plus stops for photos, breaks, food, gas and whatnot) as well as mileage to be able to compare to the big three and report back. Other stops will include a jetboat on the Columbia River.

I know there are more important things out there that need doing, but someone has to check the accuracy of these folks’ predictions.

The first leg of the trip—Big Oak Flat to Weed, California—called for the old Highway 120 to 99 to 5 then head north according to Mapquest and company, but as I often seek the windier road—less traveled is good, too—I headed north on 49, curious to see how this deviation and planned stops for sushi in Jackson, California and another latte in Martel, California would work out.

With those stops and one more at a rest stop north of Sacramento the trip to Weed ended up taking 6 hours 45 minutes and covering 326 miles. The Google guess was 6 hours 27 minutes but 354 miles. Mapquest predicted 5 hours 43 minutes and 352.16 miles, while Live Local estimated 5 hours 23 minutes and 350.3 miles. In this case, the scenic route was actually shorter and if you subtract all the time for stops only about 15 minutes to a half hour longer.

A complaint to the marketing department at Microsoft—why did they name the Windows product Live Local, then let their geek department use the domain Local.Live.com? To avoid confusion, we’ll call it Local Live and expect letters from some lawyer in Redmond, Washington (distance unknown).

The next day I decided to head for Portland, Oregon via Crater Lake, Oregon rather than just staying on the very boring Highway 5 north. Actual driving time to Crater Lake was 3 hours 33 minutes and distance was 140 miles. The big three’s guesses? Mapquest, 2 hours 24 minutes and 127.6 miles. Local Live, 3 hours 3 minutes and 141.8 mile. Google returned no guesses, saying instead “We could not calculate driving directions between Weed, California and Crater Lake, Oregon.” I’ll be danged.

I can explain the difference of a half hour between actual driving time and Local Live’s guess. I stopped for a sandwich in a wide spot called Fort Klamath, Oregon just south of Crater Lake for a sandwich. The elapsed time from ordering the sandwich to actually getting it was at least a half hour, due both to the fact that the fellow behind the counter was more interested in chatting with the locals than in making a sandwich, and when he did get down to it used only one hand, the other apparently not being useful, and set out to make the most bodacious roast beef sandwich I’ve seen in a long time. I told him it was the biggest one-handed sandwich I’d ever seen.

The leg from Crater Lake to Tualatin, Oregon took 4 hours and 40 minutes and 224 miles, again taking the scenic route and not the one the driving services suggested which could be summed up as “head to the nearest freeway and go in this direction for umpteen boring miles.”

Mapquest said this leg should be 4 hours 26 minutes and 238.85 miles, while Local Live said 4 hours 20 minutes and 235.4 miles. Google again said “We could not calculate driving directions between Crater Lake, Oregon and Tualatin, Oregon.” Again, the most scenic route was shorter in miles and, taking out break time, in elapsed time as well.

In addition to offering choices such as “shortest driving distance” or “shortest driving time” I’d think these driving direction folks could offer additional choices, such as “most curves between here and there,” or perhaps “most antique shops” or “most national, state and regional parks” with their trip planning tools.

The drive to Anacortes, including a wait at the drawbridge on the Interstate Highway in Portland to let a boat pass, turned out to be 262 miles and took 5 hours 30 minutes, both shorter and quicker than guesses from the big guys. That little xB does get down the road.

More on the accuracies of the guesses the map direction people make—we’ll see how they do at finding the rest of the destinations on the road trip, and I must ask someone at Google why they can’t figure out how to drive up a highway, cross a state border, and visit our nation’s fifth oldest National Park and once there, how to get to Portland, Oregon.