Advocacy & Safety - Mapquest Avoid Highways

While looking for a way to use mapquest and avoid highways, I ran into an archived discussion.
I have written a request to Mapquest to enable this feature for the general public. I did find
the following site sponsored by mapquest that allows it. However you can not print a good
map from it. http://clients.mapquest.com/ryder/mqtripplus
I hope this helps!

Try www.map24.com instead.

MapQuest used to have two very useful features for bicyclists: 1) select route for minimum distance, rather than minimum driving time; 2) select a route which avoids "highways" [sic]. I have asked them to reinstate both features, but I got only a cordial email response and no action.

I just gave map24.com a shot at my commute. After selecting avoid highways and so on, it still routed me on US Highway 100, which is a four-lane restricted access urban freeway (except when snowing, when it's a parking lot). I'm still happy with mapsonus.com, especially since you can get them to give you maps bigger than 300x300 pixels.

I was just about to say the same thing. I told it specifically that I wanted a route from my house to my office without highways. It routed me down the FDR Drive, which is one of the busiest highways in New York City.

Oh well. Back to the drawing board :-)

The Ryder Trip plus didnt give me any results, but the Map24 worked fine

MapQuest used to have two very useful features for bicyclists: 1) select route for minimum distance, rather than minimum driving time; 2) select a route which avoids "highways" [sic]. I have asked them to reinstate both features, but I got only a cordial email response and no action.

MapQuest also eliminated one very good feature I used to use and that was longititude and latitude numbers. I used to input those on my GPS to figure out very good routes. Not anymore.

If you still want to all those features, buy yourself a used (Ebay) version of Streets and Trips. It's not perfect in determining good routes but that's life. This is why I've gone to my GPS instead of relying on maps. You never know on a map if a route is going to be super fast and I don't think there's any map (sofware included) that can tell you that for certain.

However. With a GPS, I can develope routes along the way. In fact, I don't use the map feature on the GPS most of the time and just follow the "Arrow" which points to my destination. The arrow is just a way point determined by longititude and latitude codes entered before the ride.

JohnE does the cordial email say why they got rid of those functions? What could the rationale be? To save money? Time on their server thingy? Will try map24

I was saying to a friend how I had to do a long detour to get around two freeways. He sent me an itinary from some on-line map service. That route was turning on nearly every street just to keep distance to a minimum, even if it meant a few meters. His route was a hair shorter than mine but the problem was that it went across one highway on a street that doesn't exist. My route is much nicer and less complicated. I figured out my route using a map from the corner store.

I was just about to say the same thing. I told it specifically that I wanted a route from my house to my office without highways. It routed me down the FDR Drive, which is one of the busiest highways in New York City.

Oh well. Back to the drawing board :-)

They let us go down the FDR for special events. ;)

JohnE does the cordial email say why they got rid of those functions? What could the rationale be? To save money? Time on their server thingy? Will try map24

No, my respondent merely observed that "minimum distance" was not available, and that they were considering reinstating "avoid highways." I do alot of walking and jogging, for which the minimum distance function is generally quite useful.

SLvoid: Like the MS ride which was a total blast this year! The weather on the FDR was epicly good, no?

I really like the look of Map24, except I also had a problem with the "exclude Highways" option not working in my area. I've had this same trouble with other softwear, I sent an email to the Map24 people about this issue. Surely this is something that can be fixed.

I tried both of these maps you guys listed and found them to be very crude and neither would avoid a major hwy even after I tried several different options to do make it do it. I've been using Microsoft Streets & Trips 2004 and this map works far better. I have already planned a bike trip for next summer to avoid major highways, and it did it with no problems. I heard that McNallys will do the same thing but I've never used it.

I can't really say much about that, but it does exclude our motorways properly for Sweden. It fails to find the really small roads sometimes, but Mapquest finds them.

I too miss the coordinates. I don't have a GPS, but I still want them for other reasons.

I wrote to http://www.randmcnally.com/ and explained to them that I am a bicycle commuter, and that it would be nice to have the computer pick routes specifically for bicycles, i.e., avoid highways, select bike paths if possible, etc. I got a nice email back saying that they were passing my idea on to the planning people. If others also write to them, it will add weight to the request!

Thank all of you for the info I found here. I have been looking for better help with maps, and you gave some great ideas.

I use Street Altas 8.0, set it to avoid Interstates and US Highways and most of the time it will print a very usable map. I then tweak that and always end up with a good route. No software is going to be perfect. But this one is the closest thing I can find.

Cheers and Happy Miles,
Blake

It is a sad state of affairs when people who try to avoid using fossil fuels have this much trouble trying to do so. It just goes to show what the rest of the world thinks about commuting to work or just not having a car. Does this peeve anyone else?

This is a little off topic but my new Garmin GPS receiver has a setting for this. It has several different options for choosing routes and one of those choices is "Bicycle". Pretty cool. It's supposed to keep you off major roads and highways but I doubt the Garmin maps know about bike paths. Still thought it was cool that Garmin had enough insight to put this option in.

Does this peeve anyone else?

Yes. I think the typical American is trained from childhood up to be very dependent on the idea of the automobile, and that dependency is just part of our conditioning to be little consumer cogs in the machinery of our society. The automobile has become coupled with the American psyche's concept of success and freedom. This is why road rage in traffic jams is a real problem and not something out of a silly horror movie---when a person's symbol of freedom isn't making them free but instead is making them stuck in traffic, waiting, waiting, waiting, it's a challenge to the person's sense of freedom and identity. This is essentially at the root of why motorists are usually scared of cyclists: they realize, at least subconsicously, that if they kill you, they're going to have a lot of difficulty continuing to use a car (if the law doesn't get 'em, the insurance monsters probably will) which is tightly coupled to the person's sense of freedom and self-expression.

I'll stop my rant now before it gets out of hand.

This is a little off topic but my new Garmin GPS receiver has a setting for this. It has several different options for choosing routes and one of those choices is "Bicycle". Pretty cool. It's supposed to keep you off major roads and highways but I doubt the Garmin maps know about bike paths. Still thought it was cool that Garmin had enough insight to put this option in.

I really believe those of us who use GPS's are in the drivers seat. I forgot about that feature you mentioned. It goes to show you the options the GPS gives me in not having to use paper maps in general. With a paper map, if the road became too fast, I would take out the map, spend 5 to 15 minutes getting a new route. Not anymore.

Maps.com /maptuit have an option for walking that avoids major highways.

http://host.maptuit.com/maps.com/index.cgi