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Which Highway 40 detour is best? Mappers disagree
By Tim Barker ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 01/04/2008
Not sure how to get around the Highway 40 mess? Maybe your favorite Internet mapping tool can lend a hand.
Or maybe not.
A random check Thursday of five mapping services — Mapquest, Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps and the services provided by the Post-Dispatch and the Missouri Department of Transportation — yielded mixed results. The programs offered three very different ways to get — or to not get — from Chesterfield to downtown St. Louis.
Two of them, GoogleMaps and Yahoo! Maps, sent would-be drivers straight into the heart of the Highway 40 construction, never mentioning the road closure.
Google and Yahoo say they are updating their information. Google expects the update to be completed by next week, Yahoo within a few weeks.
With the other three programs, it's just a matter of deciding your tolerance for traffic delays.
Both Mapquest and the program used by the Transportation Department sent drivers along nearly 30 miles of highway — first to Interstate 270 south and then to Interstate 44 east and into downtown — to avoid getting near the construction zone.
The Post-Dispatch website uses a service by Maptuit, which suggests a more direct route — using Clayton Road and the open sections of Highway 40, a trip of 20 miles. Unlike Mapquest and MoDOT, the Maptuit program takes into account road conditions and points out that traffic delays could add another 45 minutes to the drive.
Maptuit spokesman Carlos Bernal said there is an advantage to melding the mapping software with traffic flow patterns. "It's going to give you the best route based on the traffic at that time."
Some have questioned how accurate the traffic information is, considering the unpredictable ebbs and flows of auto traffic. Bernal acknowledged there often is delay — by a few minutes — in updating that information.
"But it's pretty representative of what's happening at that time," Bernal said.
On the flip side, the advantage of the MoDOT and Mapquest approach is that it simply chooses what should be the most trouble-free route, said Linda Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Transportation.
"It naturally takes you to the biggest type roads," Wilson said. "Typically, the bigger the road, the better you are going to move."
The main reason MoDOT has its own program, called Map My Trip, is because the large mapping companies initially said they weren't going to adjust their maps to reflect the two-year closing. That prompted transportation officials to do their own thing.
One advantage of that decision is that the department's maps are likely to be updated almost instantly. The other mapping services say it generally takes a few hours to make updates and that some small closures may never be reflected.
None of the mapping services is willing to guarantee that their proposed routes will always be the best.
"It's a suggestion if you are stumped and can't figure out how to go," Wilson said. "But it's just a suggestion."
tbarker@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8350
Contact Ron Doyle at Ron@DoubleClicks.info |
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