My latest video is now available on Nebula and Patreon.

My latest video is now available on Nebula and Patreon.

I don't use Google Maps when cycling in Amsterdam, because some of the routes it gives are absolutely terrible.

But what's more interesting is WHY Google Maps provides such poor cycling directions, because it reveals some really interesting differences between the way cities are designed in the Netherlands vs. America.

Not Just Bikes — Why I don't use Google Maps in Amsterdam

Google Maps is an application that is used by over two billion people every month. But as an application that is primarily designed by and for car drivers, it often fails in a human-sized city like Amsterdam.

Nebula (nebula.tv)

@notjustbikes Glad you're finally making a video about this! This is the whole reason that Bike Streets (bikestreets.com) was created. The integration of technology for getting folks out on bikes in North America is almost essential because of how poorly designed so many things are. No, Google Maps, I don't want to cross an arterial built for cars without a stop light on my bicycle.

@notjustbikes looking forward to my much needed dose of orange pills.

Planning a bike route in unfamiliar territory always takes much time and going on streetview and satellite imagery to find route. (For instance when a bridge only has bike path on one side ).

@notjustbikes And my comment on Patreon was: in most cases you don't need any navigation software. The city guides you, the city is the technology. Thanks to the bicycle network which makes it obvious where to bike.

Excellent video again, personally I appreciated the praise for https://routeplanner.fietsersbond.nl and the criticism of the incomprehensible app Toertje.

@notjustbikes Looking forward to this as I’ve done a couple videos on how Google Maps is a deterrent to biking. Transit is my favourite app right now. Tested three apps in China but it was the people and infrastructure that made biking nice there. Only navigation tool I used in NL was the mushroom map

@notjustbikes

Loved all the random #Utrecht cameos. And was that Mountain View near the San Antonio shopping center at one point? Weird.

@notjustbikes Open StreetMap in many ways outperforms google maps.

If you find something to be wrong or outdated, use StreetComplete to correct it or add missing data. It's even fun!

StreetComplete

OpenStreetMap surveyor app

(streetcomplete.app)

And I would really appreciate it if the osm community would take a closer look at that fietsersbond routeplaner and integrate some of those options into OSM. The data should already be there in most cases.

@notjustbikes The biggest reason, knowing how the juice is made in digital cartography, is that Google Maps is only minimum viable map proof of concept for motorists and transit users, and a complete afterthought for pedestrians and cyclists. Compound this with their data and business model being very oriented to be a Yellow Pages nearly exclusively, it's basically false advertising to call that product a map and foolish to use it for nav.

Especially when @openstreetmap exists.

@notjustbikes I just watched the video on Nebula. Loved it! And I 100% agree with your take on Google Maps. And your take on infrastructure and its intent.

FWIW, our free @CyclingGuide mobile app optimizes for low-stress, low-traffic routes. It’s a niche app at this point, as it’s only available in Waterloo Region, Ottawa, Sarnia-Lambton, and Halifax. But we’ll be launching in other communities this summer (maybe even Fake London). Also FWIW, for people new to cycling, they won’t know where it’s safe to cycle, so an app like ours in our Canadian communities is important for helping those folks get comfortable with riding more frequently and farther. (We have a lot of work ahead of us to make the app better, but we’re making progress.)

(I still intend to never email you! ‍️️)

@notjustbikes now that's a perfect bait to get me in Nebula

@notjustbikes I've been making an effort to transition to OpenStreetMaps - do you find that it's any better for Amsterdam bike route planning? It probably depends a lot on the city, I surmise.

@notjustbikes Great as always! Not much of a cyclist but I'm often equally shocked by how awful it is with pedestrian routes, exactly for the same reasons as what's in the video. So often it's "no don't cross the park, take a 3km detour around it" !

@notjustbikes nice! Same issue in #Copenhagen btw https://github.com/mszell/sciencememes?tab=readme-ov-file#2023-08-google-maps-car-brained-routing

@notjustbikes same in Bangalore, India - terrible routes even for driving

@notjustbikes google maps always send me in circles in Amsterdam it was quite horrible

@notjustbikes I want to make a shoutout to GeoVelo (https://geovelo.app/) as an OpenStreetMap based bike router that I find in Boston (and I use it occasionally when I am elsewhere) gives better directions than Google.

And when it gives me something weird, I can usually fix OSM because something is wrong there and next time it gives me better directions

@notjustbikes Great video. As a Canadian in the Metro Vancouver area, I am always astonished at how many people you see riding bikes in Amsterdam.

@notjustbikes https://brouter.m11n.de is pretty good for OSM based bike routing everywhere. Otherwise I do find even OSM's default layer is pretty car-biased. Also you didn't get into how terrible Google map's transit layer is.

@notjustbikes

Excellent take, as usual! While this is tangential to the subject of the video, I'd also like to kvetch about the way Google Maps handles surface transit. It only shows bus stops when zoomed in so far as to make it unusable for a route overview. It tends to miss better routes when used for route planning, and it's not great at handling multiple modes or multiple agencies in a trip.