Found a glitch in Google Maps that showed a road that doesn't exist yet

I was trying to find a shortcut through some backroads near my dad's place in Oregon last weekend, and Google Maps routed me onto this road called 'Cedar Ridge Extension.' Drove around for 20 minutes looking for it, and it's literally just a gravel path ending in a muddy field with a faded sign. Looked up the county records and the road was planned back in 2019 but never built. How do these maps even get this wrong lol. Anyone else ever been sent to a phantom road by their GPS?

2 comments

2 Comments

hernandez.jordan3d ago

Is it really that different from trusting a paper map from 2018 though? At least Google Maps fixes this stuff eventually when someone reports it. I found a street near me that was shown as a through road for like 6 years after they blocked it with a concrete barrier. Reported it three times and they finally fixed it last month. It's annoying but I still prefer it to hunting for a gas station atlas.

wyatta304d ago

This kind of thing happens more than people realize, it's like how a lot of apps and services are built on data that's already outdated or just plain wrong. It's the same with weather apps that say it's sunny when it's pouring rain, or reviews for a restaurant that closed two years ago. Everything seems to run on this assumption that the information is current, but nobody is actually double-checking if the gravel path in a field is a real road. Makes you wonder how much other stuff we trust every day is just a ghost version of reality, right?