Navigation Doesn't Believe Highway Exists

[AutoDMC]

I live next to US-36 in Colorado. It's the US route between Commerce City and Boulder, and is usually the fastest route to Denver except if there is an accident.

When using the built in navigation, however, my car never routes along 36. It goes way out of its way to avoid 36, offering surface street routes that add 20 minutes to the drive.

It's the fastest and shortest route, and I get the same behavior on either Fastest or Shortest routing modes.

If I do pull on 36 out of stubbornness, the car panics and demands I take every single exit until I reach I25.

Waze, Google Maps, and Apple Maps (and my own lying eyes) confirm the existence and superiority of routes along 36.

It even draws 36 on the map in grey as part of the sketch of the highway network when displaying routes.

My phone's connection is unstable on wireless Android Auto, and I don't like the interface anyway. I like the infotainment interface currently provided by Sync. I want to use the built in navigation for the battery estimation and routing to chargers.

Does anyone else have routes that your navigation system refuses to believe exist?

UPDATE: A friend of mine suggested it's because US-36 has a tolled express lane, and I have carpooling and tolls off. Unfortunately Denver has very expensive, but marginally convenient, tolled highways and I want to avoid nonsensical routes that are 1 minute shorter and $10 more expensive. I'm tempted to disagree, though, because I25 has tolled express lanes as well and I haven't had trouble navigating that highway.

Any way to debug this? Who do I complain to? Just about everywhere I drive to runs along 36 for at least a portion, and having to disagree with my nav system constantly, and getting nagged about driving there makes me turn off an otherwise excellent feature.

Sponsored

 

[Neil4Real]

I believe the map is powered by "Here" try contacting them:

https://www.here.com/contact

Link to report a map error:

https://mapcreator.here.com/?site=here_com_contact&l=42.0000,46.0000,3,normal

 

[BMT1071]

I live next to US-36 in Colorado. It's the US route between Commerce City and Boulder, and is usually the fastest route to Denver except if there is an accident.

When using the built in navigation, however, my car never routes along 36. It goes way out of its way to avoid 36, offering surface street routes that add 20 minutes to the drive.

It's the fastest and shortest route, and I get the same behavior on either Fastest or Shortest routing modes.

If I do pull on 36 out of stubbornness, the car panics and demands I take every single exit until I reach I25.

Waze, Google Maps, and Apple Maps (and my own lying eyes) confirm the existence and superiority of routes along 36.

It even draws 36 on the map in grey as part of the sketch of the highway network when displaying routes.

My phone's connection is unstable on wireless Android Auto, and I don't like the interface anyway. I like the infotainment interface currently provided by Sync. I want to use the built in navigation for the battery estimation and routing to chargers.

Does anyone else have routes that your navigation system refuses to believe exist?

UPDATE: A friend of mine suggested it's because US-36 has a tolled express lane, and I have carpooling and tolls off. Unfortunately Denver has very expensive, but marginally convenient, tolled highways and I want to avoid nonsensical routes that are 1 minute shorter and $10 more expensive. I'm tempted to disagree, though, because I25 has tolled express lanes as well and I haven't had trouble navigating that highway.

Any way to debug this? Who do I complain to? Just about everywhere I drive to runs along 36 for at least a portion, and having to disagree with my nav system constantly, and getting nagged about driving there makes me turn off an otherwise excellent feature.

Have you tried allowing carpool and toll routes?

 

[AutoDMC]

Have you tried allowing carpool and toll routes?

Not yet because I haven't had a chance to. My brother in law mentioned that idea whilst I was typing this thread, so I added it as a musing. But I also know that Route 36 is not the only highway in the country with express lanes. I'm curious if anyone else has seen this behavior. It's a bug, and an annoying one.

 

[Mach-Lee]

I live next to US-36 in Colorado. It's the US route between Commerce City and Boulder, and is usually the fastest route to Denver except if there is an accident.

When using the built in navigation, however, my car never routes along 36. It goes way out of its way to avoid 36, offering surface street routes that add 20 minutes to the drive.

It's the fastest and shortest route, and I get the same behavior on either Fastest or Shortest routing modes.

If I do pull on 36 out of stubbornness, the car panics and demands I take every single exit until I reach I25.

Waze, Google Maps, and Apple Maps (and my own lying eyes) confirm the existence and superiority of routes along 36.

It even draws 36 on the map in grey as part of the sketch of the highway network when displaying routes.

My phone's connection is unstable on wireless Android Auto, and I don't like the interface anyway. I like the infotainment interface currently provided by Sync. I want to use the built in navigation for the battery estimation and routing to chargers.

Does anyone else have routes that your navigation system refuses to believe exist?

UPDATE: A friend of mine suggested it's because US-36 has a tolled express lane, and I have carpooling and tolls off. Unfortunately Denver has very expensive, but marginally convenient, tolled highways and I want to avoid nonsensical routes that are 1 minute shorter and $10 more expensive. I'm tempted to disagree, though, because I25 has tolled express lanes as well and I haven't had trouble navigating that highway.

Any way to debug this? Who do I complain to? Just about everywhere I drive to runs along 36 for at least a portion, and having to disagree with my nav system constantly, and getting nagged about driving there makes me turn off an otherwise excellent feature.

If you go into your nav settings, do you have it set to avoid toll roads or non highways?

 

[AutoDMC]

By popular demand, I did science on the way home.

As requested, I turned off "Avoid Toll Roads" and "Avoid Carpool Lanes". Pointing the nav software home, I was happy to see US-36 highlighted, along with a squiggle in downtown and a squiggle at the other end routing home. Happy day.

Alas! Things instantly went wrong. The car navigated an alternate route to I25, and shortly I realized it routed me along the $6 tollway. Avoiding the tollway through clever maneuvering, I proceeded to get a series of angry chimes as the nav system frustratedly tried to get me on the toll road. Eventually, it allowed that I could go on the regular lanes of I25, and routed me along the interchange to US-36.

Everything fell apart upon merging with US-36: the nav immediately demanded I merge into the carpool lane. As I drive by myself most days, this was untenable. After passing two entrances to the carpool lane, I went into nav settings and turned off carpool lanes. At which point the car immediately demanded I merge into the TOLL lane.

It now complained at every opportunity that I wasn't paying $2.50 an exit on an empty highway. Turning off toll roads, in a huff, the car demanded I take the next exit off US-36, for I was not worthy of controlled access high speed travel anymore. And it demanded every single exit until I got home.

Summary:

• Avoid Tolls and Carpool off: Constant demands to get into Carpool lane.
• Avoid Tolls off: Constant demands to get into the Carpool lane.
• Avoid Carpool off: Constant demands to get into the same lane, but today we call it a TOLL lane.
• Avoiding Tolls and Carpool: Constant demands to exit the highway and take surface streets.

The nav software prefers carpool over toll, apparently.

 

[AutoDMC]

I believe the map is powered by "Here" try contacting them:

https://www.here.com/contact

Link to report a map error:

https://mapcreator.here.com/?site=here_com_contact&l=42.0000,46.0000,3,normal

Are we sure it's HERE maps? The software is Garmin, right?

UPDATE: The Garmin support site states that the maps and most of the live data does indeed come from HERE.

 

[JohnFoxeSheets]

Since

By popular demand, I did science on the way home.

As requested, I turned off "Avoid Toll Roads" and "Avoid Carpool Lanes". Pointing the nav software home, I was happy to see US-36 highlighted, along with a squiggle in downtown and a squiggle at the other end routing home. Happy day.

Alas! Things instantly went wrong. The car navigated an alternate route to I25, and shortly I realized it routed me along the $6 tollway. Avoiding the tollway through clever maneuvering, I proceeded to get a series of angry chimes as the nav system frustratedly tried to get me on the toll road. Eventually, it allowed that I could go on the regular lanes of I25, and routed me along the interchange to US-36.

Everything fell apart upon merging with US-36: the nav immediately demanded I merge into the carpool lane. As I drive by myself most days, this was untenable. After passing two entrances to the carpool lane, I went into nav settings and turned off carpool lanes. At which point the car immediately demanded I merge into the TOLL lane.

It now complained at every opportunity that I wasn't paying $2.50 an exit on an empty highway. Turning off toll roads, in a huff, the car demanded I take the next exit off US-36, for I was not worthy of controlled access high speed travel anymore. And it demanded every single exit until I got home.

Summary:

• Avoid Tolls and Carpool off: Constant demands to get into Carpool lane.
• Avoid Tolls off: Constant demands to get into the Carpool lane.
• Avoid Carpool off: Constant demands to get into the same lane, but today we call it a TOLL lane.
• Avoiding Tolls and Carpool: Constant demands to exit the highway and take surface streets.

The nav software prefers carpool over toll, apparently.

While I'm truly sorry you're experiencing all of this, that was one of the funniest write-ups on this forum yet! Thank you for the laugh.

Perhaps you should try a phone for navigation instead. I hear they're aWazing!

 

[AutoDMC]

Perhaps you should try a phone for navigation instead. I hear they're aWazing!

Woe is me! For some clever setting buried in my phone causes Android Auto wireless to disconnect if a whiff of a WiFi hotspot goes by, and I haven't figured out how to turn it off yet.

And I refuse (REFUSE I SAY!) to wire up my phone. Why have a charging pad if you're going to use a cable like a neanderthal way back in 2021?

Besides, as much as I love Waze (I've used it for 8 years, and continue using it in my ICEy car), I despise the blown up Android Auto GUI. Maybe once Waze gets battery estimation and charger location I'll switch begrudgingly. But I would really love to use the nav built in to the car for those reasons.

I love just about everything about my car, it's super fun. But I love scrolling minimaps and just have to accept that I cannot route GPS to work or home. You know, the majority of my trips

 

[JohnFoxeSheets]

Woe is me! For some clever setting buried in my phone causes Android Auto wireless to disconnect if a whiff of a WiFi hotspot goes by, and I haven't figured out how to turn it off yet.

And I refuse (REFUSE I SAY!) to wire up my phone. Why have a charging pad if you're going to use a cable like a neanderthal way back in 2021?

Besides, as much as I love Waze (I've used it for 8 years, and continue using it in my ICEy car), I despise the blown up Android Auto GUI. Maybe once Waze gets battery estimation and charger location I'll switch begrudgingly. But I would really love to use the nav built in to the car for those reasons.

I love just about everything about my car, it's super fun. But I love scrolling minimaps and just have to accept that I cannot route GPS to work or home. You know, the majority of my trips

Hmmm, I don’t have any of these problems with my iPhone and Apple CarPlay…

(FWIW I actually don’t use Waze; I just wanted to make a stupid pun - I use either Apple Maps or Google Maps)

 

[AutoDMC]

Hmmm, I don’t have any of these problems with my iPhone and Apple CarPlay…

(FWIW I actually don’t use Waze; I just wanted to make a stupid pun - I use either Apple Maps or Google Maps)

I truly appreciate a good pun and clever turn of phrase.

Next step on this journey is to try my sister's iPhone and see what happens!

 

[AutoDMC]

Happy Day!

I finally found somebody who could intelligently resolve the errors on the highway (maybe, eventually).

The maps come from HERE, but the navigation comes from Garmin. I reached out to Garmin's cartography team, and they said:

It’s because of the Express Lanes having the fee. Our data provider removed the toll restrictions in previous data at our behest, but somebody at HERE has since put a few restrictions back in--only for three lines but that’s enough to break the continuity.

I’ve requested these three lines have the restrictions removed for next time.

For the moment, to get it to easily use this, you’d have to allow tolls in the navigation setup.

What HERE should do, in my opinion, is separately digitize the Express Lanes and put the fees on them and leave the main lanes alone, but they don’t seem to want to do that and it becomes a hodgepodge and the restrictions slip back in around our vigilance, unfortunately.

Got a map nerd and it's (maybe, eventually) going to get fixed. HERE doesn't necessarily care what a Pokémon in a car says, but they'll care about Garmin (maybe, eventually).

For those who run into navigation errors in the future, you'll want to reach out to cartography at garmin dot com. Ford can't do anything and HERE doesn't care, but the map nerds at Garmin have pull.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Happy Day!

I finally found somebody who could intelligently resolve the errors on the highway (maybe, eventually).

The maps come from HERE, but the navigation comes from Garmin. I reached out to Garmin's cartography team, and they said:



Got a map nerd and it's (maybe, eventually) going to get fixed. HERE doesn't necessarily care what a Pokémon in a car says, but they'll care about Garmin (maybe, eventually).

For those who run into navigation errors in the future, you'll want to reach out to cartography at garmin dot com. Ford can't do anything and HERE doesn't care, but the map nerds at Garmin have pull.

Honestly that’s exactly the sort of thing I expected. Roads are a bunch of segments, and if only one segment in the whole thing has the wrong parameters or ends up or disconnected it will throw off the whole route. HERE map data is a pile of junk and they don’t care to fix it. There are thousands of little mistakes in the map data where I live, not worth my time to fix them because they’ll never approve the changes. I wish Ford would switch map data providers or force them to fix all the mistakes. They need much better quality control (that doesn’t take years) and automated integrity checking so if a road attribute is suddenly is different in one segment it gets flagged.

Glad you got somebody competent.

Next question, do Garmin GPS units do the same thing, or do they use their own much better map data?

 

[Arsenic17]

So.... I am having the exact same issue with the Denver Metro area. It's not just US-36 though. I also have the same problem with the Carpool/Toll lanes along I-25 around Broomfield and even I-70 around Idaho Springs to the tunnel. If I am in Vail, the car will route me super far south to come back to Boulder via US-285. A 2.5 to 3 hour drive, instead of 1.5 hours. It is trying to avoid I-70 because there is a single toll lane. Mind blowingly stupid.

I also have the same problem around Westminster/Broomfield where it always tries to make me exit I-25 or US-36 early and drive through 30 red lights instead of staying on the interstate for miles longer.

This is the behavior I get when I have Carpool and Tollroad turned off. Prior to this, I got super annoyed with it suggesting paid Carpool lanes every mile when I am by myself.

The solution is clear. HERE maps needs to introduce an attribute to their roads that is something like "some tolled lanes" and "some carpool lanes". It should not be avoiding those highways entirely when there are free/general traffic lanes. What a joke.

EDIT: I've also had some experiences in smaller towns where it will route me down random town/neighborhood streets to get through the town, instead of just going down the main highway through town. It's almost like it is taking the shortest route, instead of the fastest. But I definitely have it set to Fastest in the settings.

Sponsored