Google Maps wish list

[cellio]

I really like Google Maps. It gives me clear images that help me understand complicated intersections before I get there, and unlike MapQuest, its trip planner has never steered me wrong. Its ability to show me stuff (hotels, synagogues, etc) near a particular location is very useful. It shows which streets are one-way, which is very helpful for navigating unfamiliar city areas. The hybrid view is nifty and even helpful.

I hope they're continuing to work on this. There are lots of features that would make it even better for me (and I hope others, but this post is all about me :-) ). Some that I've thought of in the last week:

• Traffic signals would be a helpful addition for city driving, if the data is available. I'd rather know that the left turn onto a busy street will be aided by a traffic light before I commit to it. Otherwise, I might choose a different route. I'm a cautious driver in poor-visibility situations.
• Speaking of traffic, it'd be really cool if it knew about normal congestion points. For instance, if I say I'm driving to Boston leaving Pittsburgh at such-and-such a time, an advisory saying "that has you driving through Hartford at their rush hour" would be nifty (and might be something that wouldn't occur to me as a factor). Even better if it can say "PA turnpike on Thanksgiving weekend; are you crazy?", but that's a different class of information.
• An overlay for known construction work along a planned route.
• The ability to give parameters to the trip planner, such as "via $road". The trip planner will give me the most direct route; I'd like a way to say "yeah I know, but I don't want to go on $road" or "I want to go by way of $road". The only way to do this now is to look at the map and figure out how to subdivide into multiple trips. (You might ask why I want the trip planner to tell me what I already know, in this case that I can take 70 to 68 to 79. I only wanted the trip length.) MapQuest used to have an "avoid highways" option that was sometimes useful for "regional" driving (e.g. Squirrel Hill to Monroeville not using the parkway), but that's still limited.
• For longer trips or trips through mountains, wouldn't it be cool if I could say "leave $city at $time on $day" and it showed me projected weather along the route, highlighting ice hazards and projected precipitation? ("Hey, are you sure you want to drive through the projected path of Hurricane Hugo?") Rarely helpful but nifty...

By posting this I'm not making a poorly-executed feature request; for that I'd chase down a "suggestions" address at Google, if one exists. I'm just noodling; I've already gotten more than I paid for. :-) (If I worked at Google I might noodle on some of these with code, but I don't.) If any of you have found ways to augment Google Maps (I wouldn't be surprised if there are relevant Firefox extensions), I'd love to hear about them. These days the information is usually out there; integration is the name of the game now.

Comments

[rjmccall.livejournal.com]

I was impressed when I saw that they took no-left-turns intersections into consideration (there are many, many more of these in Portland than I've ever seen elsewhere). Unfortunately, they don't display that information, so if you try to hand-optimize....

[cellio]

Nifty and oops, respectively.