Google loves your street
And so does Waze.
They really like sending traffic down your road when the main road is busy, and they really don’t care what your roads looks like, who lives there, whether your kids play there, or anything like that.
Which is why councils tend to close streets, use one ways, or ‘filter’ them.
Someone’s created a nice little tool which allows you to see which routes Google maps will suggest, at any given time of day. And it is really quite illuminating. I asked:
“Hey Google, tell me what my options are to drive from Sheen Gate to Chiswick High Road, and tell me how long it’ll take.”
She said:
“For a 24 hour period from 6am on 28 June, the fastest journey will be 761 seconds, and the slowest (at 5:45pm) will be 1,957 seconds.”
That means that at the worst time to travel, this will take you about 33 minutes, and at the dead of night, it’ll take you about 13 minutes. But she had quite a few route ideas, too.
Option 1 (above) actually ignores a banned left turn, in order to ignore a few moments of queuing at the Sheen Lane / South Circular Cross Roads.
Option 2 ignored the one way restriction on Coval Road, and before that it takes you down West Temple Sheen — surely not a road anyone thinks should be used for through traffic.
Option 3 used everyone’s favourite rat run, down Berwyn Road …
And option 3 went right off piste, using the park to miss the ‘Parkside’ area, entirely.
You can try your own experiment with the Traffic Analysis Tool, here: https://traffictool.rgp.me.uk/
If you don’t think residential roads should be treated like this, then you should think about a Low Traffic Neighbourhood.
