Any NY’er knows to avoid the George Washington Bridge, if at all possible. I frequently travel from. Northern Westchester to South Jersey and Staten Island. I can avail myself of two Bridges before the GWB, yet the GPS consistently routes me there…I know to avoid the guidance and it will re route, but it seems that on the return trip, it will always attempt to bring me across the Hudson, only on the GWB, which incidentally happens to be the more costly toll. So I got to wondering if there was some sort of logic built into the program to seek out the more costly travel options. It certainly is not the quickest option…Am I just being a crotchety middle aged man or do others experience similar situations in their locale?
I vote for crotchety middle aged [del]man[/del] goldfish. Do you really need directions for a route you frequently travel?
I used to swear by my Garmin Nuvi. But on my recent trip to Israel I switched to Waze app on my Android phone, because Garmin had serious problems around Jerusalem area.
I am a convert now. It’s Waze all the time. The Nuvi has been abandoned. Waze is great with rerouting you around traffic, and it does nifty stuff like telling you where the cops are.
The only thing it is having problems with is taking into account HOV lanes - but then I wouldn’t expect it to know whether I am alone in the car or not.
I like my Nuvi, but it isn’t always fast enough to tell me when to turn. And streets here don’t always have signs, so “turn right at Winter Street” doesn’t always help. And sometimes, the actual designation of the…path…is iffy. Is it that road? Side street? Private driveway? Walking trail? Alley? Bridle path?
That said, BaldDude, I’m able to set my Nuvi to avoid tolls, avoid highways, or take the fastest route. Check the settings.
Eh, on second thought I guess a GPS would be helpful during those times when your known routes are closed or congested and you need an alternate route. In that case, could you put in a city as a waypoint that you know will route you to a preferred bridge? For instance, a city or town that is on the other side of the bridge such that the GPS would route you over that bridge? Say, South Nyack as a waypoint if you wanted to take the Thruway? (Just guessing based on a look at a map, I’m not familiar with the roads there.)
The GPS is a wonderful tool but like all tools is not infallible. I like to have it running and it helps ‘remind’ me where I need to go, but ultimately I can’t expect it to understand the subtle nuances of an old East Coast city’s traffic patterns.
It’s perfectly okay to turn the sound off, drive the way you want and occasionally check the device regarding your progress.
Even apps which show traffic congestion can be faulty, so local knowledge and driver intuition are still the best methods to get you where you need to go.
My move to the Boston area is why I bought a GPS in the first place, and it’s why I always have at least one in the car. There is no logic to the streets: I am fairly sure that street design consisted of someone putting out a big map, and someone else dumping a large pot of cooked spaghetti on that map. “Yup, that looks good!”. Or perhaps a crew of drunken toddlers with crayons.
One time, I was in the Bronx on business and set the GPS to take me home to northern NJ, because I don’t know my way around the Bronx very well. Naturally, it routed me to the GWB. I didn’t want to go that way because I knew the GWB would be a parking lot at that time of day, so I resolutely made my way north and eventually got across the Tappan Zee bridge. Oddly, the GPS failed to reset, and wanted me to turn around, go back across the TZB and go over the GWB instead. As I turned into my driveway, the GPS showed an arrival time of about two hours later, as it was still trying to get me to go back to the Bronx and go over the GWB. Very odd, and the only time it ever did something like that.
Precisely… It is set to absolutely take that bridge. I don’t always need the directions, but it does help to track time…and sometimes the traffic alerts help in the ny metro area
I’m just outside DC in Maryland and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway (“B/W Parkway”) is just a mile or so away.
There are very few daylight hours that road is not all fucked up for one reason or another, and my phone’s GPS (I use Waze) seems to have a bizarre obsession with routing me to it no matter where I’m going, even if my destination is nowhere near anywhere the Parkway goes.
Well, if any NYer knows to avoid it, then why it is so busy?
Sounds like a Yogi Berra ism: the bridge is always crowded - that’s why no one goes there.
Im a little confused-------the Lincoln Tunnel, Holland Tunnel, or the Verrazano through the SI parking lot to and from the Goethall’s Bridge are any better? 
I travel to LI to and from PA all the time, and every time Im told to take the GWB.
It sucks, and a few times ignored GPS and tried going through Manhattan, or fighting the traffic it get to the Verrazano, but the GWB despite its flaws is still the quickest option for me.
They paved the cow paths. Seriously. I’m also told that Somerville at one point intentionally made the map even uglier, to prevent people from speeding through their pleasant little town on their way out of Boston to the farther reaches of the 'burbs. Given that they’ve paved over at least two very convenient trolley lines that I’m aware of, I’d believe it.
I liken Boston to walking around inside the English language. It looks like it does because 400 years ago, someone made a bunch of totally arbitrary decisions, and now we won’t change it because we’ve all memorized it this way.
Why do you consult a machine to tell you what you have already learned?
Do people really want to surrender their decision-making to any machine they can find?
I am reminded of a person in the shop where I was a (mainframe) computer operator.
She thought the time displayed by the computer was somehow super-accurate.
Actually, it was the number input by the guy who IPL’d (“booted”) the machine that morning.
Newer Garmins (past two to three years) have route avoidances in their settings. Not only for categories (e.g. tolls or ferries), but you can put in custom landmarks, roads or point-to-point avoidances.
We often use the GPS on routes we know, especially slightly complicated routes (i.e. routes with multiple lanes and switchovers where a missed exit could add a non-trivial headache). I know we can get there without it, but I could also get into the city without road signs—but they’re a help. It’s a verbal and additional reminder of where and when to be.
Also recognize that getting into different parts of Manhattan from the same place can involve overlapping but significantly different routes. A GPS keeping track of that frees up part of the mind to concentrate on the road or on remembering that errant commercial jingle from your youth.
As for the GW, it’s our preferred route in. When we last lived in the city we were in SI, right off the VZ. That was hell getting in. Now, just west of the Hudson in downstate, we cruise right to any of the city chokepoints. When coming in on off hours (we never schedule meetings before eleven), the GW is almost always the widest open, whereas the Lincoln and Holland are frequently bogged down by at least ten to fifteen minute delays just to get into the tunnels. Lots of variants to think of on the way in (accidents, what the West Side or FDR look like, where we’re going, etc.), but that’s our general experience.