In recent weeks, residents of Vernon, British Columbia, and Vancouver have raised concerns regarding apparent discrepancies in Google Maps address mapping system. A personal experience while driving in Vernon shed light on this issue. When I input the address 3207 30th Ave into Google Maps, the app confidently directed me to 3207 34th Ave, which was misleadingly located four blocks north. Thankfully, my attentive passenger caught this error, preventing me from heading in the wrong direction.

Shortly thereafter, my cousin, aware of my history with Google and my tech-savvy background, approached me with a troubling issue regarding another address. The location 138 W 6th Ave in Vancouver was being inaccurately displayed as being 2.4 kilometers (or approximately 1.5 miles) away from its actual site. I decided to investigate further, and the absurdity quickly became apparent when I attempted to get directions between 136 W 6th Ave and 138 W 6th Ave. While these two addresses are next door to each other in reality, Google Maps suggested a lengthy route that seemed completely unnecessary.

For added context, I also performed a test by searching for Clark & Page Casting Studios in Google Maps. Upon copying its listed address and requesting directions from itself, the result was laughably inaccurate a suggested 2.4 km journey for what should have been a zero-meter walk. This peculiar problem spanned various searches; for instance, navigating from 138 W 6th Ave Unit 1B to 138 W 6th Ave #2b resulted in the same erroneous 2.4 km walk.

Such inaccuracies have real repercussions, particularly for aspiring actors who have been arriving late to auditions due to these misguided directions.

While discovering a single error is intriguing, uncovering multiple discrepancies suggests a systemic problem within Google Maps. Eager to delve deeper, I began to scour Google Maps for any other addresses that seemed to be misplaced. To my surprise, I stumbled upon three additional alarming examples.

Firstly, 1951 W 19th Ave in Vancouver was mapped approximately 2.1 kilometers away from its intended location along 1900 block of W 19th Ave, landing it ten blocks away from where it should be. Another oddity was noted with 1355 W 17th Ave in North Vancouver, which was incorrectly positioned within Vancouver itself, albeit on the correct street but in the wrong block the 900 block instead of the 1300 block. This was particularly perplexing because W 17th Ave doesnt even exist in North Vancouver, raising serious questions about the underlying address databases accuracy.

So, what could be causing these puzzling errors? One possibility might be typos. For instance, 138 W 6th Ave seems to be mistakenly mapped to the location where 1038 W 16th Ave which does not exist would logically be found, indicating a potential pair of single-digit errors. Similarly, 3207 30th Ave could have mistakenly swapped a '0' for a '4', while 1951 W 19th Ave appeared to be a misplacement for 951 W 19th Ave. Yet, this explanation falters when faced with the issue of 1355 W 17th Ave, as it stretches the definition of 'typo' far beyond reason.

Furthermore, I detected an inconsistency at 5 Montcalm St, where the actual address of the building is 1131 W 16th Ave. Upon investigation, it became clear that the '5' visible on one door of the corner building indicates a unit number, not an actual street number. This suggests a possible misunderstanding either by a person or an AI that misinterpreted the '5' as part of the street address.

The revelations about the errors present in Google Maps highlight a critical flaw in its address mapping methodology. It appears that the service operates off a database that may not accurately reflect the physical layout of cities. This database is thought to be a collective of information gathered from various sources, including Google Maps own entries, city records, or even data derived from Street View. Unfortunately, this database lacks the necessary checks to ensure that the addresses it maps actually make sense in relation to their respective geographical locations.

Typically, address mapping requires a set of rules that dictate how street addresses function within a specific city. For Vancouver, these rules are well understood, yet Google Maps seems oblivious to them. A few vital sanity checks that could rectify these errors might include verifying that the address falls within the geographical boundaries of the entered city, ensuring proximity to the relevant street, and confirming that the address aligns with the correct hundred block of that street.

Given the apparent prevalence of these errors, with five found in a matter of days across two cities, it stands to reason that a systematic review of the database is necessary. While its clear that Google Maps uses an address database to correlate various addresses to their respective parcels of land, its also capable of making educated guesses about where nonexistent addresses would likely be situated based on surrounding real addresses.

In a conversation with the business located at 138 W 6th Ave, they reported that these mapping issues are relatively new phenomena, surfacing around mid-March. My past experiences with Google Maps feedback mechanism had been fruitful, leading me to confidently submit corrections for the erroneous addresses. However, my luck seemed to have run dry this time. After receiving an acknowledgment of my corrections from Google, the inaccuracies persist two weeks later.

In contrast, the fix I reported for 3207 30th Ave was implemented relatively quickly, showing up within a few days. This raises questions about the efficiency and effectiveness of Google Maps error correction protocols.

It is worth noting that while some errors, like those at 3207 30th Ave and 138 W 6th Ave, represent real addresses that lead users astray, others are harmless, concerning non-existent addresses that are placed inaccurately.

As I continue to uncover these mapping discrepancies, I invite readers to share their experiences with similar anomalies in the comments below. Similarly, if anyone working within Google Maps has insights to share, please do not hesitate to reach out.

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