adjustments
Jan. 16th, 2023 07:38 pmYesterday I was poking around on Maps, like you do, seeing what my bike loop actually looked like, and I noticed a couple of potential shortcuts / alternate paths. I couldn't quite make out whether they were viable from the satellite view, though. Today I tried them out.
I enjoy being able to do this. The first time I noticed myself enjoying it, I had routed myself through DC instead of around the Beltway, which sounds like it ought to have been a mistake but actually worked out really well for me. When I lived in McLean I drove halfway around the Beltway every Monday afternoon for counseling. There's no traffic going into DC in the afternoon, so the first third or so of the route was clearer than taking the Beltway. And sure, the BW Parkway leading north out of DC was often clogged, but no worse than the northwest corner of the Beltway. Plus the Parkway had trees, for greenery and shade, and just a generally better vibe all around.
(As a result of finding/learning this route, I also finally understood why, half a decade earlier, I'd gotten a set of Mapquest directions from Arlington to Anne Arundel that included "Make a U-turn." At the time there was no proper way to switch from eastbound to northbound, you had to get on going south. I didn't try it myself at the time: I looked at those directions, said "this is dumb," and just took the Beltway around. Also, to my knowledge there is still no way to go the other direction, from south to west, without a U-turn.)
It feels good to be able to take an existing route and tweak it to maybe work better. It makes me feel like I've got some amount of ... mastery, maybe, of the area, of my trip. Like I know what I'm doing well enough to start messing with it and to have some idea of what the results of that might be. Not unlike cooking, I guess.
In the event, one of the two new routes absolutely did not pan out. I'd hoped to be able to avoid or at least delay a particularly nasty climb, and while the new route would avoid the uphill stretch I hate it introduces a much longer and still bad climb. The other... might work at least as an option. It goes up and over a nice cyclist/pedestrian bridge, which isn't great, and then into a maze of residential streets that I failed to navigate today (popped out onto a more major road that I'd wanted, and that I usually avoid). But now I know, and no harm done.
I enjoy being able to do this. The first time I noticed myself enjoying it, I had routed myself through DC instead of around the Beltway, which sounds like it ought to have been a mistake but actually worked out really well for me. When I lived in McLean I drove halfway around the Beltway every Monday afternoon for counseling. There's no traffic going into DC in the afternoon, so the first third or so of the route was clearer than taking the Beltway. And sure, the BW Parkway leading north out of DC was often clogged, but no worse than the northwest corner of the Beltway. Plus the Parkway had trees, for greenery and shade, and just a generally better vibe all around.
(As a result of finding/learning this route, I also finally understood why, half a decade earlier, I'd gotten a set of Mapquest directions from Arlington to Anne Arundel that included "Make a U-turn." At the time there was no proper way to switch from eastbound to northbound, you had to get on going south. I didn't try it myself at the time: I looked at those directions, said "this is dumb," and just took the Beltway around. Also, to my knowledge there is still no way to go the other direction, from south to west, without a U-turn.)
It feels good to be able to take an existing route and tweak it to maybe work better. It makes me feel like I've got some amount of ... mastery, maybe, of the area, of my trip. Like I know what I'm doing well enough to start messing with it and to have some idea of what the results of that might be. Not unlike cooking, I guess.
In the event, one of the two new routes absolutely did not pan out. I'd hoped to be able to avoid or at least delay a particularly nasty climb, and while the new route would avoid the uphill stretch I hate it introduces a much longer and still bad climb. The other... might work at least as an option. It goes up and over a nice cyclist/pedestrian bridge, which isn't great, and then into a maze of residential streets that I failed to navigate today (popped out onto a more major road that I'd wanted, and that I usually avoid). But now I know, and no harm done.