Apple Maps app is giving drivers dangerous wrong-way directions; how can it be fixed? Roadshow
Q: There is a dangerous and incorrect instruction on the iPhone Maps app. I don’t know how to contact them. If one wishes to enter Highway 101 north from Bailey Avenue just south of San Jose, coming from the west, the app tells you to turn right at the stop sign, just after crossing over the freeway.
If one does exactly what it says, you would turn into the exit from northbound 101 going in the wrong direction. The on-ramp to 101 north is about 25 feet before the stop sign, not at the stop sign.
There is little lighting at night. If a driver is unfamiliar with the area and following app instructions explicitly, they would end up going south on the northbound side of the freeway.
I read your column regularly and appreciate your common-sense approach. Thanks for your great advice and counsel.
Gela Russell
A: I bring this to you, Roadshow readers, to advise how Gela can get these Apple map app instructions corrected. I searched Apple’s website and tried a few phone calls but each call planted me on a phone tree that was clearly going to lead nowhere productive, given the options provided.
Given the seriousness of wrong-way accidents, a correction for this error could be a lifesaver.
Can you help?
Q: So about Saratoga Avenue…
Anonymous
A: Colin-the-city-spokesman replied about Saratoga Avenue concerns. “I know you already published a response, but if Hillsdale is any lesson, this won’t be the last time you hear about Saratoga Avenue,” he predicted.
This is one of San Jose’s priority safety corridors, with disproportionately high numbers of fatal and severe injury crashes. Speeding causes most of these crashes in San Jose, and greater traffic capacity can encourage speeding. As Saratoga Avenue was scheduled for pavement maintenance in 2023, the city’s transportation department took the opportunity to redesign lanes to slow high-speed traffic and make it safer to walk and bike here.
Paving and striping are finished, and further improvements will be completed by spring of 2024. When finished, the project will include high-visibility crosswalk markings, protected bike lanes with green pavement markings, bike detections, and physical vertical separation where possible so bicyclists have a safer space to travel, traffic signal head size upgrade and addition of yellow reflective borders to improve visibility, radar speed signs, and streetlight fixture upgrades for brighter lighting.
The city will continue to look at signal timing here and adjust, as needed, to further optimize traffic flow.
He also said that in developing the West San Jose Multimodal Transportation Improvement Plan, the city reached out to the public through the District 1 Council Office and two community meetings focused on the project.
Look for Gary Richards at Facebook.com/mr.roadshow or contact him at mrroadshow@bayareanewsgroup.com.