Drivers keep going the wrong way down this Ottawa street. Google Maps is to blame

On any given day, Emily Robinson usually sees up to a dozen cars travel down her one-way street in the wrong direction.

That's not for a lack of signage — there are no-entry and one-way signs posted at intersections along Glen Avenue in Old Ottawa South. 

When you look at a map on Google Maps, the arrows along Glen Avenue point one way. When drivers ask for directions, though, Robinson said they're sometimes sent down it in the opposite direction.

"I'll see cars waiting at the lights, facing the wrong direction. I'm like, 'There's no light for you, what light are you waiting to change?'" she said.

Robinson said it's led to vehicles blocking others trying to exit her street, and several arguments.

She said the debacle began roughly two years ago when a patio area for businesses was set up near the intersection of Glen and Bank Street. 

She and other residents, even Uber drivers, have filed reports to Google to correct the error, and Robinson said she even appealed to the city councillor to ask for help.

"I'm just speaking to robots I think. ... It's never been corrected," Robinson said.

Glen Avenue roadblock

Glen Avenue also has issues when someone tries to drive to an address there. Robinson said users are sometimes directed to a different street.

She said she first discovered the issue when movers called her from a different address.

"Turns out they went to the corresponding address one street over," she said.

Robinson said it's a safety issue, especially with a school nearby, with vehicles heading the wrong way as children expect to run around safely.

"The number of near misses I've seen is scary," she said.

Common glitch, expert says

These wrong direction glitches are a relatively common sight for Dipto Sarkar, who teaches digital geography at Carleton University.

It's often seen in newly-built neighbourhoods across Ottawa.

"You have one-way streets not designated [as one-way]. Roads that are under construction still show up as useable because drivers start using them before they're open, and Google Maps learns there's a road there," he said.

Sarkar said some drivers likely drove in the wrong direction when the patio was removed, which gave Google conflicting information — and nobody was manually overriding the automated learning.

"It's just being overlooked. The bigger question is how we rely on these platforms to navigate the world and ignore signs on the road," he said.

In an email to CBC, a Google spokesperson said its escalation team is now trying to recreate the error in order to fix it.