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Going Straight isn't always going straight

Bug Reports

Yesterday, driving the route plan below, there was heavy traffic around Joint Base Lewis McChord, and we were routed off of Interstate 5 (I5) to frontage roads a couple of times to avoid some of it. The last time this happened the last instruction of the detour was to go straight through an intersection of either the off-ramp or of two surface streets (unfortunately I’m not sure which it was now). Doing this put us back onto I5.

The guidance that I would have appreciated at this point was something like “continue straight to merge onto I5” — anything that confirmed that I was supposed to be rejoining the highway would have been good.

What I remember is that it was confusing. It looked like going straight was going to put me back onto I5 but it seemed (seems) to me that the meaning of “go straight” is “continue on the road that you’re on” (a surface street) and that changing from a surface street to a limited access highway would (should) be accompanied by some explicit guidance, e.g., “merge onto I5", so that you knew that you were making a transition and not misreading the instructions / landscape.

In this particular situation it was also confusing because I could see that the traffic on the highway was still heavy and moving slowly. So it wasn’t clear that I did want to get back onto the highway (this is a time when it would be super nice to have a way to easily zoom the map in 3D view — I would have liked to have been able to zoom out to see more context and to know if the logical thing to do here was to get back onto the highway).

I’m not positive which exit ABRP had me get off at, it may have been at exit 118 then continuing across Center Drive onto the I5 on-ramp. If that’s not where it happened, it is at least a very similar intersection.

https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=6b96fb96-dd96-4b8e-b36a-372ef8a76bf8

Where does this happen?
ABRP version number (found at bottom of settings menu)
Posted by ABRP User #811399 ·
Status: Awaiting Clarification4 comments

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Comments4

  • Samuel_ABRP

    Team•

    Aug 25, 2025

    Hey Doug,

    thanks for the detailed report. Would it be possible, to make a plan, with only the situation you were in? Like using the location where you had the confusing instruction as starting point, and a few hundred meters later as end point, so we can see exactly which instruction confused you?

    Thanks

    Samuel

  • Bo (ABRP)

    Team•

    Aug 11, 2025

    Thanks again for feedback! Our instructions are under constant discussion and improvements and I would like to take you proposals and experience into that discussion. It may take a couple of weeks before we can respond to this one, but we are taking into consideration!