Beechwood Boulevard

A month after moving to Pittsburgh, we were getting furniture on Craigslist. The people we were getting our couch from said they lived on Beechwood Boulevard and provided an address. "Great!" I think. "I know where Beechwood is! I don't need to get directions!" So we drive to Beechwood (a few blocks away) and start looking at numbers. I didn't get directions because:

1) I believed this was either the fastest way or fairly close to it.
2) I believed this to be the simplest way to get to their house without getting us lost.

Both were false.

1) Fastest path.
Here's my starting location (green), and the location where I knew Beechwood to be at (blue). Presumably, the fastest way to get to our destination would be to drive to the known spot on Beechwood and turn the car in the appropriate direction, as indicated by the house numbers.



Here's the map of Pittsburgh with Beechwood highlighted. WTF. I bet you can guess where my ending location was.



Here's the actual shortest path to the destination, as provided by Google Maps.




2) Simplest path.

Ok, so maybe it's easiest though to get on Beechwood and go, so we don't get lost. Let's zoom in on the map.



That's right. That's TWO intersections with a street that turns 90 degrees. Guess how easy it is to miss those turns....Actual path taken by me and Saul:



It's hard to see, but that is us backtracking three times.

And finally, some sample directions provided by Google Maps, to help you navigate this #!&*#@! street.