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This is against law regulations in many countries (i.e. Holland). Why then? What is the reason behind?

I can, somehow, understand cornfields, lakes etc., because you can easily avoid those, when you have your head open. But, leading a biker against traffic on a one-way streets may easily get him into a serious problems. And isn't that easy to be avoided.

Is there any reasonable explanation, why it was implemented (not removed yet) in Google Maps?

Here is an example blog article, that the same happens when using bikepaths in London.

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  • Because making directions is hard? Because cyclists would ignore it anyway? Because the laws vary by country and it's difficult to keep track of them? Honestly, the only people who can answer this with any kind of authority is the Google Maps team. All your question will do is invite guesses and speculation, and those aren't the kind of questions we want here. – ale Jul 21 '15 at 13:46
  • What makes you so sure, that it will bring only guesses and speculations? I actually thought, that there is certain number of people, who know correct, direct answer. Answers to questions like that can be both speculative and straight. BTW: Cyclist ignoring signs is a quite poor argument. You have actually narrowed problem to level of "We don't need any laws. People would ignore them anyway. We can all live in an anarchy". That's a little bit too broad. – trejder Jul 21 '15 at 19:22
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    Because it's very often what we see with "why" questions. Unless the development have very publicly talked about their reasoning, there's no way for anyone else to know. All we can do is make educated guesses. These sites are much better for "how" questions. – ale Jul 21 '15 at 19:44
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Because you need to know which streets are one way only.

Mapping is rather expensive, and the layout may change without warning, so it may go out of date quickly. Also, the mapper may have incorrectly noted down a street as two way for bikes, since many streets are indeed.

Of course, Google could throw in more resources and polish this, but there is no real need, as cyclist have eyes and can see that it is a wrong direction. If you are still online, you can take the next turn and let it recompute the route for you.

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  • Unfortunately, your answer is either incorrect or not satisfy the question. Google Maps leads bicyclists against traffic even on a one-way streets, it already know as one-way -- i.e. against one-way markers put on these street by the very own Google Maps. – trejder Jul 23 '15 at 7:14
  • @trejder as I said, some streets are one way only for cars (hence, the markers you see), but be considered as two way for bikes. Since there are many of these, a mislabelling is not strange. It is possible that in some areas they are considered two ways for bikes by default. – Davidmh Jul 23 '15 at 12:33

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