Mapsource goes insane

I did what you described. The route seemed similar; I didn't make any detailed observations, so there may be slight deviations.
Of course, the initial track was a straight line, so I had to recalculate to get the correct route.

I have never seen where "Avoid Toll Roads" is a reliable avoidance. I notice in your Hartford to Aurora route, it adds 100 miles to the route. That's $12 to $15 in gas, and about 2 hours drive time. How much are the tolls that are being avoided? Then again, looking at the difference of Tolls on and Tolls off, the longer route might actually be better because it avoids New York and other big cities and their traffic.

Exactly why "Avoid tolls" adds a whopping 500 miles to Aurora to Hartford is unclear. I can see that it absolutely refuses to cross the bridge near Newburgh on I-84 going east, even if I manually add via points to try and force it.

So many wacky things happen with Avoid Tolls, I myself never use it.

I think you would be better served by turning the avoidances back to 'normal', letting MapSource pick the optimum route and then just drag the route lines yourself when you know there are certain interstates or interchanges that you want to avoid. This has always worked very well for me.

I only get about 30 miles difference in total distance. 1129 km Hartford to Aurora and 1183 Aurora to Hartford. About 680 miles compared with 710 miles.
The major routing difference is probably caused by MapSource refusing to cross the Chesapeake bay Bridge going eastbound. Note that this is a toll road for eastbound traffic only.

I tried this, and here is my first result:

Click on me for the first result.

Then I looked at my routing preferences, and forgot that in Mapsource I had left U-Turns on. Shutting off Toll Roads and U-Turns gave me the second result:

Click on me for the second result.

So, it isn't just Toll Roads that are causing the problem, but U-Turns as well. Shut both of them off.

A lot of tolls in the NE and Mid-Atlantic are one way tolls, especially bridges and tunnels. Avoiding tolls in those areas would give completely different routes depending in direction. This is correct and normal. Forget about trying to avoid tolls, the people who manage them have already done the math and made it so that it would not be cost effective, or practical to avoid them.

-s

Yes! That's exactly what I got! It sent me into Canada!!!! What's the point of having the "avoidances" when that's what they do?

WOW! That first result was insane.

Avoiding tolls is not a good idea. Just pay the few extra dollars and save several hundred miles of driving.

Well, on his route, if he planned it right, he could have completely avoided tolls on the way down, and had only one toll to deal with on the way up.

On the way down, from Hartford, I-84 to I-81 to I-77, with the appropriate side roads to get him to Aurora. On the way back, reverse the directions and pay a $.50 toll at Newburgh, NY.

I'm rather familiar with the route, using it whenever I went to visit friends in North and/or South Carolina.

I did this, and got 744 miles in one direction, and 735 miles in the other. It looked okay to me. I have Mapsource 6.16.1, and City Navigator North America NT 2010.3 I did find that an older map version (City Navigator North America V8) gave me a weird route going north (but not as strange as the one you got).

Good call! I was running Mapsource 6.15.11 with City Navigator North America NT 2011.1, so I upgraded Mapsource to version 6.16.1 and that got rid of the insanity!

P.S. from Garmin's website:
Change History
Changes made from version 6.15.11 to 6.16.1:
- Fixed some auto-routing oddities.

Glad to see you figured it out, and are on the right track now.

The only road I would avoid under just about any circumstances is the 407 ETR in Ontario. That has to be one of the most expensive roads on the planet. Between 18 and 20 cents per kilometer plus a flat 40 cent trip charge added to the per kilometer toll. When I visit Canada, I ignore the GPS and stick with the QEW/403. For what the 407 costs, you could probably fill your tank for less to drive around it.

Just a note about toll roads:

There is another reason for avoiding toll roads, other than the obvious costs involved. I tried to avoid specific toll roads, namely I-95 between NYC and Washington DC. Why? Because it's the worst stretch of highway on the East Coast! Lumpy, bumpy, crowded, full of potholes and commercial traffic - it's the most stressful and unenjoyable road I've ever traveled on...and I don't care to go there ever again.

I just went to the site the highway has (http://www.407etr.com/) and it's even worse than you mentioned if your license plate can't be seen or recognized. $50.00 trip charge plus the per kilometer cost.

Good thing I'm going to Moncton and not Toronto.

what else is new?

There isn't much that surprises me.

If I knew I was going to Ontario I'd make sure to have Toll Roads avoidance on. It's fortunate though where I'm going, I get to pay a $.50 toll on the St. John Throughway (St. John, NB). Going home to the Boston area, I pay the toll at St. John, and if I don't avoid it, the Tobin Bridge in Boston ($3.00).

A big toll though is in the Atlantic Provinces, namely Prince Edward Island. Getting onto the island via the Confederation Bridge is free. It's in the neighborhood of CAN$40.00 to get off. I have a friend on the island that I'm tempted to visit, but the $40 is a bit much.