Bing Maps fails with Downtown Houston location pinpointing

I use Bing Maps primarily. It’s partly because I’m still an MS fan at heart, but also because I have little interest in giving Google more info about me. However, Bing Maps is just plain terrible at location searching. Maybe not as bad as Apple Maps, but definitely far from what Google has.

Searching for “Downtown Houston” made me laugh today. I commented earlier to a post complaining about how slow transit was back in the time he was using it. I wanted to show him it’s not that bad today (thought not that great either), and looked up quick time info based on Bing Maps transit calculations. I didn’t notice at all that my quick search for “Downtown Houston”’ was terribly mistaken on Bing Maps before telling him it was only kind of better (not taking into account that it was actually nearly 50% better if downtown were correctly located.). Here’s an image to show you the problem:

For those that have never been to Downtown Houston, the Downtown area of Houston is contained within the loop of the freeways I-45 and Highway 59. However, Bing Maps believes Downtown Houston is somewhat more west of where it actually is along Buffalo Bayou Park. Houstonians would probably be laughing at Bing if they knew this. It’s really sad that Bing does not know where our actual Downtown is. It’s not very far off, but it’s not there either. I marked what I consider the center of Downtown Houston to be with the orange place marker with the 1 on it.

Google Maps has it right as usual.

Well it’s not what I’d consider the center or even bustling part of Downtown, but it is in Downtown. Why can’t Microsoft get this right? Who knows? I definitely reported it and repositioned it on feedback though.