Back in 2017, while I was temporarily relocated to the bay area from Switzerland, my family (wife and 3 young kids) and I heard this “phrase” quite often. We were not really locals and therefore we extensively used Google maps to move from point A to point B, go groceries shopping, find playgrounds or simply wander around visiting that beautiful area.
One thing that we had to take into account for each movement, was indeed that traffic was something usual and was really impacting the way we were living. In our recent times, where we try to live everything at its fullest, we always tried to be on “the fastest route” but it was always “despite usual traffic”.
I am hoping that a massively used tool such as Google Maps and its community of Local guides could play an important role in helping people go around more intelligently, avoiding creating congestions, use more often public transportation (where available!) and live hopefully without “usual traffic” !