How can I find the nearest intersection via the Google Maps API?

Question

How can I find the closest intersection of the street I have coordinates of?

For instance, say I have street A running from south to north that is crossed by street X on the north and by street Y on the south.

Does the Google Maps API allow for finding coordinates of the nearest crossroad (either X or Y) of street A? I couldn't find it mentioned anywhere.

PS: The only solution I am aware of is to guess the lowest number and the highest number of building on the street A and to draw polyline between them. I am not sure about this though.

Hydrophilic

I wonder if you could hack GDirections to do this? – Angry

I am not sure, I ill have to dive in GDirections API to find out, but I have searched for the answer (both google and google maps support groups) and nobody really seem to know, if this is possible. – Hydrophilic

I was thinking you could get the walking directions to two points so that it would force you to turn on the first crossroad. But, i doubt this would be reliable. Is there a google maps search operator like "nearest intersection" or something? – Angry

no, there is not. it would help if there was a function to provide an array of coordinates of the nearest intersections. – Hydrophilic

Answer 1

[see comments above]

unfortunately, no. even with gdirections, there is no way to locate the beginning and end of the street (coordinates). I have solved it by using the hack proposed above: looping over building numbers from 1 to XXX.

if accuracy is 6 for a while (8 = building number, 7=intersection, 6 = approximate address only) that means no new numbers exist. so i just take first point (lat/long), middle one and the last one (all with accuracy 8) and create path between them. this however sometimes only provides only a part of the street as other parts are either without any buildings or google does not have further data :(

Hydrophilic

Answer 2

You might consider using the TIGER data from the USGS. You can get that information from there, but it's not as easy to play with as the Google data.

Halftrack

thanks, Adam, but unfortunately I am not mapping US. that's also hy accuracy is somehow limited (8 is the highest I can get at some streets). – Hydrophilic