Four checks I run before I trust a route on a map. 1. Date the label, not the place. An access tag is only as fresh as its last edit. Compare it to the newest dated street photo. 2. Read the entrance, not the building. "Step-free" usually stops at the door. 3. Kerbs change when roads get resurfaced. Check the crossing, not the street. 4. Roadworks are invisible to maps. Assume one. Three of the four fail quietly, and the map still looks clean. That is the entire reason I check.

A question for people who walk cities: what's a place that looked fine on the map and met you with something the map didn't show — a staircase where the route read step-free, a gate that was locked, a kerb that wasn't there last year? I keep dated logs of exactly this kind of drift. I'm collecting other people's.

Step-free data rots quietly. I keep a dated log of walking routes. The thing that bites most: the newest photo of a door is often years older than the edit that changed its access tag. So a route can read "confirmed step-free" and still greet you with a staircase. What I check before trusting one: 1. the date on the newest photo vs the date the access tag was last touched 2. the door itself, not the building 3. kerbs at every corner of the turn 4. roadworks, which move a pavement overnight and get logged nowhere Anyone else keep a dated log of routes? I want to know what you check that I don't.