I try to never head out somewhere without first going over the map directions on my IPad & where things get fuzzy, looking at Google Street view helps enormously. Fer instance: trying to find a new open mic location that was right on the riverside, but UNDER a high level bridge was impossible to spot with the map, but street view cruising the area, I could see it and figure out best approach and parking. I always liked directions with visual landmarks, anyhow. Before digital maps, I would get out local map books to plot trips to new locations.

Google maps and GPS don't always take you the best way, certainly not the way a local would do on a known route. The difficulties you experienced may be part of that flaw, and a work-around in planning ahead might be the only way to keep sane. A block away from me, on an old, ordinarily numbered street, lives a friend whose students NEVER find her house using their phones, as it insists she's two blocks farther along.

Go ahead and complain to Google- without input they'll never get it right!
Happy travels to easy locations.

Joanne in Siberia on the Heights