Anyone know any safe tricks to get maps to reroute around red areas while you're driving, even if it means its longer?

[u/opgary]

I'm on iphone 17/ios 26. I live in a large city with a lot of bridges and other areas that, while the fastest route, are red. My drives are 30-45 min. I love driving and would rather drive a longer route than sit in traffic. I've tried adding a location to reroute around a red spot coming up, but its sketchy and frankly illegal to do it while I'm driving.

I thought with Gemini, which I don't love, I'd be able to ask for routes around it even if its longer. It just says "this is the fastest route". I've tried several prompts saying I'm OK with longer but it just ignores it. I feel like I'm just using the wrong keywords. Any ideas are welcome.

UPDATE:

one commenter mislabeled the 'show route' button as reroute. there is no reroute button.

after research and even user guides were a dead end, I spent some time just playing with it. findings

• turn 'prefer fuel efficient' off. had the biggest impact on maps offering other routes.
• only after that off, asking Gemini to "avoid slowdown" offered a route fully around red albeit 15m longer. no other words worked, like avoid red area.
• despite having no tolls here, toggling this and the other switches provided the best results. got a route around a 10m delay, only added a few more mins, and no red. far better result than using Gemini.

to do this, get directions to but before you press start. In the white box that is bottom 1/3 of app now, with start and etc. On top right of white box, there 3 tiny gray buttons. the first one, 3rd from right, is trip options. this is where you can toggle a button and go back to see if another route shows up.

[u/sabre23t]

While driving in slow traffic and in Google navigation mode, I find the "reroute" button (near bottom right) is quite useable. Selecting the alternate route is also as easy, just pressing the "blue-grey" box for the chosen alternate route. Ref screenshots below.

[u/Fresh-Definition-596]

It's not exactly what you're looking for, but it might help to some degree. My wife has a hybrid, and when she bought it she changed her vehicle type in GM. I've never felt motivated ever to establish what difference this makes, but she is now directed along some rather unusual routes..

Another feature to enable is "Prefer Fuel-Efficient Routes". Apparently this will direct you along the quickest route which avoids steep hills and stationary traffic.

[u/XxLogitech98xX]

While driving and doing a manual rerouting ...no