As I Suspected

Jesse, Jesse, Jesse... How could you have been so wrong? As a fellow believer of science, I expected better of you. When speaking about a network of roads laid out in a grid pattern, there can be no quicker path than two adjacent edges of the smallest possible parallelogram whose corners are both the starting and ending points, unless of course there is a route that cuts through the grid. Tis simple geometry. To help you visualize your folly, I created the following comparison of our proposed routes:

As you can plainly see, they are the same distance. I know that this must come a shock, possibly blowing your mind, but I think that you will appreciate what has happened here in time.