Many orthogonal, North-aligned projections will look fairly similar same when zoomed into a street at least a couple degrees latitude away from the poles. Ideally, you would always use a 3D projection of that section of the sphere (e.g. Google Earth not Google Maps) or a local two-point equidistant projection since these are always the most accurate. An orthogonal projection only suffices in common usage because there is so little need for maps near the poles.

In any case, I should have qualified my original comment with: "for a whole-earth map or a map showing distributions". Mercator is always a bad projection for a map showing distributions because it seriously misrepresents area, undermining the effort to accurate portray distribution.