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Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#21

Post by mikeash »

morninj wrote: post #13
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a ticket for one of these types of things, some local ordinance prohibiting through traffic during rush hour. It's a great revenue generator for the local PDs. Lots of one-off traffic laws that people passing through won't (and really, can't) know about.

There's no way that the trickle of revenue is greater than the cost of enforcement. Officer salary and benefits, equipment maintenance, and all the costs associated with the court system...

The use of traffic tickets as supplemental revenue is a time-honored tradition with many real-world examples. Some places fund their entire police department this way.

I don't know why you'd think it couldn't be greater than the cost, either. It takes, what, five minutes to write a ticket, which might average $100? That's $1,200/hour of revenue. No way the officer costs that much, even including benefits and equipment. Most people just pay tickets, they don't contest them, so court costs will be small.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#23

Post by koolba »

> Connor and his neighbors put up “No Through Traffic” signs. And their city councilman, Tim Male, tried to get Google Maps to take note of the official detour, by calling the company and flagging it through the apps’ feedback feature.

Assuming the road itself is a public road (not a driveway or gated community), is there any legality to this?

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#24

Post by rlucas »

morninj wrote: post #13
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a ticket for one of these types of things, some local ordinance prohibiting through traffic during rush hour. It's a great revenue generator for the local PDs. Lots of one-off traffic laws that people passing through won't (and really, can't) know about.

There's no way that the trickle of revenue is greater than the cost of enforcement. Officer salary and benefits, equipment maintenance, and all the costs associated with the court system...

Don't think of it as a new standalone line of business; think of it as an "upsell" that your reps can incrementally sell, since you need them there to sell the occasional big ticket items.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#25

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

jdblair wrote: post #17

The City of Berkeley, CA, fixed this problem a long time ago, before Waze or even widespread GPS. Every few blocks they block side streets to all vehicles except bicycles. The effect is to be forced to take right or left turns that guide you back to the main through street. Streets parallel to the through streets that are now impassible to cars are marked as "bicycle boulevards" and provide safer routes for cyclists.…

Maryland has snow. Berkeley does not. Bikes only reduce traffic when people can ride them. Applying a Berkeley solution to a Maryland problem could only worsen congestion and quality of life.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#26

Post by rlucas »

paulddraper wrote: post #4

If it's faster to take a neighborhood street than the interstate , there's a problem. It's not normal. It sounds like residents are at war with transportation infrastructure instead.

For the record, see Braess' paradox:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess'_paradox

"Normal" and intuitive behavior is not what you can expect from a busy traffics system.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#27

Post by rlucas »

paulddraper wrote: post #4

If it's faster to take a neighborhood street than the interstate , there's a problem. It's not normal. It sounds like residents are at war with transportation infrastructure instead.

For the record, see Braess' paradox:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess'_paradox

"Normal" and intuitive behavior is not what you can expect from a busy traffics system.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#29

Post by Splines »

> And their city councilman, Tim Male, tried to get Google Maps to take note of the official detour, by calling the company and flagging it through the apps’ feedback feature.

Both Google Maps and Waze have ways (ha!) of editing the routes available in the map. A street I used to commute through suffered from the non-local traffic problem and the city erected "No thru traffic" signs. I updated both gmaps and waze to no longer me through there, it took probably about 30 min for both.

Oddly enough editing maps in gmaps was disabled for around a year (some time in 2014 to some time in 2015?). But I think it should be turned back on now.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#30

Post by HillaryBriss »

paulddraper wrote: post #4

If it's faster to take a neighborhood street than the interstate , there's a problem. It's not normal. It sounds like residents are at war with transportation infrastructure instead.

There seems to be a new reality, a new problem with population growth and GDP fetishism: GDP rises with the number of people participating in the economy, true. But GDP and accompanying tax revenues don't rise enough.

Infrastructure becomes overloaded and the government fails to expand capacity sufficiently. Tax revenues rise somewhat, but, again, not enough to pay for the necessary expansion. Traffic gets worse.

One solution would be to literally force everyone to take high efficiency, high density modes of transportation (trains, public buses, carpools, chartered buses, etc) but local and even state governments don't seem to have the legal power (or will?) to do so. The gridlock continues.

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