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Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

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Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#301

Post by driverdan »

drauh wrote: post #187
e40 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did have an issue with drivers coming around a blind curve too quickly to be safe, though, so I did what these homeowners ought to be doing and contacted my local government about getting my street assessed for a traffic calming project. I hope what happened in my neighborhood doesn't happen in yours. One person vetoed a stop sign that would have made our street much, much safer due to the blind curve and how fast…

I've seen one instance where homeowners in the neighborhood vetoed a proposal to have a centerline painted on a broad street through the neighborhood. Total width was probably about 3 lanes, and many people used it as a "cut through", and going pretty fast. However, painting a centerline would have made property values go down, the homeowners argued, as that would have meant that the street was no longer a residentia…

Studies have shown that traffic is slower on roads without lines. If your goal is to slow down traffic you don't want a line.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#302

Post by balls187 »

pc86 wrote: post #259
Jacqued wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> neighborhoods who didn't voluntarily agree to increased traffic just to make my commute shorter, this is free loading and their roads are for them to get to and from their home It's nothing against you but is this a common opinion in the US? People in neighborhoods "own" the streets? As a Frenchman saying this is astonishing as I would naturally consider that I do own the street just as much as they do and it's my…

> It's nothing against you but is this a common opinion in the US? Not by anyone who understands how roads are paid for.

> Not by anyone who understands how roads are paid for.

Interestingly enough, WAZE does not pay for those roads.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#303

Post by lsllc »

gooseus wrote: post #196

As a Waze user, this has actually been a source of increasing frustration for me. I do not want to save 1-3 minutes on a commute by cutting through unfamiliar residential areas where deaf kids play and homeowners give me dirty looks as I go over their oversized speed bumps. I use Waze not so much as a super-optimal routing tool, but as an aggravation-avoidance tool. Traffic and speed-traps aggravate me, sure... but n…

Agreed. I often ignore it -- Waze really over-optimizes; you end up going left-right-left-right down narrow streets just to save a minute.

Mostly, I'd rather sit in the traffic on the main thoroughfare and just chill out listening to music or the radio. Not to mention, the increased mileage, wear and tear and fuel consumption from the back roads and constant turns (and disrupting otherwise quiet neighborhoods).

Waze also doesn't seem to grasp the "cost" of a left turn, particularly at a busy intersection when there's a fair bit of traffic (and no traffic control). I know Waze monitors the transit time for road segments, but I don't think it includes time waiting to turn or maybe it averages it over the day and thus ends up underestimating.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#304

Post by zippergz »

Jacqued wrote: post #254
cmurf wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped using Waze because of its nutty directions: deep dives into neighborhoods, stop signs every two blocks, piles of turns, circuitous routes, etc. I do not like coming to a complete stop every two blocks, I'll take 5mph continuous over that. I do not like dumping my traffic annoyances onto neighborhoods who didn't voluntarily agree to increased traffic just to make my commute shorter, this is free loading and…

> neighborhoods who didn't voluntarily agree to increased traffic just to make my commute shorter, this is free loading and their roads are for them to get to and from their home It's nothing against you but is this a common opinion in the US? People in neighborhoods "own" the streets? As a Frenchman saying this is astonishing as I would naturally consider that I do own the street just as much as they do and it's my…

Portraying this as a sense of "owning" the street is unneccessarily perjorative, IMHO. I don't think that many people would argue with the idea that, all else being equal, having less traffic on the street in front of your house is a good thing. Less noise, less polution, less risk of pets and children getting hit by cars. So it shouldn't be surprising that people dislike it when traffic in front of their houses increases, and I also think it's pretty uncharitable to assume that this is because they're NIMBYs or otherwise have bad motivations.

In the broader sense, I think this relates to the tragedy of the commons. There are certain societal conventions that tend to make life better on the whole. Keeping traffic to main streets is one of them. Yes, I might gain a minute or two by cutting through your neighborhood, and you might make up a little time cutting through mine. But I don't take that shortcut, because I know it's determintal to the neighborhood and my benefit will be very small. Part of that comes with the expectation that others will in turn do the same for me.

Maybe this is a USAian way of thinking, but I believe that if everyone behaves in the most selfish possible way ("you don't own the street, so you don't get to complain if I use it to save 15 seconds"), life becomes worse for everyone.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#305

Post by warcher »

enjo wrote: post #145
warcher wrote: post #90

I have gotten in not one, but several, extremely heated discussions over the years after parking on a public street in front of somebody's house. I'm not a big defender of, say, Airbnb running gypsy hotels in secret defiance of leasing and HOA agreements, but people have a lot of funny ideas about ownership of things that aren't theirs to own .

It seems to me that you see this problem mostly in suburbs. People didn't buy a house, they bought a lifestyle . A particular lifestyle that has no room for even the slightest inconvenience from others. During my suburban days I was always sort of amazed by the entitlement people had around me. I saw near fistfights over people parking in front of other peoples houses. Or a particularly memorable argument in which pe…

Well, you see a little microcosm of how the whole San Francisco housing boondoggle was born. New York's building codes in particular are... stunning in their complexity. Same shit, different city.

People get real, real, real hot about their houses. And their parking. And people driving by their house, or walking past their house on the sidewalk. Or what gets built across the street from their house... et cetera.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#306

Post by st3v3r »

Jacqued wrote: post #254
cmurf wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped using Waze because of its nutty directions: deep dives into neighborhoods, stop signs every two blocks, piles of turns, circuitous routes, etc. I do not like coming to a complete stop every two blocks, I'll take 5mph continuous over that. I do not like dumping my traffic annoyances onto neighborhoods who didn't voluntarily agree to increased traffic just to make my commute shorter, this is free loading and…

> neighborhoods who didn't voluntarily agree to increased traffic just to make my commute shorter, this is free loading and their roads are for them to get to and from their home It's nothing against you but is this a common opinion in the US? People in neighborhoods "own" the streets? As a Frenchman saying this is astonishing as I would naturally consider that I do own the street just as much as they do and it's my…

It's more a "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should" issue.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#307

Post by LanceH »

superuser2 wrote: post #121
throw7 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the opposite... knowing an area well usually makes dangerous drivers. Most accidents happen within some miles from home, mainly because one "knows" the area so well one lets their guard down.

"Most accidents are close to home" is a Stat 101 Day 1 example of fallacious statistical reasoning. Hint: what do nearly all routes driven have in common?

I do know that if I never go within 20 miles of my house, I have an 80% chance of living forever.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#309

Post by zippergz »

mattmcknight wrote: post #290
zippergz wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had this problem as well. Another one I've run into is that Waze doesn't seem great at taking into account things like stop signs and traffic lights in my area. So it will re-route me down some street that has little traffic, but requires me to stop every block. Even if this doesn't actually take more time, it is certainly more aggravating. At this point I ignore Waze re-routes unless I have a good indication th…

Lights in particular are a hard problem. Depending on timing, some are a 3 minute wait, or none at all. If someone can start to model traffic light timing, it could really improve flow.

Yes. Waze has a lot of data on how people are moving on the streets, so I'd think they'd be able to figure in the average wait at any given traffic light. Maybe they do factor that in somehow, but I've seen no evidence of that. Any time sitting at a stop light seems to just extend my estimated arrival time by that amount.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#310

Post by Piskvorrr »

balls187 wrote: post #302
pc86 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's nothing against you but is this a common opinion in the US? Not by anyone who understands how roads are paid for.

> Not by anyone who understands how roads are paid for. Interestingly enough, WAZE does not pay for those roads.

And its users?
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