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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

#311

Post by niccaluim »

pnathan wrote: post #246
FroshKiller wrote: post #2

I'm a homeowner and an active Waze user. The street I live on is not "my" street. It's a public street that any licensed driver may use. 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. The city created a three-way stop before th…

> I'm a homeowner and an active Waze user. The street I live on is not "my" street. It's a public street that any licensed driver may use. This is the correct analysis. Unless it's a gated subdivision, the streets are operated by the government for the broad public benefit; not the local benefit of the homeowners.

It's the correct legal analysis, sure, but does it encourage considerate behavior? Does it help or hurt the goals behind zoning laws and traffic engineering? I think it's one-sided to write the whole problem off this way.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#312

Post by twoodfin »

sokoloff wrote: post #72
koolba wrote: post #23

> 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?

Petition the town to do it and it's legal. Putting up bootleg signs? Probably not legal. It sounds like they may have had town cooperation. (In Cambridge, MA and surrounding towns, we have many "no turn onto this street between 7-9 AM and/or 4-7 PM" and the street I live on is two way for 99% of its length and one way for the last 20 feet or so [to prevent it being used as a cut-through.)

I may be mistaken, but from following along with my helpful city councilor's email list, I believe Cambridge actually has to get state approval for all of these. I think that's a good thing.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#313

Post by imgabe »

FroshKiller wrote: post #2

I'm a homeowner and an active Waze user. The street I live on is not "my" street. It's a public street that any licensed driver may use. 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. The city created a three-way stop before th…

You have no idea. Takoma Park, the town mentioned in the article, is also a self-declared "Nuclear Free Zone". That is, trucks carrying nuclear weapons are not permitted to drive through the town.

Not that any ever have, or would ever likely have reason to, or that there is any way they could enforce that if the military decided they needed to do that for some reason, but Takoma Park felt they needed to make that clear to the world.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#314

Post by rplst8 »

Shebanator wrote: post #274
rplst8 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but eventually, if the roads are big enough, time itself is the deterrent to commuting a long distance. We've never gotten to that point since highway traffic never moves at speed during rush hour. The other driving factor would be wear and tear on the car - and the costs associated with maintaining a vehicle, but since Maryland doesn't have a yearly vehicle inspection, people are free to drive around on bald ti…

In the California Bay Area, this is not true. There is a non-trivial number of people who are willing to commute 2+ hours each way in order to live in bigger, cheaper houses in "safer" neighborhoods.

The same is true of the Washington DC metro area... However, in both cases, I would bet that the distance involved is about 50-60 miles. If that traffic were moving at speed, it would be an hour commute - and I would submit very few people would put more than that amount of mileage on their car everyday (>30,000 miles/year).

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#315

Post by pilsetnieks »

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…

I'm not American either but I can understand not wanting excessive traffic in streets that were meant for feeding the suburbs. It's not that there shouldn't be cars on those streets but they're meant to connect homes not as an extension of the highway. As such, they are being somewhat misused. It's not unlike city zoning - for example, you wouldn't want to have an industrial plant in the middle of a residential zone, so why would you want commercial traffic going through the back streets of a residential neighborhood?

One part of the issue is being addressed by restricting traffic (e.g. forbidding left or right turns, etc.) but it also inconveniences the locals. I think a part of a better solution would be if the streets and roads were graded with more nuance in the maps Google/Waze/others use. As it is now, there is little distinction between a proper street or a small back street that's really just a single lane split for both directions, or something that's basically a glorified driveway.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#316

Post by pilsetnieks »

balls187 wrote: post #293
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? People in neighborhoods "own" the streets? Yes, but it's nuanced. Own the streets in order to control the environment of our mini-castles (our homes), but know that we don't have a legal basis to stand on. Neighborhood streets weren't organized in a manner to accommodate high traffic patterns, and it ends up being a real issue for local residents. It'…

France is much more than Paris, and even in Paris you cannot see the dog shit that has been cleaned up.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#317

Post by drewcrawford »

mikeash wrote: post #8
JoshTriplett wrote: post #5

This quote seems very telling: > It used to be that only locals knew all the cut-through routes, but Google Maps and Waze are letting everyone know So they don't have a problem with people cutting through as long as they're "locals"; it's when the outgroup starts doing the same thing that people get up in arms. If the through traffic is breaking traffic laws, that's a solvable problem. If the street has insufficient…

That could just be about quantity, not groups. If only locals do it, that's a relatively small amount of traffic. If outsiders join in, that could be orders of magnitude more. I do agree with the overall point. If your local road is an attractive route and people use it to go places, don't blame the messenger. But it doesn't have to be about tribalism.

Of course it is necessarily about tribalism. If it were not we could just install an access gate that limits the throughput of the road to X cars per hour (without regard to whether you live on it or not) and consider the problem resolved. But a homeowner would oppose having an equal share with any other citizen for a road on which they live.

Or, to see this the other way: consider a driver shrouded in a veil of ignorance, with the knowledge of what road he lives on and its traffic situation temporarily hidden from him. He sees a shortcut through a neighborhood that may be his, but it's statistically unlikely to be in his large city. He takes it.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#318

Post by Grishnakh »

cmurf wrote: post #229
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…

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…

>I do not like coming to a complete stop every two blocks, I'll take 5mph continuous over that.

Not only that, but coming to a complete stop frequently is bad for fuel economy. I'd rather be able to configure the app to maximize fuel economy (within reason, I also want to use highways where available even though I get better economy cruising at 50 than at 70). Saving 10 seconds just isn't worth the trouble.

The other problem with this kind of overly-aggressive routing is that it's frequently just plain wrong. You can get routed onto some single-lane country road where you can't pass; if there's no one else on the road, then great, you can go fast around the curves and make decent time. But you're also likely to get stuck behind some slow-ass, and that means you'll end up taking more time than if you had taken a more mainstream route on a 2-lane road. I use Google Maps (in combination with my built-in nav based on HERE) and even though it's not as aggressive, it does this to me a lot and it's annoying.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#319

Post by CodeCube »

neves wrote: post #189

Here in my third world country, I know people who live near dangerous areas that love the traffic increase that Waze created. Sure it there is a little more noise, but they also fell more secure. Maybe it is just a different point of view.

Interesting, are you saying that the increased traffic is welcome because there are now more people around to dissuade crime from occurring?

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#320

Post by Grishnakh »

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 probably cultural, but yes, the idea in a suburban area like that is that the drivers are there to drive to/from the houses there, not cut through, and they drive slowly in the development because there's children playing, animals, etc. When commuters cut through, they drive too fast (it's not like there's cops there all the time looking for speeders) and that's dangerous when there's children around. The roads are made small because it's only supposed to be for residential traffic for the houses there; other people are supposed to use the high-capacity streets that are designed for that purpose.

Does France not have differently-sized streets for different traffic needs? You don't have highways there?

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