Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe that ambulances and especially fire trucks have a wider wheelbase than cars and vans do, so what I've seen in a number of places is speed humps that don't cover the entire road. They're wide enough that you can't avoid them with a car, but narrow enough that an ambulance or fire truck won't notice them. Or possibly it's for buses.
Where I live, the ambulances are just vans with modifications. I think the smaller-width speedbumps are either for busses or to cut costs. I've also seen a police cruiser Crown Vic with lights and sirens take some speed "humps" at a surprisingly high rate of speed without issue.
Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
521–530 of 582 posts
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#522I'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…
And now those developments with convoluted one way in and out of a subdivision/neighborhood, which I used to loathe, and still do, seem like the perfect anti-dote to Waze re-routing...
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#523The problem here is not the app. People need to understand that the road /is/ public! Your neighborhood does /not/ own the road - everyone does. IMO, The solution to the problem of conjestion is opening of carpool lanes to all travelers, aggressive clearing accidents, creation of visual barriers (blinds) to accidents, and above all global acceptance of driverless systems.
The next thing we need to do is change the language of the road to "incidents" instead of "accidents". An accident implies that there is no way to avoid the outcome of an incident. An incident implies that a traffic collision has occurred. Once we rule out human error or any other cause for the incident, then it becomes an accident. We will find that many of the traffic collisions that we are currently referring to as accidents could have been prevented in many ways:
- remove vast amounts of human error by automating driving and being much more strict for driving infractions (Inattention, reckless driving, DUI)
- infrastructure that encourages speeding / leaves no options for pedestrians or cyclists causing incident hotspots.
This will allow us to focus on the safety issues that really are accidents, and usually caused by poor maintenance on vehicles and infrastructure.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#524Earlier quoted context omitted.
What that means is the problem is going to be pushed to someplace else, normally to a poorer place. If areas of living aren't shouldering equal burden, then some other neighborhoods are shouldering disproportionate burden. That's the symptom of NIMBY. If we aren't talking about (1) a new transportation method without the same issues, (2) a somehow substantial decrease in cars, (3) a decline in US population that outp…
don't forget 4) Better urban planning so people don't have to commute in such great numbers / such long distances
People travel in great numbers over long distances almost entirely for jobs. People travel in great numbers over long distances because of an imbalance between their pay and local living expenses, like with San Francisco or Palo Alto.
The urban planning that would be necessary to slow down but not stop the rising tide would be one that makes property access closer to egalitarian ideals, so that the San Francisco or Palo Alto worker making $60k can also live there without driving far. Homeowners would rather experience more traffic / a battle with Waze than see property prices drop that much. The egalitarianish access to property is an even worse proposition for them by magnitudes.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#525Earlier quoted context omitted.
What that means is the problem is going to be pushed to someplace else, normally to a poorer place. If areas of living aren't shouldering equal burden, then some other neighborhoods are shouldering disproportionate burden. That's the symptom of NIMBY. If we aren't talking about (1) a new transportation method without the same issues, (2) a somehow substantial decrease in cars, (3) a decline in US population that outp…
don't forget 4) Better urban planning so people don't have to commute in such great numbers / such long distances
5) Not moving bodies when the job can be done by moving bits.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#526Earlier quoted context omitted.
don't forget 4) Better urban planning so people don't have to commute in such great numbers / such long distances
In Phoenix, major streets are on about a 1 mile grid. The major streets (mostly) go through and take you wherever you want, they're very fast and optimized for heavier traffic. The rest of the streets connect to people's homes, they're full of speed bumps and such and while some do go through, it's a slow and twisty road with no certainty unless you know that street (or peer at the GPS) so you'd never take those road…
I noticed that about Phoenix the first time I went there. I flew in at night, and the regular grid of street lights was beautiful. This was over 30 years ago, and if I remember correctly there was only a single freeway.
In many places the terrain simply won't allow for a regular grid layout. From my home in Minnesota I can't really go straight north, because there are a number of lakes in the way. There are a couple of roads that manage to snake their way through, but it's all fully built up areas that keep their speed limits low and safe.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#527Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, all children should be taught not to play in the street. But we should not have a death penalty for children whose parents don't do that correctly...
You're conflating two notions. One of a "penalty" which is something that is inflicted, and one of "consequences" which just happen. Children who aren't taught money management and nutrition will end up having shorter and worse lives on the average. Is that a consequence or a penalty?
Clearly the children aren't being intentionally murdered in order to punish their parents. That's so far from reality that there's no sense pointing out that I'm wrong.
I would have written "death consequence", but that doesn't roll as trippingly off of the tongue. Try not to read the subtext instead of focusing on a legal interpretation.
The whole point of my comment was that it's the children who suffer when a parent fails to teach them basic safety, therefore saying "Well when I was a kid, they just taught us not to do this" is kind of disingenuous. That kind of statement seems to be pushing personal responsibility as a superior solution, even though very young children are not responsible for this kind of mistake.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#528 “In some extreme cases, we have to address it to preserve the sanctity of a residential neighborhood.”
Bull fucking shit. This nimby crap has got to stop. This is a public road. If you were smart you'd buy the road and put a toll on it.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#529Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#530Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Phoenix, major streets are on about a 1 mile grid. The major streets (mostly) go through and take you wherever you want, they're very fast and optimized for heavier traffic. The rest of the streets connect to people's homes, they're full of speed bumps and such and while some do go through, it's a slow and twisty road with no certainty unless you know that street (or peer at the GPS) so you'd never take those road…
I noticed that about Phoenix the first time I went there. I flew in at night, and the regular grid of street lights was beautiful. This was over 30 years ago, and if I remember correctly there was only a single freeway. In many places the terrain simply won't allow for a regular grid layout. From my home in Minnesota I can't really go straight north, because there are a number of lakes in the way. There are a couple…
There's I-10 that cuts through Phoenix east-west, I-70 that is north-south, and then they have built three highway loops that circle the city. The 101 is for the north/west part of the city, the 202 is for the south/east part of the city, and then the 303 is for the north/west part (way out there...).
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Phoenix,+AZ/@33.5083959,-1...
It was pretty nice when I lived there, because getting places using the highway was fast, and then the grid pattern for the rest of it made it incredibly easy to navigate.