Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war • Hacker News Board

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#561

Post by rplst8 » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 4:55 PM UTC

alttab wrote: post #384

rplst8 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Studies have shown that for every mile of road built, is an additional mile driven, in average, by its populace. Traffic will expand to meet its resources.

I wonder if that's a per capita statistic or population average.

None-the-less, there is an upper bound of how far one can drive in a day. Somewhere an equilibrium would be met.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#562

Post by jimktrains2 » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 5:26 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #553

jimktrains2 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another major issue is that suburban streets are simply too wide, many neighborhoods give more than the 12-foot standard width to a lane (itself a specification that is way too generous), While I 100% agree with this, the other side is that often these streets have parking for the houses that is more utilized at night than during the day. So, while children are out in the summer, say, the streets are ~24' wide, but…

There are proven solutions to this, too. Firstly, parking lanes need to be marked - it's as simple as painting a line on the ground. Simply marking parking lanes will prevent the vast majority of drivers from attempting to drive in it. Which goes back to the original point - you don't need to physically alter the street to modify driver behavior. People stay within the lines they've been assigned, but most suburban s…

> People stay within the lines they've been assigned, but most suburban streets have an informal layout where parking and movement are mixed.

They do, but the open space from a lack of parked cars means they will go faster.

> Curb extensions are kind of magical

That they are, especially for pedestrians! They make it so much easier to actually see oncoming traffic.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#563

Post by jimmywanger » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 6:22 PM UTC

knodi123 wrote: post #527

jimmywanger wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pare…

Just by saying "trippingly off the tongue" you are admitting the use of a cheap rhetorical device.

The fact that you phrased things a certain way means that you want things to be perceived in a certain way.

And yes, children do suffer when parents fail. In all aspects of life. We can't legislate that away. It'd be like trying to legislate away stupidity and negligence.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#564

Post by jimmywanger » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 6:25 PM UTC

knodi123 wrote: post #547

CamperBob2 wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then, there are those of us who don't want to live (or drive) in a world that's been childproofed to the extent you probably have in mind.

I was responding to a guy who said "(Shrug) When I was a child, I was taught not to play in the street". I was talking about his attitude of placing responsibility on children, which you would know if you had actually read my comment. Seriously, read it again and show me where I said anything about childproofing the world. Your emotional kneejerk comment that has nothing to do with what I wrote would surely be very p…

There you go again. "Emotional kneejerk comment". "Popular on reddit". (Focusing on what you actually typed which are attacks devoid of facts.)

We're not placing responsibility on the children, we're placing responsibility on the parents. If your parents are not good at being parents, then you'll have a higher probability of bad events happening to you. Nothing we can do will change that, unless we want to put everybody in a state orphanage so that each child can have equal opportunities.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#565

Post by sib » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 7:14 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #391

zippergz wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is when I've had a problem with it as well. A neighbor has the option of parking in front of his own house, or mine. He chooses mine, which results in a longer walk for him. Why would he do this? Because he doesn't like having a car parked in front of his house. Implicitly acknowledging that he sees having a car parked in front of the house is a bad thing, and by relieving himself of that bad thing, he's im…

Not a home-owner here, so I don't understand: why is having a car parked in front of your house a bad thing?

Personally, I preferred to look out at the nice tress across the street rather than at my neighbor's old beaters. It was a suburban area. When I've lived in a city, it didn't matter, as there was always someone's car in front of my place.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#566

Post by Natsu » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 8:04 PM UTC

mark-r wrote: post #526

Natsu wrote: post #516

Earlier 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…

Yeah, downtown Phoenix has a thing where alternating east/west streets are one-way, as well, but for the most part, it's easy to get around here and even rush hour isn't that bad compared to some places, but it was designed with heavy traffic in mind, rather than as with older cities where they grew organically.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#567

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 8:43 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#568

Post by lliamander » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 9:48 PM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #511

lliamander wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anything else just feels like NIMBY entitlement. I disagree. I also think there is a sense that our urban/suburban planning should serve more that just the interests of motorists, and should support activities other than just driving to/from work. My wife and I used to drive 45 minutes just to park on the outside of a nice residential neighborhood so we could take a walk. Now we can get to family, friends, parks, b…

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…

> What that means is the problem is going to be pushed to someplace else, normally to a poorer place.

So then, do you agree that having high-traffic going through residential neighborhoods is a problem then?

The parent post's position, as far as I can tell[0], was that the claim "high traffic residential streets are a problem" is itself NIMBY. The argument being that since all streets are part of the same network and owned by the local government, all streets are the same and it doesn't matter which ones are put to the purpose of maximizing vehicle throughput.

In this thread I have made two arguments to the contrary:

- low-traffic residential streets can help absorb excess traffic when there is an occasional shock to the system (large numbers of visitors for a holiday, a major through-way is blocked, etc.)

- low-traffic residential streets enable more communal living.

In other words, there are goals other than maximizing the throughput of cars.

Experience tells me these benefits can be had by poor residential areas as well as rich ones. With this in mind, I think it is clear that high traffic residential areas are a problem that should be addressed. You and others have suggested a host of alternative options that should definitely be discussed. If someone just wants the problem to "go away" yet doesn't care or actively resists attempts to solve the problem on a larger level, then I agree that such a person is a NIMBY. I'm not arguing against the suggested solutions. I'm arguing why we need them.

[0]apologies to the parent post if I misrepresented.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#569

Post by astrodust » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 9:50 PM UTC

djrogers wrote: post #51

astrodust wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a certain amount of irony here that people are complaining about cars clogging up their streets but think nothing of what they do when they're driving through other neighbourhoods, especially more urban ones. Suddenly they get a taste of why people living downtown are not too enthused about highways bringing in more people. A lot of this mess stems from the absurd designs of modern American subdivisions with…

> A grid-based layout might mean more through traffic, but the traffic can filter through many, many different cross-routes rather than funnelling through the singular optimal route. That singular optimal route funnels traffic away from my kids riding bikes, playing street hockey, drawing chalk cities, or anything else their little minds can come up with. It's why houses on a 'quiet street' are coveted, and sell for…

That your kids have to play in the street is an artifact of the design of most suburban environments.

Instead of creating gigantic roads that give drivers a false sense of confidence, employ smaller roads that encourage people to drive more slowly and use the same space to create safe paths and trails for pedestrians, cyclists and joggers to enjoy.

It's beyond bizarre that the roads in most subdivisions are so broad, and yet by design so lightly used. The amount of space in a typical subdivision devoted to roads and setbacks is staggering.

Study after study shows that the wider the lanes and roads are the faster the traffic will go. Making a street feel like you should drive slowly causes people to drive slowly.

For example, the average suburban cul-de-sac has a wider road than a country highway where you're expected to go at least twice as fast. It's two lanes plus a generous curb-side allowance for parking that, in another twist of irony, a lot of homeowners associations don't even allow.

I've lived in grid-based neighborhoods and apart from a few hours a day when things are unusually busy it's no worse than a street I lived on that connected to nowhere. A little traffic now and then isn't going to kill you, and nobody I knew growing up ever got rubbed out by a car. You quickly learn to respect traffic and avoid it.

Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war

#570

Post by knodi123 » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 9:52 PM UTC

jimmywanger wrote: post #564

knodi123 wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was responding to a guy who said "(Shrug) When I was a child, I was taught not to play in the street". I was talking about his attitude of placing responsibility on children, which you would know if you had actually read my comment. Seriously, read it again and show me where I said anything about childproofing the world. Your emotional kneejerk comment that has nothing to do with what I wrote would surely be very p…

There you go again. "Emotional kneejerk comment". "Popular on reddit". (Focusing on what you actually typed which are attacks devoid of facts.) We're not placing responsibility on the children, we're placing responsibility on the parents. If your parents are not good at being parents, then you'll have a higher probability of bad events happening to you. Nothing we can do will change that, unless we want to put everyb…

> We're not placing responsibility on the children, we're placing responsibility on the parents

Here's the quote that I replied to, the ONLY quote that I replied to, the ONLY thing that I was discussing:

"(Shrug) When I was a child, I was taught not to play in the street"

And that quote kinda sounds like placing responsibility on the children. "Here's the solution: Simply have parents who teach you responsiblity. That's what worked for me."