Traffic apps turned L.A.’s neighborhoods into ”shortcuts” • Hacker News Board

Re: Traffic apps turned L.A.’s neighborhoods into ”shortcuts”

#71

Post by scruple » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 5:51 AM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #61

tjr225 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For about six months before I moved closer to work I had a super commute between Olympia, WA to Kent, WA just south of Seattle. I do not recommend this. Anyways- for the first month or so I used Waze religiously as this is a notoriously bad commute. I realized after a few nasty trips through Fife that unless you were among th very first few people to catch a rerouting, the roads people were routed to were painfully u…

Waze has given me a lot of stupid advice in the last couple years. It will take me off a freeway, requiring many lane changes in heavy traffic, only to route me onto a clogged surface street and back onto the freeway after an exit or two. It usually fails to save me any time, and causes a lot of headaches. I stick with Google Maps now unless I need the police and hazard warnings(long road trips mostly).

I've had similar experiences with Waze. These sorts of things drive me insane. All of this sort of maneuvering around and jockeying for position... For what? If I'm lucky I can save myself 5 minutes? No, thank you. I wish these apps had options to turn that stuff off.

Having said that, I'm not a SoCal native but I've been here for over a decade now. It drives some of my SoCal native friends up the wall that I won't get in the freeway for only one or two exits, etc... I just don't operate at that pace of life.

Re: Traffic apps turned L.A.’s neighborhoods into ”shortcuts”

#72

Post by Aloha » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 5:51 AM UTC

0xB31B1B wrote: post #19

someguydave wrote: post #11

If the government wants to be the big daddy of traffic control then it should also build sufficient lanes to keep the roads moving.

Traffic doesn’t work like that. You seem to have a mental model where traffic is modeled like a liquid (traffic has a definite volume and does not expand to fill its container) while many studies show traffic behaves more like a gas (traffic expands to fill its container). Basically, more lanes doesn’t mean less traffic, it generally means the same amount of traffic.

Traffic is a liquid in the short term, but becomes like a gas in the long term as the larger container caused routings to change.

Re: Traffic apps turned L.A.’s neighborhoods into ”shortcuts”

#73

Post by bparsons » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 5:52 AM UTC

This is a function of living in an unlivable city -- not technology.

It is physically impossible for there to be enough roads to move 14 million SUVs to and from home each day.

Re: Traffic apps turned L.A.’s neighborhoods into ”shortcuts”

#74

Post by ec109685 » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 6:02 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #45

I feel like I must be missing something because the following potential solutions seem obvious to me: - Mark a street as "No thru traffic," or charge tolls (via video camera) to vehicles not registered in the neighborhood and not stopping on the street. - Suspend the driver's license of anyone using Waze, and use that as negotiating leverage with Waze to give edit access to city planners. What's preventing local/stat…

Suspend the driver license of someone using an app?? That hardly seems legal.

Re: Traffic apps turned L.A.’s neighborhoods into ”shortcuts”

#75

Post by TimTheTinker » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 6:05 AM UTC

s_Hogg wrote: post #30

LA is a very strange place to me - I read about all this havoc, but whenever I fly in there and do stuff it seems fairly quiet and almost somnabulent.

Try commuting into the greater LA area during rush hour. It’s really something else.

Once I was taking my then-fiancé to LAX for an 11:30am flight. About 2-3 hours into the drive, we were on the 105 in completely stopped traffic. A man in a convertible next to us began to absolutely lose it, smacking the steering wheel with loud, desperate yelling “ARRGH!!” again and again. We decided he must have been late to a mandatory child custody hearing and would lose the right to see his kids—or something equally life-shattering.

There’s nothing like LA gridlock to give you a sense of utter powerlessness.

Re: Traffic apps turned L.A.’s neighborhoods into ”shortcuts”

#76

Post by ec109685 » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 6:05 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #63

soup10 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic we shouldn't upgrade internet infrastructure either.

The implicit context of this argument is that space is limited and we can't indefinitely expand roads. We almost certainly can indefinitely lay more fiber. That said, the logic does apply to wireless spectrum, which is a limited resource. If we allocate enough spectrum that people can replace wired connections, there will definitely be significant and unsustainable demand for even more bands.

With wireless, you can decrease the number of folks served per station to increase effective bandwidth in an area.

And the idea you can’t build lanes to reduce traffic assumes there is always enough demand to fill up those lanes.

Re: Traffic apps turned L.A.’s neighborhoods into ”shortcuts”

#77

Post by bonestamp2 » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 6:37 AM UTC

bsder wrote: post #66

duxup wrote: post #5

In LA are these shortcuts worth it? I was surprised to find with Google maps more often than not it suggests to just take that busy highway that is crawling alone because ... it really is faster. I've tried to defy google maps ... rarely do I win. Granted google maps is wrong at times. During snowstorms it loves to send me down off streets that haven't yet been plowed or ... worse random county roads you do not want…

> In LA are these shortcuts worth it? Nowadays I suspect not. Google has so much telemetry that it probably doesn't miss any real paths anymore. Anything attempting to reroute me to save less than 5 minutes certainly isn't worth the grief of the odd turns, streets, etc. that I will have to navigate for the first time.

> save less than 5 minutes certainly isn't worth the grief

I wish we could set this threshold in the app. I'm happy to spend an extra 2 minutes on the freeway if it's a lighter cognitive load. Hell, if I'm on my way to work I might accept an extra 10-15 minutes. But, if I'm running late for a flight then I'm going to dial it up to save every minute possible.

Re: Traffic apps turned L.A.’s neighborhoods into ”shortcuts”

#78

Post by DrScump » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 6:39 AM UTC

gibolt wrote: post #23

BooneJS wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Menlo Park has a few streets labeled local traffic only as well.

Palo Alto has quite a few as well. Some are just marked with signs, many have physical barriers allowing only bikes and large trash collection vehicles to easily pass.

A fair stretch of Bryant St. is bike-limited, with narrow barriers every few blocks.

I used it in my bike commute from Sunnyvale to Menlo (which also used pedestrian/bike bridges that cross the creeks that define the Mtn View / Palo Alto and Palo / Menlo borders).

Re: Traffic apps turned L.A.’s neighborhoods into ”shortcuts”

#79

Post by closeparen » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 6:39 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #45

I feel like I must be missing something because the following potential solutions seem obvious to me: - Mark a street as "No thru traffic," or charge tolls (via video camera) to vehicles not registered in the neighborhood and not stopping on the street. - Suspend the driver's license of anyone using Waze, and use that as negotiating leverage with Waze to give edit access to city planners. What's preventing local/stat…

Gated communities are not novel. Usually a private organization needs to buy out the streets from the municipality, though.

Re: Traffic apps turned L.A.’s neighborhoods into ”shortcuts”

#80

Post by simplesleeper » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 6:45 AM UTC

Transport for London Tech Lead here.

In London, we have been collaborating with google waze - we provide them with information at the local level. Streets that waze should not use for route finding (e.g. roads with schools) can be blocked for use by Waze. Both local councils and TfL can provide this data.

The main difference between Waze and Google Maps is that Waze uses real time traffic data. There are multiple map providers that do this in London. There is a plan to provide different data to different TfL data consumers in the future to try and get map providers to seperate traffic across roads (at the cost of surrendering absolute truth).

London is also host to discussions of taxing roads - this is unsurprising when the roads are mostly paid for by the cost of the London Underground (LU makes the majority of public transport money, but 80% of revenue goes into road, traffic and bus management). The London Assembly (who supposedly keep the London mayor accountable) have written a paper "London Stalling" to suggest road taxing related to mileage across London. This, they no doubt expect, will cut down the traffic. However, from my understanding of embellished models of Braess' paradox, this will only result in similar traffic (on maybe slightly different roads) with an optimum equilibrium between how good a route is and what the cost of it is - meaning people may just take longer to commute and pay more tax.