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

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

#131

Post by iicc »

sails wrote: post #115
simplesleeper wrote: post #80

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…

Slight Tangent: I've got a feeling that private vehicles in Zone 1 (and 2...) benefit a tiny percentage of the population, and should be the next target for reducing inner city congestion (implementation perhaps tricky). Is this concept something you've come across in your work/field? If not, any ideas for what is next? I hope to see: 1. Car free days over weekends in high streets. 2. Entire high streets converted to…

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/30/kensington-c...

>One of the UK’s wealthiest councils is facing renewed pressure over its decision to block a flagship safer cycling scheme after it emerged the authority could not say what proportion of the people who wrote in expressing views on the plan actually opposed it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-44405730

>Plans to pedestrianise Oxford Street in central London have been "taken off the table for good", Westminster City Council has confirmed.

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

#132

Post by TulliusCicero »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #102
TulliusCicero wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Portland added diverters to some of its neighborhood Greenway routes, that forcibly divert car traffic (walking and biking can still get through). It was done for basically what's talked about in the article, too many cars using local residential roads for commuting. Really, this is a design problem with the streets and lack of effective public transportation. LA brought this onto itself.

They made a decision not to make the roads objectively worse to thwart abusers. I think calling that a design problem they brought on themselves is unfair.

It's not objectively worse, any more than road diets make streets objectively worse, or sidewalks, or protected bike lanes, or speed limits. Making roads worse for through traffic makes them better for other uses. It comes down to what your priorities are, and right now, through design, they're choosing to prioritize the very through traffic they're complaining about.

It's not unfair, and it's accurate. The design decisions the area chose as a whole, like handicapping public transportation, led to this situation. With robust public transit, you wouldn't have a huge flood of desperate car commuters driven to find any possible shortcut.

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

#133

Post by TeMPOraL »

apexalpha wrote: post #106
sosodev wrote: post #33

It seems to me that Waze isn't the problem. I've seen very similar problems where I live. When the freeway gets backed up, as it inevitably does, traffic spills out into awfully designed city streets. I once got stuck in small neighborhood for 2 hours while the freeway was backed up and that was before Waze existed. In Southern California we have massive urban sprawl most of which is filled with cul-de-sacs within cu…

But usually people don't go into neighborhoods they don't know. Locals might cut through a city but others won't. Now, with Waze and Google, literally everyone can cut through a city even though they've never been there. This is the problem: these roads weren't build for it and the neighbors are left with busy streets, noise pollution and an increase in traffic.

> But usually people don't go into neighborhoods they don't know. Locals might cut through a city but others won't.

But they do, if the jam is big enough. Traffic signs literally exist to allow it - their job is to tell you how to navigate roads you don't know. All it takes to detour through a neighbourhood you don't know is paying attention and having a little patience.

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

#134

Post by fredophile »

tschwimmer wrote: post #46
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…

I once read (sorry can't find cite) that Waze and Google maps run roughly the same routing algorithm now, but Waze is hyper-optimized for time whereas Google maps is optimized for some nebulous quality akin to "fastest reasonable route" where unreasonable factors are things like using small roads, exiting and entering the high a bunch, extra turns, etc. So Waze probably is faster by a bit, but not a whole ton. In my…

My experience with Google Maps is that the accuracy is proportional to how close you are to Mountain View.

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

#135

Post by marble-drink »

ishi wrote: post #89

The article tries to paint Waze as an "evil" corporation, but to me it sounds like they haven't perfected their algorithms yet. If Waze reroutes 1,000 cars to a shortcut that can only handle 100, that's idiotic and does not provide a good service to users. But if their algorithms took the road's capacity into account, everyone would benefit since there would be no "synthetic" traffic jams. In my experience traffic ap…

I've started to avoid using GPS navigation whenever possible for these reasons. Navigation is a valuable skill and using GPS means you don't develop it or forget it. I've noticed a strange phenomenon where people will listen to the GPS even if they know it's not right. It's better to learn to navigate.

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

#136

Post by geofft »

ec109685 wrote: post #74
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.

Why? It's legal to suspend the license of someone using a cell phone at all, is it not? Saying "You can use cell phones, but only if ___" seems at least as legal.

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

#137

Post by falsedan »

codedokode wrote: post #127
apexalpha wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But usually people don't go into neighborhoods they don't know. Locals might cut through a city but others won't. Now, with Waze and Google, literally everyone can cut through a city even though they've never been there. This is the problem: these roads weren't build for it and the neighbors are left with busy streets, noise pollution and an increase in traffic.

But aren't those public roads, made for everyone to use?

"Have access to" and "drive down at 35" are different things. Parks are public but you may not be able to enter one if there's some event and its massively over capacity.

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

#138

Post by iClaudiusX »

r00fus wrote: post #43
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…

I'm at the point where I check Google Maps, then Apple maps (to confirm Apple maps isn't sending me to the wrong place) then close Google maps - Gmaps rerouting can be horrible, and is opt-out which can be tough to notice sometimes. I'll stick to arterial roads, thankyouverymuch, and take my chances. Once in France it sent us on a dirt road - the car with my other family got there 10m faster by sticking to the autoro…

The opt-out for rerouting is a truly awful design choice.

One time I was driving up through NYC during a heavy downpour where visibility was only a few car-lengths ahead. Traffic had slowed to about 30 mph on the NJTP and most people thankfully had their hazard flashers on. Then Google Maps decides to distract me and pile on the anxiety with multiple "press no in the next 10 seconds or else!" re-routing prompts to save at most 5 minutes.

Just yesterday I got a pop-under to "confirm" that a speed trap was still in effect, which of course obscured some vital information on screen for a few minutes until it finally gave up.

Demanding that your user take their attention off the road to fumble with a touch screen just to stay on the route they're comfortable with is dangerous, and if I opt out once it should at the very least snooze those alerts.

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

#139

Post by simplesleeper »

sails wrote: post #115
simplesleeper wrote: post #80

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…

Slight Tangent: I've got a feeling that private vehicles in Zone 1 (and 2...) benefit a tiny percentage of the population, and should be the next target for reducing inner city congestion (implementation perhaps tricky). Is this concept something you've come across in your work/field? If not, any ideas for what is next? I hope to see: 1. Car free days over weekends in high streets. 2. Entire high streets converted to…

1. Has no support from central london residents and

2. Sadiq Khan has already tried to Pedestrianise Oxford Street, but was blocked by parliament.

3. There are cycle lanes and cycle highways and there is a lot of development in the cycle space - and will no doubt be continued. Bus lanes and schemes to improve buses are constantly being tried, but their uptake is low, meaning that it is difficult to increase the service, as they are not very profitable

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

#140

Post by [deleted] »

pkamb wrote: post #116
geofft wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually can you just put traffic-triggered off-by-default red lights, similar to the ones used on highway on-ramps to trickle cars in during rush hour? If only one or two cars are seen on the road, turn the light off. If more than that, turn it on and allow one car per green every several seconds. It will reduce throughput enough that Waze will automatically route away from it (and eventually Waze editors will have…

I don't understand why "on-ramp" metered lights aren't used in many more places. Like enforcing easy zipper merging. Put lights on both lanes that need to merge together, out there in the middle of the freeway. Turn them off when there's no traffic.

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