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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”

#201

Post by mc32 »

matt-attack wrote: post #193
floatingatoll wrote: post #150

It’s disappointing to see LADOT neglecting to use a road management tool already at their disposal to stop Waze’s abuse of their residential zones: No Thru Traffic. Posting NTT signs at entry points into residential neighborhoods and specifying even as little as a $5 fine would make entry for thru routing unlawful, stopping Waze. Whether or not the city enforces these signs would be irrelevant, as long as the traffic…

And to what end? I’m of the firm belief that the good done by Waze far outweighs the cost to the NIMBYs. In LA we have a traffic crisis. Sorry but your government built and tax funded residential street is just as much mine to use as it is yours. I won’t speed through it but I sure as hell have a right to use it as much as the local home owners. The city should not be doing what your suggesting until they’ve solved t…

Residential streets are not designed for heavy through traffic.

It comes back to “why we can’t have nice things”. Abuse. Many systems work when they are not abused but break down when they are abused.

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

#202

Post by soneil »

adrianN wrote: post #123
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…

Do you have a citeable source for the claim that the underground pays for the roads? You often hear drivers that claim more rights because "they pay for the roads".

Drivers don't pay for the roads - any more than smokers, drinkers, or anyone else that opts into a 'sin tax' pays for the roads. Vehicle duty & fuel tax both go into "general revenue", and roads are paid by local councils.

"[road tax] was formally ended in 1936 after Winston Churchill asserted the following:

[I]t is a monstrous assertion that any important body of taxpayers should claim proprietary rights over the particular quota of taxation which they contribute, and that all should not be brought into an area freely justiciable by the House of Commons."

https://www.loc.gov/law/help/infrastructure-funding/englanda...

(aisde; a driver claiming to have more rights to roads because they pay extra tax on fuel, would be like a smoker claiming to have more rights to healthcare because they pay extra tax on tobacco products. I can imagine that wouldn't be popular. "General revenue" is supposed to disconnect source from sink to avoid exactly this.)

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

#203

Post by ghaff »

paulcole wrote: post #151
wccrawford wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" they just don't want to be feeling they are making no progress." I think you may have just convinced me to use Waze instead of Google Maps. I'd much rather relieve the stress of driving a bit than save a few minutes of time. Well, actually, I'd rather not drive at all. But seeing as that isn't really an option, I'll settle for making it less stressful.

I’m 36 and have lived in a mix of rural and urban areas of America and I never learned to drive and have never driven a car. Just want to make the point that not driving is really an option, just one that most people look for a way to avoid. It’s all a matter of priorities and as much as most people say they hate driving/traffic, very few actually do anything about it.

At some level that's true. But it's also true it significantly constrains your life choices. I've had one job in my life that I could maybe have reasonably held without being able to drive. (Business travel would still have been somewhat of an issue.) And my entire personal lifestyle would have to have been totally different.

Also, a lot of people just aren't in a position to realistically say "no" to any job that involves a need to drive.

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

#204

Post by Piskvorrr »

2_listerine_pls wrote: post #157
neka wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waze doesn't seem to allow you to specify whether you're a trade vehicle or not so it keeps routing trade vehicles into Regents (and the other Royal) Park which they are prohibited from and liable to be fined.

They probably infer your vehicle type from acceleration data

You could do that, theoretically, from several days of driving, with false positives and false negatives galore. Or you could ask the user...I know, not data driven, boooriiiing, and requires one more interaction.

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

#205

Post by wffurr »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #192
usefulcat wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Posting signs would also mean dedicating police resources to enforcement How would it /necessarily/ require dedication of additional police resources? Are you implying that there is some actual or legal requirement for the city to do so? If not, I don't see how posting a few more NTT signs is significantly different from the status quo, namely that there are already not enough police to enforce all traffic laws in…

The police would not be required to add resources to enforce these laws. But without enforcement the signs would make very little difference to LA drivers.

They do make a big difference to the routing algorithms in Waze. How many LA drivers are just following GPS directions now?

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

#206

Post by duxup »

micael_dias wrote: post #186
fredophile wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's very accurate in Budapest so I don't think thats true.

In the Twin Cities as well.

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

#207

Post by somehnguy »

lemmox wrote: post #24

I had no idea Waze was powered by anon crowd sourced map editors. If anybody here is doing it, what's the motivation? Personally I'd never disclose my shortcuts or free parking spots.

Not quite the same thing but I've contributed a correction to Google maps before. My motivation was that my address on maps was in the middle of a cornfield and I was tired of explaining exactly where my house really was when new people came over.

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

#208

Post by duxup »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #48
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…

Occasionally, but not when 5% of the potential freeway traffic gets routed onto the same tiny sidestreet. Waze is also notorious for asking people to make impossible left turns across 10 lanes of traffic.

I find Google Maps is way more conservative with those kinds of left turns where they'd rather I'd go to an intersection and make a U turn or a couple extra turns where ... actually you can make a left before there.

Granted, being conservative is probabbly the right call.

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

#209

Post by alistairSH »

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…

But if their algorithms took the road's capacity into account...

As the secondary and tertiary roads start to back up, wouldn't Waze start to direct people back onto the primary road for the same reasons it started directing them off the primary?

The problem isn't Waze, or Google, or sat-nav in general. The problem is LA (and most of the US) has massively under-invested in urban planning and infrastructure. More housing built closer to work hubs. More transit options.

The part that really rustles my jimmies is none of the rest of the US seems to have learned anything from California's mistakes. As new areas grow, they seem to repeat the same failures that California made in the 1960s.

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

#210

Post by soneil »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #192
usefulcat wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Posting signs would also mean dedicating police resources to enforcement How would it /necessarily/ require dedication of additional police resources? Are you implying that there is some actual or legal requirement for the city to do so? If not, I don't see how posting a few more NTT signs is significantly different from the status quo, namely that there are already not enough police to enforce all traffic laws in…

The police would not be required to add resources to enforce these laws. But without enforcement the signs would make very little difference to LA drivers.

The whole premise of the article is that it only needs to coerce Waze’ routing. If the glut of traffic is just following the blue line, the minority that route themselves shouldn’t be enough to cause problems - or at least, they apparently weren’t pre-waze.
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