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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”

#231

Post by davinic »

somehnguy wrote: post #207
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.

Have you tried using Plus Codes as a solution to this? https://plus.codes/

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

#232

Post by zaroth »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #189
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…

"when the roads are mostly paid for by the cost of the London Underground" Taxes on fuel used in motor vehicles (duties and VAT) are something like 30bn GBP/year in the UK. London has about 1/6th of the UK's population, so let's assume 5bn/year comes from London. That's 5x the annual operating profit of London Underground[0]. Government income and expenditure is fungible, so it's hard to determine precisely whether X…

Aside from the ~£30b raised in fuel taxes, there's also the ~£6b raised in vehicle excise taxes.

Both of those revenue streams go into a government general fund and are not allocated specifically for road maintenance, because they collect about 3x what is actually spent on highway & road infrastructure each year. [1]

In short, the roads & highways are massively profitable.

London's buses however, lose nearly ~£1b a year, which tanks the entire public transportation budget, and more than offsets the profit generated by the Underground.

[1] - https://www.racfoundation.org/data/road-user-taxation-highwa...

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

#233

Post by cameronbrown »

sib wrote: post #214
cameronbrown wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd assume any kind of "ETAnet" would be trained on everyone's driving patterns, not individuals.

I don't know, but I always assumed that a simple optimization would be one that compared your typical driving speed to posted speed limits on open roads. That is, do you usually drive 5 or 10 miles (kilometers) per hour under or over the limit when you have the choice?

I suppose they could. I just think there's enough driving patterns that can be detected in aggregate, that a network could detect your typical style much better with everyone's data, rather than training just from you.

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

#234

Post by ghaff »

paulcole wrote: post #226
ghaff wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 in…

I think it's a little ridiculous to say "I would rather not have to drive" and then make 0 life choices to reduce the reliance on driving, which is exactly what most people do.

People do often take the length of commutes into account. But, while many would prefer not to have to drive in the abstract, in practice that preference doesn't rise to the level of:

- Moving into a smaller place in a city

- Potentially putting kids into worse schools

- Passing on many of the recreational and travel activities that require driving

- Passing on job opportunities that have better salaries, career paths, etc.

- Not visiting friends and family who live places you need to drive to

All of which may be the result of not being able to drive or making a decision to prioritize minimal driving over everything else. There are a lot of things that people prefer in principle but, when presented with the actual choices, they make tradeoffs that favor different things.

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

#235

Post by rhinoceraptor »

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…

I have had Waze give me some very good detours, for example driving to northern Michigan on a holiday weekend where there's a ton of traffic, get off the freeway before the massive traffic jam and onto the parallel 55mph highway, then get back on once the jam is cleared.

OTOH, it was responsible for getting me my only traffic ticket, for violating a (very hard to spot) no through traffic sign.

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

#236

Post by saltminer »

nradov wrote: post #158
masklinn wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect what they mean is Waze uses real-time traffic data for routing. Google Maps displays traffic conditions but I don't remember that impacting the routing it gives you. Last time I used it, it just marked road sections as high-traffic but didn't truly re-route around on the fly.

Google maps re-routes around traffic on the fly and has done so for many years. It shows you the option and then you have to tap to confirm.

In my experience it's tap to decline the rerouting, not tap to confirm.

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

#237

Post by XaspR8d »

human20190310 wrote: post #170
kenned3 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These "NIMBY" people always make me laught. if you dont want to have a ton of traffic dont buy a house on a major road. There is a street on the subdivision i live in with the same issue. it is the main entry point to the subdivision. people bought houses there, then fought the city for years over traffic? they put up stop signs, speed bumps, etc. they wanted the lower house prices associated with living on main road…

The issue is that traffic apps turned non-main roads into main roads, not that people bought on main roads then tried to block them. NIMBYism can be a problem, but it's still important to characterize the issues at hand accurately.

Well the issue behind that issue IMO is that so many US streets can be used as main roads. They were built overly-spaciously with only the interests of car drivers in mind.

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

#238

Post by iamtheworstdev »

It's interesting to see you post that because I feel like I've read articles where cities in the US have tried the same approach with Google and they generically responded with "Formally change the rules/laws/speeds/whatever and we will follow that but we don't make random, single changes for the whims of the city" (my rephrasing of what they said).

I'm having trouble finding the source but I believe I saw the link here on HN and it was to an article about a city asking for Google's cooperation in regards to a sharp/blind downhill turn or something? Hope that jogs someone else's memory.

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

#239

Post by ryanmarsh »

kristopolous wrote: post #219
kenned3 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These "NIMBY" people always make me laught. if you dont want to have a ton of traffic dont buy a house on a major road. There is a street on the subdivision i live in with the same issue. it is the main entry point to the subdivision. people bought houses there, then fought the city for years over traffic? they put up stop signs, speed bumps, etc. they wanted the lower house prices associated with living on main road…

It's worse than that in LA. These people live in an urban center, the middle of a city with millions of people, and expect it to behave like some austere countryside in New Hampshire. If that's what they want, move. Cities aren't for antisocial shutins. Why are they here? Go get a bunch of land at a great price in the beautiful quiet countryside. Really, I wish them the best. Melrose and La Brea isn't going to be a g…

This is literally why people (like me) keep buying further and further out into the suburbs. If you want quiet and nobody driving down your street then you need to live on a dead end or cul de sac somewhere way out on the edge of said metropolis.

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

#240

Post by sokoloff »

kenned3 wrote: post #159
orthoxerox wrote: post #147

> These thousands of homeowners and renters have arguably been injured by Waze’s and Google’s successful privatization of formerly public streets. That's a... very creative interpetation of what public and private mean. If you don't want your side street to be driven on at 30 mph, then you can't drive on it at 30 mph either. Traffic calming measures are a thing. Make it even more winding, add road bumps, bottlenecks.…

These "NIMBY" people always make me laught. if you dont want to have a ton of traffic dont buy a house on a major road. There is a street on the subdivision i live in with the same issue. it is the main entry point to the subdivision. people bought houses there, then fought the city for years over traffic? they put up stop signs, speed bumps, etc. they wanted the lower house prices associated with living on main road…

Not much different from people buying cheap[er] houses near an airport and then complaining about airplane noise (and sometimes trying to get the airport to close).
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