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Waze Hijacked L.A. in the Name of Convenience

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Re: Waze Hijacked L.A. in the Name of Convenience

#31

Post by nullc »

jcranmer wrote: post #5
koboll wrote: post #3

>This has created fascinating potential legal issues that may one day be litigated in lawsuits or class actions. These thousands of homeowners and renters have arguably been injured by Waze’s and Google’s successful privatization of formerly public streets. So it's illegal to tell people that a public road might make for a faster route than the one a person is currently driving on? It seems like the real problem here…

> So it's illegal to tell people that a public road might make for a faster route than the one a person is currently driving on? If doing so is encouraging reckless driving and causing public endangerment of the residents on the streets, why shouldn't it be? They're clearly contributing to a loss of safety. Especially consider that the kind of person who is willing to shave off 30 seconds a commute by cutting through…

> Especially consider that the kind of person who is willing to shave off 30 seconds a commute by cutting through a neighborhood

Just a point here, part of the reason maps sucks so bad is that it directs people on these anti-social second shaving paths without informing them.

Maps says turn here... but it doesn't warn you that it's turning you into an antisocial jerkwad (or that its advice is expected to save you 10 seconds but at the expense of a 5% chance of adding 10 minutes and at a cost of at least $1 in more gas).

Often maps suggestions really don't make sense, even ignoring the anti-social factors, once you consider N-th percentile times or fuel costs... but you don't get to choose, they choose for you. Even if you force a particular route, google will frequently try to reroute you back onto whatever they think is the most seconds-shaving.

Your option is to not use the map... which isn't really a great option, since much of the time the map pretty helpful.

Re: Waze Hijacked L.A. in the Name of Convenience

#32

Post by nullc »

jedmeyers wrote: post #6
koboll wrote: post #3

>This has created fascinating potential legal issues that may one day be litigated in lawsuits or class actions. These thousands of homeowners and renters have arguably been injured by Waze’s and Google’s successful privatization of formerly public streets. So it's illegal to tell people that a public road might make for a faster route than the one a person is currently driving on? It seems like the real problem here…

> non-residents can't cut through them. Non-residents shouldn’t pay taxes to maintain those roads either then.

A road in a random neighborhood is still important to me even if I can't cut through it: The mere fact that I can easily travel to any destination connected by it is very valuable, even if I don't frequently use that ability for any single specific road segment. In addition to my own use, its very useful to me that other people I interact with can reach those properties (so that they can live near by and engage in commerce and friendship with me).

A complete road network has greater value than the sum of its components in isolation, and this is true even for components even where you can't use them for non-destination travel.

Following your logic, any sub-graph of roads that can't be transited to other subgraphs should entirely be paid for by the connected properties-- and that clearly is not how we do things.

Moreover, the "if I can, I should" thinking strongly incentives making neighborhoods into single-access navigational cul-de-sacs, which creates worse traffic for everyone when the local traffic for the neighborhood gets funneled into a single choke point and causes congestion.

A month or two ago I saw an image on reddit from florida where someone showed that it was an 8-mile drive to their backdoor neighbor due to a lack of connectivity between neighborhoods. ... that's the kind of garbage roadway network design we'd get if we can only use raw connectivity control the load and character of use of roadways.

Re: Waze Hijacked L.A. in the Name of Convenience

#33

Post by nullc »

PeterisP wrote: post #26
wcarron wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The article mentions the 'LA Complete Streets Official Guide' listing which streets the planners designated as arterial vs non-arterial - guess what, if there's a mismatch between the plan and how people can reach their destinations most efficiently, then it is the plan that's wrong and needs to change, not the drivers. I think you are failing to differentiate between use and abuse. Roads have a specific purpose. S…

I would consider that any driver who's following all the rules of the road and posted signs (which would and should be different for these small, narrow side streets) should be freely able to use that road if it gets them where they want to be faster or more conveniently, and that them using these streets in that way should NOT be considered abuse. If there's a mismatch between the planners' intent and the posted str…

> I would consider that any driver who's following all the rules of the road and posted signs (which would and should be different for these small, narrow side streets)

Sweet. So you agree that adjusting the traffic laws and/or posting signs that say "No through traffic, transit to or from neighborhood properties only" would be sufficient to then permit enforcement actions?

Those signs don't exist yet because prior to waze/maps they generally weren't required-- common decency and limited patience with convoluted paths were enough to restrict through traffic in most cases.

Now that almost everyone driving is being directed by a mechanical sociopath it has turned into an issue.

Re: Waze Hijacked L.A. in the Name of Convenience

#34

Post by nullc »

scarejunba wrote: post #2

Everyone wants to drive through other people's streets and wants no one to drive on theirs. Waze made it so this was evenly distributed. Of course the erstwhile privileged fear loss of privilege.

This isn't a fair read on the situation, the tension isn't between my streets and your streets, it's between major arterials and light residential streets.

In many cases the arterials don't have anyone directly on them (or only commercial/industrial property)... specifically as part of their intended purpose.

In fact, if the situation isn't addressed in a fair and intentional manner a my vs your issue will be created: wealthier residents will erect gates, block traffic, privatize roads, or move to other locations ... and leave everyone else to contend with the mess on their own access roads, without the political air cover of wealthier people also suffering the same roadway misuse problem.

Re: Waze Hijacked L.A. in the Name of Convenience

#35

Post by nullc »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #19
enoch_r wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true for freeways and possibly multi lane arterials. It's absolutely not true for small neighborhood streets, which seem to be the shortcuts at issue here.

It seems improbable, though, that Waze is assuming you're doing 65 mph on residential streets (which, presumably, are around 25mph legal limit) to save time. It's faster to take residential streets if the freeways are completely backed up to the point they're moving slower.

From the article: “If it’s a single-lane residential street and the speed limit is 15 mph, but people are speeding through at 35, they will model the time off that data.”

The article also appears to state that it doesn't model the load dependent throughput-- 'The instant the time penalties work out,” DwarfLord claims, “Waze will just as happily send a thousand Wazers down'. Which isn't surprising, since routing a lot of cars independently is computationally tractable but adding capacities to the problem makes it NP-complete in theory and much harder in practice.

Re: Waze Hijacked L.A. in the Name of Convenience

#36

Post by paggle »

solveit wrote: post #13
jcranmer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one thing, Waze is using the actual speed of drivers instead of the legal speed limit to determine the travel time of a route. If drivers are speeding, Waze is basing its time savings on drivers violating the law. In some of the conditions that are brought up in these stories, it's not even really safe to travel the legal speed limit. (And reckless driving includes travelling too fast for conditions). Given the r…

I strenuously object to the idea that the government should be able to stop the spreading of publicly available truths in the name of public safety, especially over a justification as flimsy as "encourages reckless driving". I would be willing to revisit this debate when somebody figures out how to build nuclear weapons in their garage, not so much before that.

How do you feel about government setting up speed cameras at all of these side streets and issuing citations to all speeders, even those 1mph over the limit, through dragnet surveillance?

Re: Waze Hijacked L.A. in the Name of Convenience

#37

Post by WWLink »

enoch_r wrote: post #18
jedmeyers wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> non-residents can't cut through them. Non-residents shouldn’t pay taxes to maintain those roads either then.

Streets have many purposes. They allow people to access their homes. They provide parking. They are bike routes, walking routes, scooter routes, running routes, skateboard routes, and driving routes. They are sometimes even places kids can play, or at least where parents can feel safe biking with their kids, or where one can easily and safely cross the street as a pedestrian. Not letting vehicles cut through a neighb…

It's also a good way to prohibit driving through neighborhoods to explore them. Whooo! Keepin the riff raff out! /s

Re: Waze Hijacked L.A. in the Name of Convenience

#38

Post by thrower123 »

paggle wrote: post #36
solveit wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strenuously object to the idea that the government should be able to stop the spreading of publicly available truths in the name of public safety, especially over a justification as flimsy as "encourages reckless driving". I would be willing to revisit this debate when somebody figures out how to build nuclear weapons in their garage, not so much before that.

How do you feel about government setting up speed cameras at all of these side streets and issuing citations to all speeders, even those 1mph over the limit, through dragnet surveillance?

They'd have to collect a lot of tickets to justify the cost.

Are there really not more important things the legal system could be using it's resources to combat? There are child molesters and drug dealers out there.

Re: Waze Hijacked L.A. in the Name of Convenience

#39

Post by WWLink »

enoch_r wrote: post #28
amluto wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Guess what, people would absolutely get sent to the major roadways if (and only if!) those roadways would actually get people where they want to go, faster. If those roadways suck compared to the alternatives, then that points towards a duty of the major to improve those major roadways I strenuously disagree. You seem to be saying that city planners and traffic engineers have to design with the constraint that a la…

In Portland the city has put up "diverters," which block cars from continuing along a neighborhood street while allowing pedestrians and bikes through. It makes the street useless as a cut-through. I love this model and wish they'd sprinkle them every few blocks on every neighborhood street in the city.

I only ever see shit like this in affluent neighborhoods.

Re: Waze Hijacked L.A. in the Name of Convenience

#40

Post by cma »

wcarron wrote: post #23
nostromo wrote: post #4

> No street, certainly not your residential 25-mph variety, is safe from being Wazed into a makeshift freeway or thoroughfare. ... These thousands of homeowners and renters have arguably been injured by Waze’s and Google’s successful privatization of formerly public streets. This is exactly backwards. The streets were effectively privatized before, via obscurity. It is Waze that has made formerly private streets publ…

That's complete BS. The roads have always been there, fulfilling their designated purpose; which is to handle the small amount of traffic the neighborhood residents generate in a safe manner. They were never meant to handle massive amounts of traffic, which actually does damage property values when potential buyers are scared off by unsafe streets.

All of that can be true and it can still have made them public. Isn't that the whole problem?
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