Tragedy of the commons. Waze could let people pay drivers to not use their road. The price can be determined by the market. Start at $0.50, only valid once per day in each direction.
It's called "private roads" and existed for centuries, I think.
Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
371–380 of 582 posts
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
> neighborhoods who didn't voluntarily agree to increased traffic just to make my commute shorter, this is free loading and their roads are for them to get to and from their home It's nothing against you but is this a common opinion in the US? People in neighborhoods "own" the streets? As a Frenchman saying this is astonishing as I would naturally consider that I do own the street just as much as they do and it's my…
Portraying this as a sense of "owning" the street is unneccessarily perjorative, IMHO. I don't think that many people would argue with the idea that, all else being equal, having less traffic on the street in front of your house is a good thing. Less noise, less polution, less risk of pets and children getting hit by cars. So it shouldn't be surprising that people dislike it when traffic in front of their houses incr…
OTOH, an excessive feeling of ownership over neighborhood roads leads to the Tragedy of the Anticommons: everyone keeps the roads in their neighborhood off limits to outsiders, so everyone gets stuck in traffic longer, with all the entailing health and environmental costs, and thus a formerly public resource (roads) becomes underutilized.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#373As a Waze user, this has actually been a source of increasing frustration for me. I do not want to save 1-3 minutes on a commute by cutting through unfamiliar residential areas where deaf kids play and homeowners give me dirty looks as I go over their oversized speed bumps. I use Waze not so much as a super-optimal routing tool, but as an aggravation-avoidance tool. Traffic and speed-traps aggravate me, sure... but n…
I don't really think Waze can be blamed here though... it's not as though it's going out of its way to choose more dangerous routes. It has no notion of how well-lit a street is, or the incline, or how many cars are parked along the curb. No GPS app has all this data. As drivers, it's our responsibility to be aware of our surroundings and make wise choices, not to rely on an app for that. If you don't feel comfortabl…
The fact that it is advertising the "waze" to get around, they should know how well lit it is, what the incline is, etc etc etc.
It's doing half its job.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've seen one instance where homeowners in the neighborhood vetoed a proposal to have a centerline painted on a broad street through the neighborhood. Total width was probably about 3 lanes, and many people used it as a "cut through", and going pretty fast. However, painting a centerline would have made property values go down, the homeowners argued, as that would have meant that the street was no longer a residentia…
Studies have shown that traffic is slower on roads without lines. If your goal is to slow down traffic you don't want a line.
Ah, I was not aware of it.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still see lots of people who are willing to disregard these signs, though. For example on Channing at Roosevelt I see people cut through daily. https://www.google.com/maps/@37.8647438,-122.2756017,3a,75y,...
I am sure you are right, but as a long time resident, I think this is the trees not the forest -- I would estimate these barriers reduce 95-99% of the car traffic through them, even if someone cutting through is indeed a daily occurrence. Most are quite intimidating, many are totally impassable or require significant ground clearance.
SUVs and crossovers are becoming more popular by the day, so this might be more of a problem than people imagine. I wonder if there is a way to discourage cars with high ground clearance--a rollover hazard, perhaps?
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#376I'm a homeowner and an active Waze user. The street I live on is not "my" street. It's a public street that any licensed driver may use. I did have an issue with drivers coming around a blind curve too quickly to be safe, though, so I did what these homeowners ought to be doing and contacted my local government about getting my street assessed for a traffic calming project. The city created a three-way stop before th…
> Anything else just feels like NIMBY entitlement.
I disagree. I also think there is a sense that our urban/suburban planning should serve more that just the interests of motorists, and should support activities other than just driving to/from work.
My wife and I used to drive 45 minutes just to park on the outside of a nice residential neighborhood so we could take a walk. Now we can get to family, friends, parks, businesses, etc; just by walking.
Traffic congestion for commuters is a problem, but that doesn't mean that all streets should be maximally employed to reduce that congestion.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#377I'm actually torn on this. If the city, county, etc. maintains a street as "public", then it's fair game. However, I know there are jerkarses in the world and would treat residential streets as their personal race track. If people are getting agitated and honking and there's traffic jams, that puts residents in danger.
Yeah, me too. I'm not a Waze user, but I've lived in my area long enough to be familiar with a lot of the neighborhood roads. My personal solution is to only take side streets when the traffic on them is light enough that I'm not making it worse, and to be extra cautious as I do so. Not really a scalable solution though.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
> neighborhoods who didn't voluntarily agree to increased traffic just to make my commute shorter, this is free loading and their roads are for them to get to and from their home It's nothing against you but is this a common opinion in the US? People in neighborhoods "own" the streets? As a Frenchman saying this is astonishing as I would naturally consider that I do own the street just as much as they do and it's my…
I don't know how many neighborhoods are like mine but we recently had our roads redone and each house in the neighborhood was assessed based on the road frontage that they had. Our neighborhood does not own the street maybe but we have a financial incentive to keep them nice since the residents actually paid for a large part of the construction. An extra 45,000 cars per day would wear the roads much more quickly.
An extra 45k cars a day and you should rezone your house into a gas station. :)
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm a homeowner and an active Waze user. The street I live on is not "my" street. It's a public street that any licensed driver may use. This is the correct analysis. Unless it's a gated subdivision, the streets are operated by the government for the broad public benefit; not the local benefit of the homeowners.
There is actually such a thing as city planning and many streets could, in fact, not be operated by the government for broad public benefit but for the benefit of the people living nearby. E.g. in a residential zone in a suburb the streets may actually be intended to connect the homes not for through traffic.
Streets are kind of built for an expected load too right? I live on a dead end and have to assume my street would wear out faster than the neighborhood thoroughfare if it had an equal level of traffic.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems to me that you see this problem mostly in suburbs. People didn't buy a house, they bought a lifestyle . A particular lifestyle that has no room for even the slightest inconvenience from others. During my suburban days I was always sort of amazed by the entitlement people had around me. I saw near fistfights over people parking in front of other peoples houses. Or a particularly memorable argument in which pe…
I've noticed though that the perspective matters. If somebody start complaining about how I parked in front of their house, a typical response is: "I can't believe how annoyed this guy is getting over me just parking here for 15 minutes." The homeowner however doesn't care that its only 15 minutes of your time, since for him/her its probably all day :-/
But it's not their parking spot to get mad over.