Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
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Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
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Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#2I'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 the curve that has slowed traffic on the street and seems to have reduced non-local traffic.
Sure, that project took time and may not have even happened in the first place if the city hadn't judged it worth doing, but that's the appropriate course in my opinion. Anything else just feels like NIMBY entitlement.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#3I actually recall this... 15 years ago, living parallel to a busy street. The various extra stop signs didn't keep people from using it.
As @FroshKiller said though, it's not "my street". However, it was still a problem: there were frequently people way over the speed limit when we'd hardly expect it...
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#4If it's faster to take a neighborhood street than the interstate, there's a problem.
It's not normal.
It sounds like residents are at war with transportation infrastructure instead.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#5This quote seems very telling:
> It used to be that only locals knew all the cut-through routes, but Google Maps and Waze are letting everyone know
So they don't have a problem with people cutting through as long as they're "locals"; it's when the outgroup starts doing the same thing that people get up in arms.
If the through traffic is breaking traffic laws, that's a solvable problem. If the street has insufficient safety measures on it, that's also a solvable problem; see the comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11846812 for an example of getting the road improved.
But if the problem is that the neighborhood street is actually a better route than the arterial roads and highways, then solve that problem; don't blame mapping software for noticing.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#6I'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…
I got a ticket for one of these types of things, some local ordinance prohibiting through traffic during rush hour.
It's a great revenue generator for the local PDs. Lots of one-off traffic laws that people passing through won't (and really, can't) know about.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#7If it's faster to take a neighborhood street than the interstate , there's a problem. It's not normal. It sounds like residents are at war with transportation infrastructure instead.
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Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#8This quote seems very telling: > It used to be that only locals knew all the cut-through routes, but Google Maps and Waze are letting everyone know So they don't have a problem with people cutting through as long as they're "locals"; it's when the outgroup starts doing the same thing that people get up in arms. If the through traffic is breaking traffic laws, that's a solvable problem. If the street has insufficient…
That could just be about quantity, not groups. If only locals do it, that's a relatively small amount of traffic. If outsiders join in, that could be orders of magnitude more.
I do agree with the overall point. If your local road is an attractive route and people use it to go places, don't blame the messenger. But it doesn't have to be about tribalism.
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#9I'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…
I got a ticket for one of these types of things, some local ordinance prohibiting through traffic during rush hour. It's a great revenue generator for the local PDs. Lots of one-off traffic laws that people passing through won't (and really, can't) know about.
Don't things like that usually have signs?
Re: Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war
#10I'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…
I may own property on your street but that doesn't mean I can build a garbage incinerator on it. It's a zoning issue, and indeed there are already provisions that e.g. large trucks may not use some residential streets.
Pouring more concrete is not the solution, it's a policy problem, particularly when rat runs are used to circumvent congestion charges.
(That's not to say we shouldn't build more traffic calming for residential streets; we should do that merely because many traffic planners are stuck in a 1950s mentality and design residential streets that feel like a highway, hostile to anyone not speeding through them at excessive speeds.)