Waze Causing Anger Among LA Residents 611
KindMind writes According to AP, Waze has caused trouble for LA residents by redirecting traffic from Interstate 405 to neighborhood side streets paralleling the interstate. From the article: "When the people whose houses hug the narrow warren of streets paralleling the busiest urban freeway in America began to see bumper-to-bumper traffic crawling by their homes a year or so ago, they were baffled. When word spread that the explosively popular new smartphone app Waze was sending many of those cars through their neighborhood in a quest to shave five minutes off a daily rush-hour commute, they were angry and ready to fight back. They would outsmart the app, some said, by using it to report phony car crashes and traffic jams on their streets that would keep the shortcut-seekers away. Months later, the cars are still there, and the people are still mad."
this is something Google does a bit better (Score:5, Interesting)
Google Maps used to send you down random side streets thinking it would save 3 minutes, which it often didn't (my least favorite was when it took you on a route that ended up requiring you to take an unprotected left through traffic, something that on its own easily ate any time savings and more). I notice they're a bit more conservative on that in the past few years; they only tell me to hop off the freeway and take a surface street when it's really going to save a significant amount of time.
The real solution for this neighborhood, though, is to complain to their local politicians. If the neighborhood isn't intended to be a through route, it's pretty easy to make it unattractive as a through route, e.g. by making some of the streets one-way. That's not uncommon at all in traffic planning.
Re:this is something Google does a bit better (Score:4, Informative)
In case you didn't notice, Waze IS Google since year and a half.
Re:this is something Google does a bit better (Score:4, Informative)
But I don't think they've fully integrated the software. Google Maps apparently gets "reports" from Waze, but they seem to otherwise still be separate. They generate different routes and different estimates.
Based on my purely anecdotal experience, I've found that Maps has smarter routing but that Waze does a better job of being current on traffic. So I use Waze when I expect traffic to be an issue (i.e. during rush times), and Maps at other times. (Maps also has a more pleasant interface. Waze's voice is especially over-talkative.)
Re:this is something Google does a bit better (Score:5, Funny)
There is a place in the Dalles, Oregon where Google maps will try to make you take a left through a guard rail and off a 30ft tall retaining wall. To be fair the street does continue down there.
In the Ghetto.... (Score:5, Funny)
Two words (Score:2)
Speed bumps. Waze has done some strange rerouting taking me into the Bay Area. Instead of keeping me on US101 through the admittedly heavy slog by San Jose airport, it wants me to get in a long line of metered traffic to get on 85, then get on the heavily congested 87 freeway and then get in another massive line of metered traffic to rejoin US 101 right at the end of the runway.
I think Waze will improve, but for now, I only depend on it for rerouting around accidents.
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Speed bumps. Waze has done some strange rerouting taking me into the Bay Area. Instead of keeping me on US101 through the admittedly heavy slog by San Jose airport, it wants me to get in a long line of metered traffic to get on 85, then get on the heavily congested 87 freeway and then get in another massive line of metered traffic to rejoin US 101 right at the end of the runway.
Did this happen three days ago during the peak of the storm? Because US 101 was closed for a time? And for the time it wasn't closed, people stalled and damaged their car by driving through water.
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It happens all the time. I now ignore that reroute unless I have a second source confirming something like an accident.
Sympton of a bigger problem (Score:5, Interesting)
App or no app, traffic in cities and suburbs is something that is going to need to be dealt with somehow. Cities like Boston or New York at least have a workable public transit system to keep some cars off the roads. LA is totally different -- it was built around cars and is only now getting a very small set of public transit choices. Buses do nothing when they're stuck in the same traffic everyone else is. Whenever I go to California for work (either northern or southern,) it amazes me how much people put up with to live there. I would go nuts spending 2 hours doing a 10 mile trip each direction every day.
Some trends are encouraging from a traffic perspective, but maybe not from a demographic one. Younger people aren't buying suburban houses and having big families the way they used to, so it's possible cities will become denser like they are in Europe. The big thing that has to stop, especially in mid-size cities, is the suburban sprawl. The ability to expand for miles in every direction directly contributes to messy traffic problems. Urban planners need to look into reclaiming hollowed-out cities and first ring suburbs, and getting people to move back into them.
Re:Sympton of a bigger problem (Score:4, Insightful)
The other component to the urban sprawl thing is the pattern in which the development occurs.
Some real estate developer will get his mitts on a tract of land, and develop a subdivision -- access to and from this new sub-division is kind of a "step 2: ???" process. So you can wind up with many randomly placed subdivisions with or without proper arterial connections to the rest of the city. and it's a clusterfuck.
I'm looking at you Phoenix.
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I'm looking at you Phoenix.
I've noticed that a lot in the West (I'm an east coaster -- the cities here just don't have the land available to do this anymore.) Western cities with miles and miles of flat territory around them tend to have these "planned community" developments where an entire city will be built on thousands of acres in one shot. Even if it's a planned city, people still need to go in and out of it, especially if your planned city has destinations like office parks or stadiums. (Didn't Phoeni
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There is nothing wrong with "sprawl" as long as you allow mixed zoning and have high enough gas prices to convince people to work where they live.
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Because there's nothing I like better than opening my window on a nice spring evening and having to listen to the honking of car/truck horns, the accompanying smell of exhaust, people yelling up and down the street, drunk staggering about and talking to themselves at 2 in the morning and people who think it's acceptable to have a party on the street a 4 AM.
Maybe you like to keep your windows closed every day of the year, but there are those of us who lik
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Actually, the BIG problem with Silicon Valley is that prime farm land has been occupied by housing and factories. They could just as well have been built on lousy land, as they don't use it anyway.
"Silicon Valley" used to the the primary producer of cherries, apricots, etc. in all of California. Now there if there's an orchard left, I don't know about it. That was NOT the highest use of the land, just the one that returned most taxes.
Re:Zoning laws are tyranny (Score:4, Insightful)
Zoning laws prevent you from doing what you want with your property... They are evil ...
Yes, because every individual's property is an island unto itself and totally disconnected from the properties and community around it. People should be able to do anything they want on/with their own property because, you know, fuck everyone else. /sarcasm
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Zoning laws are tyranny (Score:4, Insightful)
i will burn all the leaves in my yard in a rustic oil drum. even when it's windy. it's my property, and my embers, and they'll go where i let them go. who are to to tell me what i can burn and can't burn on my property?
Also, the airspace above my house is off limits. I own all the air above me. haven't claimed the space above me, because the whole spinning reference frame thing makes the borders pretty variable... though at any one moment in time i own something like land on at least a couple hundred stars probably.
Back to the point. It's my air until it leaves my property, at which point it becomes your air. And if i own a skunk farm, well that's my business too. my dog fighting ring doesn't scare them that much, so you know, the stink is pretty minimal considering how many skunks I have, and how scared they really should be of my dogs...
but again, my property. I wonder if skunk/dog fighting will bring in any money? what, you think that's a terrible idea? well, you know where you can kindly shove your opinion, neighbor?
somewhere, honestly i don't really care as long it's on the other side of the razor wire fence i bought surplus off the supermax in the other county.
Re:Zoning laws are tyranny (Score:5, Insightful)
What I always find fascinating is that the biggest libertarians invariably live in areas with very strong and expensive HOAs - if not outright gated communities.
Here's the thing: you don't live in your own universe. Where your activities impact and intersect with others, you need to come to agreements on how to behave with those others. Zoning laws are just one way to codify those agreements.
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simple solution for one who doesn't live in LA (Score:2)
I've lived in LA for 14 years after moving from the east coast. Waze describes me as in the top 1% of my state, which bothers me quite a bit. The problem with LA is ..... (wait for it) the city is its own suburb. It always amazed me that my commute to downtown LA (about 65 miles) when I have to go is the same as someone living in say Culver city (10 miles). The problem when you get to the heart of it is a municipality that is unable to expand the traffic grid to match the cities growth, or subsidize mass t
Re:Sympton of a bigger problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Buses do nothing when they're stuck in the same traffic everyone else is.
I would take exception to this!
1) Time spent on a bus is time not spent concentrating on traffic. Relax, read a book, maybe do some work.
2) Every person on a bus is a car not on the road, and that results in sharply lighter traffic.
I honestly have no idea why buses aren't free [economist.com]. Putting a bit of economics behind the problem can make a dramatic difference, even eliminating traffic jams completely. [ted.com]
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No. Public transportation needs a high population density to be cheap. It can be quite effective even at reasonably low population densities, but it becomes considerably more expensive, especially if you want it to be frequent enough to be convenient. In the US being dependent on public transit is often inconvenient because it's never there when you want it, especially at night or in foul weather.
OTOH, a dedicated bus lane on the freeway (or bus and car with 3 or more people) can considerably speed traff
Traffic Furniture (Score:4, Informative)
We have the same problem where I live (spoiler: not LA), and the solution is pretty easy. Traffic furniture (aka concrete obsticles in the road) and anti-traffic flow patterns both work very well. Make it hard to get through your neighborhood (lots of 1 ways and blocked roads) for people trying to parallel the 405 & your traffic problems go away. Of course, work with your city government to make this happen.
Re:Traffic Furniture (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, this works extremely well in Berkeley too. There are neighborhoods on both sides of Ashby (hwy 13) and along various other routes, but the streets are relatively quiet because traffic furniture either prevents entry from Ashby or directs the flow such that there's no point using them for the commute. And they don't inconvenience the residents either. For a resident or for local travel, entering and exiting only adds a few seconds. For a commuter, trying to use residential streets just doesn't work.
The barriers seem to be favored over speed bumps. Over the years the speed bumps have been made softer (15 mph bumps now instead of 5 or 10 mph bumps), and are generally concentrated only in areas that simply cannot be blocked off for fire and other safety reasons.
-Matt
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Traffic calming measures have been common for quite a few years now. But I think that Sherman Oaks could take this one step further.
Traffic furniture rearranging.
Every day, get the road crews out there to move some barriers around randomly: dead ends in the middle of some block, random one way signs, maybe just drop a wrecked car in the intersection where the off-ramp exits the freeway. Reprogram traffic lights to introduce 10 minute delays. Make Waze's advice to be worse-than-worthless to the average d
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Yep, the easiest solution is huge speed bumps, the kind that forces a car to slow down to 5 mph. Now the side street has the same speed as the highway.
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I'm sure actual furniture in traffic would do wonders too. Nothing stops traffic like a beat up sofa in the middle of the lane.
Perhaps the need a bigger highway? (Score:5, Insightful)
Eminent domain those house and get some more lanes in.
Probably better to put a new highway in off to one side or another, considering it's LA go with both.
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Eminent domain those house and get some more lanes in.
Last time I was in LA, I noticed that lanes are not the problem. Some of the freeways are five to eight lanes in each direction. It's a crowding problem, not a civil engineering problem. Everyone is trying to get to destinations inside that corridor, _and_ through that corridor to get to other destinations. Since metro LA is hundreds of square miles of mostly low density development, travel distances to get anywhere are longer than they would be in a mo
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Everyone is trying to get to destinations inside that corridor, _and_ through that corridor to get to other destinations
That's why the part of the suggestion involving some lanes around town has merit. Although, where you'd put them that you could actually get away with I don't know either.
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Those side streets are full of families and kids. Drive in Los Angeles for awhile and you'll understand why diverting a bunch of Type A asshole drivers through residential neighborhoods is asking for disaster.
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Actually, LA is the #1 example of trying to out-build congestion. And traffic engineers have observed and pretty much concluded that traffic expands to fill all lanes. Build another lane and it's full and congested in relatively short order.
So no, trying to build more lanes of traffic just leads to ever worse traffic in the end as it expands to fill the n
Umm.."No Through Traffic" signs? (Score:2)
Get with your local government to put a "no through traffic" sign and have fines for violating it
Stupid conclusion in TFA (Score:2)
From TFA:
Why wouldn't it be a problem for those of use not living in Trendville? It was a hell of a problem here in a town much smaller (37k) than either Detroit (681k) or Des Moines (203k) where cars would speed (during non rush hour) down a neighborhood street or pack it bumper
And this is why there's traffic... (Score:5, Insightful)
"If they have, they've obviously failed. Killeen said her four-mile commute to UCLA, where she teaches a public relations class, can take two hours during rush hour."
It takes her 2 hours to go 4 miles. That's her driving a car at 2 mph for 2 miles. You know what else is faster than that? EVERYTHING. That's slower than walking speed, definitely slower than biking, jogging, rollerblading, skating, skateboarding and anything else I can think of. I would *love* to have only a 4 mile commute in LA's climate. I'd never drive my car to the office again.
Re:And this is why there's traffic... (Score:5, Insightful)
That'd be great--if there was somewhere to walk. Or bike, or rollerblade. In a lot of LA, you're looking at a 4 mile commute where you would have to walk in the middle of traffic if you wanted to walk it.
Seems the anger is misdirected (Score:4, Insightful)
Strikes me they should angry at either the city of L.A. or the state of California for not investing in better road infrastructure. Waze is a symptom of overburdened roads, lack of proper infrastructure is the cause.
I'd also be curious to know how many of these folks may have voted against tax increases to fund road infrastructure.
Shave minutes off of commute? Try MapFactor! (Score:2)
As long as you accept that a free right turn, followed by a u-turn, followed by another free right turn, is faster than waiting for the light at the intersection.
on-topic: seems to me that the problem is more with the highway not being able to handle the volume of traffic. Sure, you can make it less attractive for people to use the parallel road but that does little more than shift the problem elsewhere. In addition, these measures often hinder the residents themselves and emergency services as well, and
Waze can be rude (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps use Waze's analytics against it (Score:2)
wah! wah! cry me a river (Score:2, Flamebait)
FTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
FTFA:
Killeen said her four-mile commute to UCLA, where she teaches a public relations class, can take two hours during rush hour.
>4 miles
>Sunny LA
GET A FUCKING BICYCLE!
--
BMO
Re:Move to a gated community (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen this done around shopping malls, sports stadiums, popular downtowns that have festivals, all sorts of places where the neighborhood itself doesn't have 'destinations' in it. It just requires a civic-minded neighborhood to make the effort, rather than to just sit at home and do nothing about it.
Re:Move to a gated community (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Move to a gated community (Score:5, Insightful)
The main artery streets can still be an organized grid.
Re:Move to a gated community (Score:5, Informative)
Yes and no.
It's more related to the time period in which those neighborhoods were built, and how they were built. Grid street patterns were normal before WWII, along with smaller houses (Victorians, Craftsman bungalows, etc.). "Subdivisions" didn't become common until the postwar era, when sprawling ranch houses with two-car garages and big yards were popular.
Not coincidentally, those postwar subdivisions were also getting built at the same time as the civil rights movement: at the time, black people were "blockbusting" in those grid-street neighborhoods, while the white people were moving out to the curved/cul-de-sac subdivisons to get away from them. In fact, the restricted number of subdivision entrances/exits, along with the higher housing prices (enforced in the zoning code by minimum lot sizes, which forced lower-density development) were, in part, tools to keep out those perceived to be undesirable.
Re:Move to a gated community (Score:5, Interesting)
Not all cities followed the "white flight" model.
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My town has originally built on a grid like pattern. The town has placed barriers in streets in order to create a tree like pattern.
Re:Move to a gated community (Score:5, Insightful)
Ugh, and if they do that, I hope they know.... I have been stuck in traffic many times for little more reason than the fact that so many places did this that there is only a single remaining route through the area.
Because of that, I personally look down on people who request such things, and really, do hold it against someone when they feel that their desire to see clear streets is more important than the entire set of communities around them needing to travel.
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Re:Move to a gated community (Score:5, Insightful)
In most states, it's just silly to use surface streets when there's a freeway - even in rush hour, the freeway will be faster. But California is broken, and they just don't want to build big enough freeways (though LA at least tried, once). Making traffic flow better anywhere is rejected with "but it will bring more traffic" (sure, in the same way building a hospital will bring more deaths). NIMBY for more lanes on the freeway. NIMBY for wider surface streets. NIMBY for everything. The basic understanding that, yes, you can build enough lanes on a freeway was lacking. As a result, it sometimes felt like the entire state was a bumper-to-bumper gridlock, every neighborhood street, everything. Meh, they have the roadways they wanted, let em live with it.
Re:Move to a gated community (Score:5, Insightful)
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the real simple solution is a simple increase in the gas tax by a thumping amount, hurts like heck, but it will reduce the load, make it so that more efficient forms of transport work.
In Miami, when gas broke to 4.00 per gallon, I would notice that the trains were fuller, then when it got to 4.25 it started to get packed. It peaked and now people have come to like the trains. We are now just full. It's nice to know that every day, maybe 500 to 1000 cars are not on the road.
Re:Move to a gated community (Score:5, Informative)
Widening freeways doesn't solve traffic problems. Short version on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], longer version on Wired [wired.com].
The problem in LA is more accurately described as too many people in one place, all having places they want to go. Other less dysfunctional cities either have better mass transit or a lot fewer people wanting to go a non-trivial distance. Hell, all you have to do is look north to San Francisco and Oakland, where BART siphons off enough demand from the freeways to keep them flowing much more cleanly than in LA, the only real exceptions being the choke points where trains are at maximum capacity at rush hour (the Bay Bridge and Transbay Tube) or where the BART line ends where there's still a lot of commuter traffic on the parallel freeway (I-80 in Richmond).
Not saying that NIMBY isn't a problem — it's ridiculous how it keeps many cities/regions on the West Coast from having coherent plans that work for the benefit of the public at large — just that wider urban freeways aren't part of the solution. They were the panacea of the 1950s, but with the population of metro areas now and the much higher percentage of people who have the option to drive, that approach is obsolete.
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The goal isn't "reduce traffic", as the freedom to travel by cad is a great thing! The goal is to make life better. Removing traffic jams, getting traffic off surface streets and on to freeways, reducing bumper-to-bumper to improve air quality - all of these can be achieved by adding enough lanes to your freeways. Enough many be quite high number, butt hat's fine: building robust infrastructure to make life better is what my taxes are for.
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Re:Move to a gated community (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, but I used to work at a transportation planning agency. Building more freeways DOES result in more traffic five years later. (Baring some major problem, economic crisis, etc.) It also results in longer commutes, as when the freeway is new people locate further from jobs, and then don't move again when the freeway clogs up.
OTOH, gas prices have risen significantly since we studied this, so it may no longer be true. But that's not the way to bet. People are still moving to the central valley and commuting to jobs on the coast. A better solution would probably be to improve the rail lines so that freight would make it easy to relocate jobs to where people want to live...but that's not something the Department of Highways can dedice.
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Originally it was built with street cars until those were ripped out to be replaced by buses, funded by the likes of Firestone, General Motors, Standard Oil (Chevron), Phillips Petrolium (Conoco Phillips), Mack Truck and others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... [wikipedia.org]
San Francisco is one of the few cities that retained its street cars and is much better because of it.
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It's always worth spending money on infrastructure - it's the legitimate business of the government. It's the sign of civilization. It's the primary indicator of quality of life.
Re:Move to a gated community (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing about cool tricks to avoid traffic is that they only work if nobody else is using them
Broadcasting them to the general populace will make certain that the local govs will step in with one-way streets and speed reduction devices in short order
What ever happened to the idea of keeping stuff like this close to the chest to avoid ruining it for yourself?
Re:Move to a gated community (Score:5, Informative)
Waze only works if users are opting into telling their secrets.
It uses your actual travel times to determine the best paths to route other cars, and stops bypass routing traffic if the bypass gets slower.
You could lie to Waze, but the best way to do it would be to (a) build a reputation as a good "Wazer" by submitting tons of good data, and then (b) walk down your street at 3mph, pretending to be slow-moving traffic every day before rush hour.
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In Wave you can actually report traffic jams manually via an icon. The information updates fairly quickly with other users once your account is established, which basically means you have a few miles on it. They don't seem to do too much to validate the information, rather just waiting for other data to contradict it.
In other words, you can lie easily and your lies propagate fast. It is of little practical use to motorists but residents might find that marking their roads as being at a standstill during rus
Re:Move to a gated community (Score:4, Interesting)
In certain parts of Montgomery County, MD I recall they placed DO NOT ENTER signs on streets that were obvious short-cuts. They were usually qualified with rush-hour times. In other words, the signs made them into temporary one-way streets that were against the short-cut direction. That's probably the most cost-effective and least annoying solution. The threat of a moving violation was enough to keep most offenders in check. Local residents are only mildly inconvenienced by having to circle the block. I suppose they could have put "except local traffic", but I think they wanted to keep it simple.
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"Except Local Traffic" doesn't work because to enforce, an officer would have to follow the driver from the moment they entered the neighborhood until they left, to ensure that they conducted no business in the neighborhood.
You've never had that experience? It doesn't happen to me in my Mercedes, but otherwise...
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check your license. it has your address on it.
"Local traffic only" doesn't mean "residents only" it means "only vehicles which have an origin or DESTINATION" here.
All that proves is you don't -live- there. It doesn't prove you don't have some destination there.Perhaps your visiting or picking up a friend to carpool with. Another poster mentioned simply driving by a house for sale you might be interest in buying... etc.
Worse the only way an officer would be able to catch you would be to follow you from start
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That's probably the most cost-effective and least annoying solution.
It might be cost-effective, but it's a far cry from "least annoying". Streets that change the direction of permissible travel based on time of day are much more annoying than just keeping them one-way all the time.
Re:Move to a gated community (Score:5, Funny)
"Predominately" isn't a word. You want "predominantly".
Actually it's spelled "Pedantic"
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Your part is only half of the free market equation, and if you do just that half, it will lead to lower GDP. The people commuting on those roads at that time aren't doing it for fun, they are doing it to get to or from jobs. If you reduce the trips, you reduce work accomplished. If you make the trips more expensive, you just took money that would be used to buy something else and gave it to the road authority.
If you still want to price freeway demand like that (which will restrict demand), you either hav
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Or ask them to eliminate the shortage of freeway road space for the number of people who want to use it at the same time, by setting the price of freeway travel at market equilibrium and adjusting the price by the hour to achieve permanent free-flow.
So at times of high demand the price of using the freeway will rise to the point it's discouraging people from using the freeway.
and you think this will help with the problem of people chosing to use local streets instead of the freeway?!
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The solution is simple: speed bumps. Even though the cars aren't going through a neighborhood fast, putting a few speed bumps along this route will discourage drivers from taking it.
Re:Move to a gated community (Score:4, Interesting)
In downtown Phoenix, there's a couple of heavily traffic streets that server the downtown corridor. They got busy enough that a decade or so ago, the city made the center lane one-way no-turns in the morning, and one-way the other way no-turns in the evening. 7th street - a mile east of Central, and 7th avenue - a mile west of Central.
[Phoenix is, largely, a grid. Major thoroughfares are every 8 streets, even on the east side, 16th, 24th, 32nd, 40th... and odd on the west side, 19th, 27th, 35th with the exception of immediately downtown where 7th is the major street both ways. Someone can say 35th and Camelback, and you know it's a west-side address.]
At the same time they make 7th street and avenue support an extra lane each way they put in HOV only exits on I-10 for 3rd street and 3rd avenue. Not only could you take an HOV-only exit, but you could take a less populated street. Those exits were so successful that the residents on 3rd street and 3rd avenue petitioned the city for speed bumps and roundabouts and reduced the number of entry and exit points to their neighborhoods to completely push all traffic back to 7th street and 7th avenue.
These same neighborhoods petition to get "no parking 11am-2pm" signs posted when restaurants move into their neighborhoods, because, presumably, they'd prefer it go back to check cashing joints and "tarjetas de teléfono aquí" signs in the windows.
NIMBY MOTHERFUCKERS!
I live in a somewhat exclusive neighborhood in Phoenix -- the Ahwatukee foothills. They're extending a freeway around what is often referred to as the World's Largest Cul-de-sac. [wikipedia.org] I'm going to miss my little city island, but the price of progress must be paid.
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I have a condo downtown by the ballpark, and parking on the streets behind it all have "neighborhood parking, by permit only" on them.
The particular neighborhood I was referencing is at 7th avenue and McDowell. On the corner there they built a plaza with 5 trendy "fast casual" restaurants in it. Jersey Mike's, Five Guys, How Do You Roll, Chipolte, and a ZOYO. Directly across the street they built out the plaza to include a NYPD Pizza and a PotBelly in the old "My Florist" building.
There's 65 parking spot
Re:Move to a gated community (Score:5, Insightful)
Kinda depends on what/who was there first
No it doesn't. The freeway and the side-streets are public spaces, and no one living on a public street has a right to demand that anyone else not use it as they like, so long as they follow the laws of the road. If you want a private street with no traffic, live in a private neighborhood (gated community), where the builders do spread the community cost among the homeowners. The roads were paid for by taxes collected from everyone. Your taxes don't pay for the roads directly in front of your house, and therefore you have (and rightly so) no right to dictates who can use it. Most of the road-work money comes from gasoline taxes, so its fair game.
Re:Move to a gated community (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't anything close to a new problem. About 30 years ago, I lived on a street that was severely in need of repaving. The reason that it was in that state was because the property owners along it pressured the city heavily not to repave it. It turns out that when the street was in good repair, too many drivers used it to bypass the bad traffic on a nearby thoroughfare. Keeping the street in poor repair meant that you couldn't safely drive down it going more than about 5 MPH, which meant that people who didn't live along it would avoid it.
Re:Move to a gated community (Score:5, Insightful)
The freeway and the side-streets are public spaces, and no one living on a public street has a right to demand that anyone else not use it as they like,
Note necessarily. There are many jurisdictions that have "truck routes" where trucks that are not making local deliveries are allowed to drive. There are also hierarchy of streets [wikipedia.org]. When secondary/tertiary streets are being used like primary streets then things get changed. Secondary/tertiary streets are narrower/windier than primary streets. There are many secondary/tertiary streets that are restricted to local traffic only. Do you really think it is safe for commuters who are trying to get to work as fast as possible to be routed through a residential area?
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Because they bought a law to say so. Rich people can do that.
Re: Move to a gated community (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
TFA explains why that won't work.
Re: (Score:2)
No, further in the article. Waze explained that if Waze users make the trip without incident (which they would in the event of a fake accident), it does not reroute people to avoid it.
Re: (Score:3)
Caltrops.
Re:Write a program to report crashes daily (Score:4, Funny)
Caltrops only do 1 hit point of damage, but they do halve your movement speed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but putting your own personal convenience above the well being of others simply makes you an asshole.
Re:Knowledge is power (Score:5, Insightful)
NIMBY man, it either makes people on the interstate slower, or those in their neighborhoods. The result is someone's going to be unhappy that you're on the road. If said is the case, there's absolutely no asshole cred being handed out for making your life easier.
Don't like traffic going through your nehbourhood? Make it unmanageable for traffic to traverse quickly, which will affect you, but everyone pays for those roads, and everyone has the right to use them as they see fit.
Re: (Score:3)
You mean like people who want to prevent people from using their public street because it makes it unpleasant to walk the dog?
Re:Knowledge is power (Score:5, Funny)
Telling people they shouldn't use software to avoid freeway traffic is like telling black slaves they can't read because they might learn what it's like to have a life outside the plantation.
You should continue to make analogies just like this, openly and often. It will speak much of your breadth and depth.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, complaining is very effective. All it takes is a municipal decision to make the road one-way (in the wrong direction) or install speed bumps, or four way stops at every intersection. And local municipalities care more about what their residents think than what passing commuters think. I expect a good bit of road construction in these burbs soon, and the commuters aren't going to like it.
Road neutrality (Re:It's a public street) (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be rather inconvenient for the residents themselves, would not it?
Why, yes, this is a great argument to justify selective enforcement of traffic laws too — tell the police to only ticket non-residents. Still feeling good?
Why is the site, that is all up-in-arms about net-neutrality — forcing private corporations to treat all traffic the same — tolerates the exact opposite sentiment, when it comes to traffic on public roads?
Unlike the network cables and electronics, the roads are actually ours — we all pay taxes for their repairs and upkeep — how can it be Ok for mayor and/or town-council of Western Bumfuck to limit traffic and give preference to local residents?
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Stop signs are not effective for traffic calming. [blogspot.com]
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If I were dictator, I'd toll the roads as high as need be until traffic levels come down to designed capacity. If there is some excess cash after paying for maintenance, this would subsidize a bus route along the same now-free-flowing highway(s). The bus would actually be attractive, since it would be cheap and fast instead of simply stuck in traffic.
Then I'd jail or execute my political rivals and invade Canada.
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The toll is to raise money and influence driver behavior. Did you not read the post you were replying to? Also, he's a dictator. The money goes to buy guns and bombs and tanks, so when the revolution comes he is ready.
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Thank you, finally a future subject who "gets it". You'll go far in my administration.
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Um, Assad?
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Exactly. Assad bough guns and bombs and tanks, Gaddafi tried to be Mr. Nice Guy to the West. Assad is crushing his opponents under his iron heel (pending final outcome) and Gaddafi ended up dead in a roadside ditch.
Should I send you my resume direct or send it to Legion_of_Terror.com/Human_Resources/Opportunities?
Re:No thru traffic (Score:4, Insightful)
Now of course some projects get state/federal funds but most do not, including normal maintenance.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
LA didn't have this problem in the past. The problem has gone up as density has increased beyond what a city of its civic design can handle.
LA is not New York. There is more then one way to design a city. LA is entirely viable at specific density levels.
The other big problem in LA is that commute distances have increased as the city has stratified. We have segements on the west side that are very economically prosperous and lots of people work there because the owners of the companies tend to live there. Bu