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Waze and Other Traffic Dodging Apps Prompt Cities To Game the Algorithms (usatoday.com)
KindMind writes: USA today reports that Waze and others are causing traffic planners to try to figure out how to gain control back. From the article: "While traffic savvy GPS apps like Waze and Google Maps have provided users a way to get around traffic, it has caused massive headaches for city planners. With highways frequently congested, navigation apps like Google Maps and Waze started telling drivers to hop off the freeway at Fremont's Mission Boulevard, cut through residential streets and then hop back on the highway where things were clearer -- much to the distress of the people who lived there. 'The commuters didn't live or work in Fremont and didn't care about our residential neighborhoods,' said Noe Veloso, Fremont's principal transportation engineer. Fremont instituted commute-hour turn restrictions on the most heavily used residential cut-through routes. The city also partnered with Waze through its Connected Citizens Program in order to share data and information, such as the turn restrictions, so that the app takes them into account. The result has been effective, but Veloso is worried the changes may simply reroute commuters into other neighborhoods."
The problem is that garbage expands to fill the space allotted. If you add more lanes, more people will use the freeway and you end up with the same problem in a few years.
Let's say I'm deciding on a house. Well, I work here and there's a nice house 10 miles from work. But there's a house that's just as nice but a bit cheaper 40 miles from work. So I'll buy that house and drive on the freeway. Other people have the same idea and pretty soon that freeway is full of commuters going to-and-from work. If you add capacity, you just end up with more people making that same decision to live further away because the freeway makes it so convenient.
Awesome. Trying to take public transportation for my 39-mile commute would take 2 hours 49 minutes. I had a 30-mile commute for my previous job, which would have required almost 4 hours of public transportation. Sometimes, it's just not a viable option. My biggest complaint is that the two available train options don't have an "express" that runs the bulk of the distance directly. They insist on running as local-only service, which really limits the people-hours bandwidth. I'm already going to have a car to get to the station. Collect the commuters at a regional station and haul them directly to the next big hub. Stop with the at-grade crossings to pick up 3 people every 2 miles.
"It's the sort of thing that prompts local authorities to put in traffic restrictions, entirely reasonably,..."
Not "entirely reasonably", not reasonably at all. What causes authorities to put in restrictions is the endless complaints of an entitled few, not concern over improper use.
"...because residential streets are designed for access, not throughput. And if they get misused, then that's bad."
BS. All roads are designed for "throughput", some for higher throughput that others. No road, however, is optimized for throughput since it's speed limit is set intentionally too low, at least in the US. Driving on a public road to get somewhere is NEVER misuse.
"Anyway it's a classic case of "this is why we can't have nice things". People will abuse the residential roads and eventually the authorities will intervene."
No, we can't have nice things because a few ruin it for others. The few in this case are not the drivers, it's the residents who think that public roads are their private property.
"Then those abusers will whine and the locals will grumble a bit about the restrictions, but not that much because of the reduced traffic on unsuitable roads."
The way to "reduce traffic on unsuitable roads" is to fix the roads which are intended to handle that traffic. No discussion of that though! Who cares just so long as the residents get the roads reserved for their use only.