LA Councilman Asks City Attorney To 'Review Possible Legal Action' Against Waze (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Yet another Los Angeles city councilman has taken Waze to task for creating "dangerous conditions" in his district, and the politician is now "asking the City to review possible legal action." "Waze has upended our City's traffic plans, residential neighborhoods, and public safety for far too long," LA City Councilman David Ryu said in a statement released Wednesday. "Their responses have been inadequate and their solutions, non-existent. They say the crises of congestion they cause is the price for innovation -- I say that's a false choice." In a new letter sent to the City Attorney's Office, Ryu formally asked Los Angeles' top attorney to examine Waze's behavior. While Ryu said he supported "advances in technology," he decried Waze and its parent company, Google, for refusing "any responsibility for the traffic problems their app creates or the concerns of residents and City officials."

Comments

Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Toll booth. Give free passes to locals. Solved.

Re:Simple solution

[www.goatse.ru]

Or add "NO THROUGH TRAFFIC" signs on the roads that they desire no through traffic to be on. This is exactly why signage and traffic laws exist.

Everything that Waze is doing is legal. There just isn't any room for argument from municipalities as there might be with AirBNB and Uber.

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple and very stupid.

Ever been to Chicago?

Re: Simple solution

[PopeRatzo]

Simple and very stupid.

Ever been to Chicago?

What are you talking about? Except for the Skyway, I don't think there's a single toll booth inside the Chicago city limits.

Re:Simple solution

[michaelmalak]

It's the government's commons. It's their tragedy.

Re: Simple solution

[saloomy]

Still, those roads were funded by the public, which includes federal dollars, state dollars, county dollars, and special taxes on fuel. They weren't funded by the council or this ass-hat. He doesn't get to tell the public they can't use the roads they funded, and he doesn't get to tell Waze (or google) they can't help those who want to use them coordinate.

LA has a traffic problem, and to help distribute the load, Waze has come up with a pretty ingenious idea. Where was the councilman then? Not giving a rats ass about anyone or anything except his little district.

Always trying to legislate or litigate away people's freedom, these ass hats.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Or add "NO THROUGH TRAFFIC" signs on the roads that they desire no through traffic to be on. This is exactly why signage and traffic laws exist.

How will that help? Those signs communicate exactly one thing: This road connects.

If you don't want people driving down your street, you need to put up "no outlet" signs. And also block off an end so there is no outlet.

Re:Simple solution

[superdave80]

So, are you going to have cops sitting at the entrance and exit of this neighborhood, recording everyone that enters, relaying that information to the exit cop, and then having them try to match any cars that drove through?

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

ANPR.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the whole discussion is about an app routing via the faster route (because the main route is congested). Not the couple of people who decide to drive that way on their own.

The app doesn't need a police officer to enforce the routing, it just needs to be marked as "no through":

The whole discussion appears to be that Waze believes they are in the business of distributing information about roads, not in the business of lying about roads, so if the city doesn't want the app to route people via that road, they need to put up the signs.

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah but that's like saying the sidewalks were paid for by the public too, so you should be allowed to drive on them to eh?

fact is that some roads were built with specific purposes in mind and when people overload them, it just makes it terrible for everyone

on a side note, this does remind me of claims at various times that it is the speeders that make traffic conditions far worse, that if everyone went exactly the speed limit, many traffic jams would never happen

Re:Simple solution

[magzteel]

So, are you going to have cops sitting at the entrance and exit of this neighborhood, recording everyone that enters, relaying that information to the exit cop, and then having them try to match any cars that drove through?

I imagine this could be enforced with license plate readers

Re: Simple solution

[JackieBrown]

yeah but that's like saying the sidewalks were paid for by the public too, so you should be allowed to drive on them to eh

No . it's like saying the sidewalks are paid for the public so they should be able to walk on them.

The city needs to adapt it's roads based on current traffic trends not whatever existed back when the roads where first built.

Re:Simple solution

[JackieBrown]

No, the whole discussion is about an app routing via the faster route (because the main route is congested).

Why not work on expanding the congested routes or building alternate routes?

Re: Simple solution

[MightyYar]

that if everyone went exactly the speed limit, many traffic jams would never happen

That applies to everyone not going exactly the speed limit - so people going 1 under would also fuck the flow up. "Exactly the speed limit" is an impossible ideal, and in any case there aren't any speeders when a road is congested.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

whats to enforce, they need a law first, mark it as no through and waze will update there maps.

Re:Simple solution

[Ol Olsoc]

Or add "NO THROUGH TRAFFIC" signs on the roads that they desire no through traffic to be on. This is exactly why signage and traffic laws exist. Everything that Waze is doing is legal. There just isn't any room for argument from municipalities as there might be with AirBNB and Uber.

So - you figure that we're going to need to have police on every corner to insure that the fine citizens who are using our streets as through streets don't? A more simple cure is enabling citizens to issue speeding tickets with the authority of the municipality. The rationale is simple. The same people who feel the need to use neighborhood roads to keep off the main roads are going to violate the speed limits. That's what people in a hurry do.

So deputize all of the locals, let them use the apps that will calculate speed, take a photo, and turn 'em in.

Nice and legal.

Maybe take a cut of the fine as well. Sounds like we'd be encouraging you to speed down our streets - baby needs a new pair of shoes.

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're ok with the increased taxes due to treating every road as a high traffic road? I mean, if it needs to happen then it needs to happen and I would be ok with it, but people who are ok with their taxes going up seem to be few and far between.

Re:Simple solution

[apoc.famine]

Because those are only ever temporary fixes. Everywhere that's tried to solve traffic problems with more roads just ended up with more traffic problems. LA and Houston are excellent examples of this.

The only solution is mass transit, but in most of the US we're allergic to it for some reason.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not work on expanding the congested routes or building alternate routes?

I am certainly ok with that, but if we want to convince others of it, we'll need to convince them that it's a good thing when their taxes go up to pay for the additions.

Re:Simple solution

[JackieBrown]

It's because we see ourselves as individuals rather than groups. It's a good thing but does have some repercussions.

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

and when people overload them, it just makes it terrible for everyone

So stop building. Stop letting immigrants in. Stop encouraging unsustainable growth. If your infrastructure is maxed out then it is maxed out... either you can afford to grow or you can't.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

The only solution is mass transit, but in most of the US we're allergic to it for some reason.

The arguments against "Induced demand" apply to mass transit also. If you want to prevent congestion, then you need to stop growing or at least stop permitting growth where you are approaching congestion. But big city politicians rely on union construction jobs and more and more people so we keep getting more and more gridlock.

Re: Simple solution

[Archangel Michael]

"Something must be done!!. This is Something!!! THEREFORE IT MUST BE DONE!!!!!"

Nobody stops long enough to ask the councilcritter why he thinks they have the authority to limit information.

Re:Simple solution

[Z00L00K]

Or a maze of one-way streets.

Around here they just block the street halfway down with no turning circle so you'd have to back out. But it means that locals that have to go down the block have to take the long way around.

Re:Simple solution

[liquid_schwartz]

Because those are only ever temporary fixes. Everywhere that's tried to solve traffic problems with more roads just ended up with more traffic problems. LA and Houston are excellent examples of this.

The only solution is mass transit, but in most of the US we're allergic to it for some reason.

Good thing those in tech don't share your world view or we'd all be on dial up still at public libraries. I can see you working for an infrastructure company - "jeez, all we do is give them more bandwidth but it's just a temporary fix. Oh well, dial up and library computers for all I guess."

Re:Simple solution

[liquid_schwartz]

No, the whole discussion is about an app routing via the faster route (because the main route is congested).

Why not work on expanding the congested routes or building alternate routes?

Because this is LA. They would rather harangue people about what not to do while doing it themselves. LA is the poster child for NIMBY.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

It's because we see ourselves as individuals rather than groups. It's a good thing but does have some repercussions.

No its because mass transit isn't the right fit in all situations. There isn't a major metropolitan area that relies on mass transit exclusively. Mass transit (rail) is great for when you have a lot of people going from point A to point B in metro area in a predictable way that you can capital plan for years in advance.

Re:Simple solution

[apoc.famine]

So you've ignored the point, produced a failed analogy, and you've been an asshole all at the same time. Probably should head home now, because there's not much else to accomplish today. Cheers!

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Local streets are typically paid for with assessments on the property owners, and are not funded by the public at large.

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

That is complete bullshit

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do idiots always think taxes must go up to pay for growth? When things grow, you automatically get more money because you have more people. If the tax rate was enough to cover it before, its still enough to cover it after the growth.

Re: Simple solution

[AuMatar]

There were right outside Chicago. The result was sometimes multi-hour traffic jams caused by the tollbooths and everyone being forced to stop and pay. Automated tolling helped, but they're still a starting point for traffic jams.

Re: Simple solution

[PopeRatzo]

There were right outside Chicago.

So don't blame Chicago for something the state tollway authority does.

Re:Simple solution

[0100010001010011]

Braess's paradox

Braess's paradox is a proposed explanation for the situation where an alteration to a road network to improve traffic flow actually has the reverse effect and impedes traffic through it. The paradox was postulated in 1968 by German mathematician Dietrich Braess, who noticed that adding a road to a congested road traffic network could increase overall journey time, and it has been used to explain instances of improved traffic flow when existing major roads are closed.

Re:Simple solution

[HiThere]

IIUC, the current road structure of LA is such that buses wouldn't help much. It's designed around individually targeted trips, and the only reasonable bus approach would involve taking the bus into the city center from the origin, and then another bus back out to your destination. This is a much longer trip at a much slower speed, and also involves a transfer at a complex.

The alternative would be a mass transit system that ignores the current road map combined with a bus system that links each transit station to the local destinations. This could be done, but it would be quite expensive, and require lots of maintenance.

Basically the whole city road structure was designed with the assumption that all trips would be made by car. I don't think any easy fix is available. But if I lived on a residential street, I certainly wouldn't want lots of through traffic. It's quite dangerous for pedestrians, and even for bicyclists. Not to mention noisy.

A solution that has worked in some places if to make most streets "not a through street", but with cut-outs of sufficient height that cars can't go over them, but low enough that fire engines have no problem. This still requires enforcement, however, as some people essentially put their cars on stilts, and some of those are into rather reckless driving for residential areas. (If they choose to kill themselves, that's one thing. They don't have the right to include others.)
Please note: I'm talking about enforcement of "you can't drive through a 'fire engines and emergency vehicles only' slot unless you are a fire engine or an emergency vehicle". Other traffic laws should also be enforced, but are irrelevant to this point.

Re:Simple solution

[Agripa]

So, are you going to have cops sitting at the entrance and exit of this neighborhood, recording everyone that enters, relaying that information to the exit cop, and then having them try to match any cars that drove through?

Don't you think the cops could issue enough tickets to pay for themselves? If not, use license plate readers.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

We lived on a residential street that 'seemed' like a great way to avoid an intersection. The city though designed it with seven 90 degree turns not counting the turn into and out of the street. Some tried it anyway zipping around the corners in a futile effort to pass through quickly. Irritated by this, we got nearly everyone in the development to park as many vehicles on the street as possible effectively turning the thing into a one lane road. Worked awesome and even made the local paper! The city soon made it "No through traffic" and since we had two police officers who lived in the development and both took their police vehicles home it gave people the cheaters great pause seeing those vehicles on the road. Problem solved and quickly too.

Re: Simple solution

[saloomy]

No, the taxes do not need to be raised.

First, the roads are not being overloaded, they are being loaded. If the roads were being overloaded (to an extent greater than the main thoroughfares are) then Waze wouldn't send you down those congested roads.

Second, we pay plenty of taxes. This isn't a financial problem. This is a problem with some people feeling they are more entitled to use some roadways than other members of the public. Fine. If it matters that much to you, move to a gated community. In those developments, the roads were built by the developers, and are the property of the community (most likely the HOA). The land was purchased and the community developed by the home builder. Great. They can dictate who can and can't use their roads. But for public streets? Anyone can use it, its their taxes that built it, its their right.

Waze?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, WAYS. Ohkay. It is in the name, so LEAVE. THEM. ALONE!

Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[fgouget]

The solution is really simple. Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic" since that's essentially what he wants. Waze and others will update their maps accordingly. In OpenStreetMap it's just a matter of adding an "access=destination" attribute and I'm sure Waze, Google, Apple and others have similarly simple ways of representing this. They will then stop routing people through that street. The city does no even need to enforce the street sign since all they want to avoid is the excess traffic driven by the apps. Problem solved.

But only the city (or maybe some county/state department) has the authority to make that decision so he should work on it instead of making an ass of himself and wasting everyone else's time.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution is really simple. Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic" since that's essentially what he wants. Waze and others will update their maps accordingly. In OpenStreetMap it's just a matter of adding an "access=destination" attribute and I'm sure Waze, Google, Apple and others have similarly simple ways of representing this. They will then stop routing people through that street. The city does no even need to enforce the street sign since all they want to avoid is the excess traffic driven by the apps. Problem solved.

But only the city (or maybe some county/state department) has the authority to make that decision so he should work on it instead of making an ass of himself and wasting everyone else's time.

That doesn't let the councilman grandstand.

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

Our city has signed my street with âoethrough traffic prohibitedâ and sent a letter to Waze of the change. Nothing has happened. Phone staring zombies still speeding through the neighborhood. Los Altos Hills has had some success but then Alphabet big wigs live there.

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

They could have a case to file suit then.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

>The solution is really simple. Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic" since that's essentially what he wants.

That's already been tried. Waze didn't respond.

LADOT has tried mitigation strategies such as new traffic signage, but this congestion
starts and ends with wayfinding technology. Regardless, Waze and Google LLC have
repeatedly failed to fix significant safety concerns raised by my office.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it's planning issue. Cities will dead-end roads and change intersections to prevent them from being used as through access, particularly where it causes safety problems. Marking them doesn't really do much.

Waze makes the "shortcut" options that were formally only known to locals known to everyone and does cause congestion problems where there were none before.

The real problem, though, is too many cars. Which is related to sprawled cities and lack of public transportation options.

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. The ticket can easily be defeated as long as the road is maintained by taxpayer funds and you are a taxpayer. I would challenge any such sign AND demand their removal. Can you be ticketed? Sure. Will it hold up in court? Nope.

If you want a limited access road, take it private, pay your own maintenance, and then you can do as you please (including installing gates). Don't blame Waze for the lack of proper transportation infrastructure in your city. All those new subdivisions where they didn't charge enough in impact fees will eventually catch up.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[msauve]

Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

Fuck that. Streets are paid for by all taxpayers, and "rights of way" are long established. What Waze does falls under free speech. You don't want people taking a shortcut through your neighborhood, then stop with the "Waze has upended our City's traffic plans" bullshit and make it so the major roads work better than the side roads. It really is that simple.

Or, just build out an efficient, useful, and desirable mass transit system.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[VorpalRodent]

If he really wanted to grandstand, he should stand up and simply shout "Hadouken!"

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

> Streets are paid for by all taxpayers,

No they are not, except for big highways etc. Local streets are paid by local property taxes. If you don't live in Localville, you paid for the streets in your own town but not for the streets of Localville. So if Waze is messing up Localville's traffic by routing you through it, you are a pure burden. And it may also be messing up traffic in Yourtown by sending Localville residents through YOUR streets. It's a loss all around.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

Face it, companies like google arent going to bow down to your pithy little laws. Silicon valley is all about disruption and rule breaking. Breaking society is part of the programme for tech these days (or maybe it always had that ethos by some: "Who else is going to change the world, Marty? Greenpeace?")

Waze, airbnb, uber, etc are all about gaming regulatory systems that are set up to protect the people mostly. Having a multi room vacation housing without proper sprinklers, for instance. There are no "good" for-profit companies. You can't "do no evil" and "always make profit" at the same time. Companies side with their financial masters when push comes to shove. Tech may even be more susceptible to this than most other for-profits that, you know, actually and reliably turn an actual profit.

For profit corporations are evil. pure and simple.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

What? There's got to be over ten thousand miles of local streets that Waze is helping drivers abuse. You can't just make them all "no thru traffic"!

dom

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Visarga]

> It's a loss all around

Only if you never need to drive outside your neighbourhood.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Maxo-Texas]

Traffic control measures up to and including full closing one end of most streets in neighborhoods have been legal for a long time.

They could also put lower speed limits and a few police officers or a speed camera.

They can also put in speed bumps of various severity levels.

They can also close the streets during certain times of day.

There are many options available to them that are all legal.

It's not that simple. For example, in some areas republicans cut taxes and cut budgets for street improvements.

In other areas, for historical reasons the streets are extremely expensive to upgrade.

I use waze. It's fine. It's not the problem. The problem is the council not using the tools at their disposal.

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anne Thwacks]

Unlike the GP, who could have a UTF8 filed against them.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[fgouget]

What? There's got to be over ten thousand miles of local streets that Waze is helping drivers abuse. You can't just make them all "no thru traffic"!

Fortunately there's no reason to stop people using Waze from taking most of those streets.

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, they sent a *letter* to an internet company, and then somehow wonder how the letter never found it's way into the database?

Heck, it may even have been added manually, and then been overwritten two days later with an automatic import of the official map data.

Sending a letter in this case is just as much the wrong channel, as putting a note in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[fgouget]

That's already been tried. Waze didn't respond.

LADOT has tried mitigation strategies such as new traffic signage, but this congestion starts and ends with wayfinding technology.

Source? Neither the article nor any of the pages it points to mentions any traffic signage change. How long did they give Waze to update their map? 24 hours?

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[AmiMoJo]

Problem is if everyone acts selfishly it just makes the traffic worse all round. Yes, it might take you an extra 5 minutes to do the long way around that the city wants you to take, but if everyone takes the shortcut it ends up taking everyone 30 minutes more. There can be down-stream issues too, like excessive numbers of people trying to merge back onto the main route causing that to slow down too, excessive wear on local roads that are not able to handle the load, disruption to other local road users etc.

It's the classic tragedy of the commons that government is supposed to solve.

In this case there is a safety issue too. The road in question is extremely steep and a lot of vehicles have trouble with it, either lacking the power to go up at a reasonable speed or struggling to resist gravity on the way down.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[ehaggis]

Agreed. Mod parent up. Navigation services should be able to rely on the data provided by municipalities. If the data does not reflect reality, the data should be updated or the law driving the data should be updated.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[msauve]

"but if everyone takes the shortcut it ends up taking everyone 30 minutes more. "

Said by someone who's obviously unclear about the concept. Waze dynamically routes using the fastest path. Diverting some traffic away from a path does not make that path flow slower.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, back in the 80's I did pizza delivery, and early 90s I drove a cab. We didn't have smartphones with Waze or Google maps or any of that. we had paper maps and personal experience. Using side streets and the like to avoid congestion took a little more effort, but it still works wonders.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[AmiMoJo]

If it made sense to do that then it would make sense for the city to promote it. But it doesn't make sense, because what happens is that Waze keeps sending people there until a jam forms because the road and the intersections aren't designed for that volume of traffic. And because it's an urban area the number of injuries and accidents goes up too.

The main road might get a little faster, but at the same time the city now has less money to spend on maintaining and improving it because it has to handle all the diverted traffic causing mayhem as well.

Imagine if someone spotted some under-utilized internet trunk line somewhere and decided to start pumping traffic down it. But the router is old and low end, it can't cope. Either you convince them to stop sending traffic that way, or you spend money upgrading the router that then can't be spent upgrading the main backbone link, or you just ignore it and everyone, including the people who were using that line before it was discovered, get screwed.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[cascadingstylesheet]

but if everyone takes the shortcut it ends up taking everyone 30 minutes more.

That doesn't even make any sense. If the shortcut actually resulted in everyone taking 30 minutes more, then the traffic app wouldn't keep routing so many through it. It gets its best data from itself, obviously.

It optimizes for fastest route unless you tell it otherwise.

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[cascadingstylesheet]

Our city has signed my street with âoethrough traffic prohibitedâ and sent a letter to Waze of the change. Nothing has happened. Phone staring zombies still speeding through the neighborhood. Los Altos Hills has had some success but then Alphabet big wigs live there.

If you don't want people speeding through your street, put speed bumps there.

Oh no, but that would slow down you too.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[cascadingstylesheet]

Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

Fuck that. Streets are paid for by all taxpayers, and "rights of way" are long established. What Waze does falls under free speech. You don't want people taking a shortcut through your neighborhood, then stop with the "Waze has upended our City's traffic plans" bullshit and make it so the major roads work better than the side roads. It really is that simple.

Dang straight. If the major roads aren't faster than the side roads then the problem is the government handling of the roads, not from some app.

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[742Evergreen]

Why send a letter?
You can mark it as "private road" in the editor at https://www.waze.com/editor

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

You are wrong, federal, state and county funds contribute.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! The rarely-seen reverse technology car analogy!

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[jbmartin6]

I am surprised they aren't doing something like this then aggressively tax farming the traffic by issuing citations.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[dj245]

"but if everyone takes the shortcut it ends up taking everyone 30 minutes more. " Said by someone who's obviously unclear about the concept. Waze dynamically routes using the fastest path. Diverting some traffic away from a path does not make that path flow slower.

It absolutely does make some routes slower. Consider a route that departs from a highway and then re-enters the highway later. The additional mergings on the onramp can cause more congestion than if everyone had simply stayed on the highway. I have seen this firsthand in Houston with some of our feeder road ramps, where it is obvious. I am sure it happens elsewhere in less obvious ways.

Not to mention that Waze does not seem to do per-lane or even per-route data collection. This means if I am taking X highway onto Y highway, if that ramp is backed up for 2 miles in the right lane, Waze takes the average speed of X highway for those 2 miles, not the speed that people going from X to Y will experience. This is a simplified example, but bad input = bad output.

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[JackieBrown]

Because they wanted it to fail and blame waze. "We sent it to the PO BOX address we found somewhere on their app or online and they haven't fixed it!"

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[JackieBrown]

It's in the PDF of the lawsuit
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfr...

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[MightyYar]

They "sent a letter" to the company that lets the community edit the map? Gee, I wonder why that didn't work. Maybe try logging in and changing the road yourself. If you don't have high enough access, leave a message on the board.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[whoda]

If everyone was taking the shortcut, which made that route take 30 minutes longer, Waze will tell me to stay on the main route.

There are days why I wonder why Waze isn't directing me to an alternate route, but then I get a glimpse of that route off the highway, and I see why it didn't send me that way.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. If you want traffic off a residential street, put a cop there and have him ticket everyone driving even 1 MPH over the limit. Waze will get that update and reroute traffic much faster than sending an angry letter.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Ol Olsoc]

The solution is really simple. Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic" since that's essentially what he wants. Waze and others will update their maps accordingly.

So the solution is to put up signs at every intersection and implement bogus "Not a through street" zones. Which by the way, will result in demand to force the waze users right back onto the streets they were trying to get away from.

As well it sets up a positive feedback loop, as along the side routes used now will add the designation, and the program will route it to other side streets, so they will too. eventually your simple solution will simply break the app, as there will be no options.

Which in turn will be a disaster for mapping program driving directions as they try to figure out how to get to n address while using no streets designated as "no through street. There will be locations in the middle of developments that will be impossible to map out directions to.

Simple my ass

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Ol Olsoc]

If you don't want people speeding through your street, put speed bumps there.

Oh no, but that would slow down you too.

Meh. I much prefer deputizing the locals to record and send in tickets of speeders There are apps for that yaknow.

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Ol Olsoc]

Why send a letter? You can mark it as "private road" in the editor at https://www.waze.com/editor

So anyhow this lame ass solution would be a great thing for mapping apps, as large sections of developments and towns become terra incongnita, where no one is allowed to map to people that live along the "private road".

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[liquid_schwartz]

Or, just build out an efficient, useful, and desirable mass transit system.

Clearly the place to start with that dream is a high speed rail to nowhere rather than fixing metrolink. California thinking at it's finest.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, just build out an efficient, useful, and desirable mass transit system.

In what world do you live in where that's the simple solution?

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, a sensible comment.

The main roads are so congested that people are seeking out feeders and residential streets. That indicates a problem with the main roads. Treat the cause of the problem and not the symptom, otherwise nothing will improve.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[fgouget]

So the solution is to put up signs at every intersection and implement bogus "Not a through street" zones.

The signs are not bogus if they are put up by the official traffic department. And the traffic department has no more reason to put them at every intersection than for any other sign.

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Government doesn't have to adapt. They just mandate and woe be to you if you don't listen.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

By the time the data all reached Waze, they have already caused the traffic jam.

20 people headed in a similar direction at rush hour, all check at about the same time, oh there is no one on this road, your good to go here. They ALL head through that neighborhood. By the time it gets backed up, Waze has directed who knows how many people into that neighborhood. Now that they see the backup, they advise other drivers to go another route, till that road clears... rinse and repeat.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[squiggleslash]

Is your position that Waze is able to predict that routing people via the "shortcut" will result in everyone being 30 minutes late, or is it that Waze will detect when the traffic it's diverted to the "shortcut" is now taking 30 minutes longer, and will stop routing traffic that way until it clears up?

I doubt the former is true. That'd take some advanced knowledge of traffic behavior to a level I'm not sure is practical. So I suspect the second is actually the case, in which case yes, the Waze app will cause traffic jams as the GP proposed. In fact, I suspect the situation is worse if you're correct and it'll do real time routing, as it'll probably end up creating a feedback effect and create multiple back ups on multiple routes.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Ol Olsoc]

So the solution is to put up signs at every intersection and implement bogus "Not a through street" zones.

The signs are not bogus if they are put up by the official traffic department. And the traffic department has no more reason to put them at every intersection than for any other sign.

So your point is that in order to keep these speeders off my street, I have to break the law to leave my house. If every street in my neighborhood was illegal to use as a street to get somewhere else, we'd all be trapped.

Seriously, I'm more about hitting them in the wallet. We've had people driving at least 55 on the 25 mph road in front of my house. I would dearly love to use every legal means at my disposal to punish them as much as possible. Including - if we can put up this bogus no through traffic signs, we can make the new zones permanent construction zones so that when they are caught, they'll lose their license for a while. Don't like it? Cry me a river.

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

And when someone else changes the road back?

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[MightyYar]

This kind of thing happens all the time. You appeal to someone with a higher lock level than yourself to resolve the dispute. In a lot of cases, a sign like this has no legal status (like in PA) and the Waze community knows this and will ignore it.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

You are under the delusion that traffic signage and routing is not political. A lot of signs are posted by DOT under political pressure to change the behavior of drivers for the convenience of locals. Making things easier for all drivers is not a priority.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't even need any ramps, just widen the road by a lane and then merge that lane back in a couple of miles later and you'll get a massive traffic jam there every single day.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

So your point is that in order to keep these speeders off my street, I have to break the law to leave my house. If every street in my neighborhood was illegal to use as a street to get somewhere else, we'd all be trapped.

Through traffic is, by definition, traffic that enters and exits a specified area (typically not a single street unless the street constitutes the entirety of the area, usually a housing development or small residential neighborhood) without having a destination inside that area. If your house simultaneously exists inside and outside your neighborhood, you are already breaking the laws of physics. I would be more concerned about that.

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're speeding, alert the local cops who should have no problem setting up shop to write lots of speeding tickets. Free money!

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Bitbeard]

Waze volunteer editors really do want to make the map accurate. They go off Google Street View, which is only updated every few years on secondary streets. So if your signs were added more recently than that, they will not have a good way to know unless you tell them.

You can contact map editing volunteers directly in two ways:.
1) If you have Waze, while somewhere on the street in question, tap the orange Report button in the lower right of the screen, tap Map Issue, then select the correct category and in the comment section type in what you want done to the map.
2) Join the local Waze forums, find the forum for your state, and post there.

Ultimately, I hope this affects your decision on whether to purchase a home on a through street in the future.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

If the shortcut actually results in 20% of people who take the shortcut taking 30 minutes longer and 80 % taking 10 minutes less than on average the shortcut is 2 minutes faster, but the behavior of routing people down the shortcut until it becomes congested then stopping until it flows freely again causes cyclical traffic jams.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Ol Olsoc]

So your point is that in order to keep these speeders off my street, I have to break the law to leave my house. If every street in my neighborhood was illegal to use as a street to get somewhere else, we'd all be trapped.

Through traffic is, by definition, traffic that enters and exits a specified area (typically not a single street unless the street constitutes the entirety of the area, usually a housing development or small residential neighborhood) without having a destination inside that area. If your house simultaneously exists inside and outside your neighborhood, you are already breaking the laws of physics. I would be more concerned about that.

One way in, one way out, no deviation allowed. The solution is worse than the problem.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Bitbeard]

Waze's route calcluation includes historical traverse times. For a road that was only opened a few weeks ago, it might route many vehicles down it and cause a jam, but it will soon learn that's a slower route and stop using it.

So yes, I suppose you can say Waze has advanced knowledge of traffic behavior.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[suutar]

If your start or destination is in the neighborhood then you're not "through traffic" and you can be routed there.

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[HiThere]

Which is why suing the company might be the appropriate step.

OTOH, in this case I don't know what they've already tried. So perhaps they need to try the lower levels of approach first.

OTOH, often what is done is that the lawyer sends a nastygram to the company saying "change this or be sued". Then the either change it or get sued.

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[MightyYar]

Yeah, I have no idea where the AC lives, or even if the events he describes are real. Without more detail it is hard to say anything intelligent... but if it is true that they simply "wrote a letter" rather than go through the established process then I could see why nothing happened.

Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Nethead]

Gotta practice spike strips too, just in case.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[david_thornley]

Taking side streets to avoid congestion works as long as not that many drivers do it. It doesn't necessarily work if too many people do it.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Ol Olsoc]

If your start or destination is in the neighborhood then you're not "through traffic" and you can be routed there.

You seriously need to take up with these guys. https://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/HTM...

From the regulations:

ROAD CLOSED—LOCAL TRAFFIC ONLY (R11-3) or ROAD CLOSED TO THRU TRAFFIC (R11-4) signs should be used where through traffic is not permitted, or for a closure some distance beyond the sign, but where the highway is open for local traffic up to the point of closure So if that sign is there, why don't you tell a policeman that you know better, and have him follow you to the point where you turn onto the next street which under your bizarre system, also must have a Road closed to through traffic. Than see what happens. Sounds like a great test case.

I'm certain he'll realize the error of the rules and tell you to just drive wherever you feel like driving - rules are silly anyhow.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[cascadingstylesheet]

or is it that Waze will detect when the traffic it's diverted to the "shortcut" is now taking 30 minutes longer, and will stop routing traffic that way until it clears up?

This. At least, it will if it works anything like Google Maps.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[fgouget]

So your point is that in order to keep these speeders off my street, I have to break the law to leave my house. If every street in my neighborhood was illegal to use as a street to get somewhere else, we'd all be trapped.

[...]

One way in, one way out, no deviation allowed. The solution is worse than the problem.

Please relinquish your driver license. No through traffic signs have been in existence for decades and you should have learned all about them when getting your driving license. That you are so baffled by them means you have forgotten the basics and are no longer fit to drive.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[fgouget]

It's in the PDF of the lawsuit https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfr...

Thanks. Unfortunately that councilman's is as vague in this letter as in his previous declarations. It would have been nice to know what "new traffic signage" they tried, for how long, what reasons, if any, Waze and others gave to not take it into account, etc. As it is this councilman seems like all he wants is show the people he's trying to garner votes by flailing uselessly.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I'm sure Silicon Valley sociopaths (sorry, I mean 'disruptors') will give a flying fuck.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

If my taxes pay for the street, I'm entitled to drive on it.

No through traffic? Sorry - no dice.

I paid for it.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Ol Olsoc]

Please relinquish your driver license. No through traffic signs have been in existence for decades and you should have learned all about them when getting your driving license. That you are so baffled by them means you have forgotten the basics and are no longer fit to drive.

I've already cited the laws. Someone back in this post decided that all we needed to do was make all of the street in communities "No Through Traffic"

The law is pretty clear, and I've already given the citations. Deal with it.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[fgouget]

Ol Olsoc wrote: >quote>

So the solution is to put up signs at every intersection and implement bogus "Not a through street" zones.

And Ol Olsoc then wrote:

Someone back in this post decided that all we needed to do was make all of the street in communities "No Through Traffic"

That someone being you (and why you made that non-sensical suggestion eludes everybody else). Memory problems?

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[Ol Olsoc]

Ol Olsoc wrote: >quote>

So the solution is to put up signs at every intersection and implement bogus "Not a through street" zones.

And Ol Olsoc then wrote:

Someone back in this post decided that all we needed to do was make all of the street in communities "No Through Traffic"

That someone being you (and why you made that non-sensical suggestion eludes everybody else). Memory problems?

There is a difference between Not a through street and no Through traffic, although there is overlap. Usually Not a "Through Street" means that by driving on that road, you are trespassing. Typically private property. Often with no outlet, but a dead end. Be careful of doing that in some sections of the country. Try it is you like.

Giving the OP the benefit of the doubt that he wasn't suggesting driving his car in private property and that he was claiming that the problem can be solved by posting signs on roads that could otherwise serve as connectors, we come to the "Not a Through Street." designation. That is why I wrote what I wrote. Chillaxe, mon chichi.

The signage can vary from place to place, and in some places isn't enforceable, but in general, I was fixing what he almost certainly meant without being an asshole about it. Hopefully that clears up whatver booboo feelings or angst I have caused you that you felt it ncessary to respond with your kind and thoughtful posting.

Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic"

[fgouget]

The OP, me, suggested putting one (1) "No Thru Traffic" sign on that one (1) street.

Then you, Ol Olsoc, replied talking about "Not a through street" signs. Now you, Ol Olsoc, have the gall to claim that the OP, me, is confusing "Not a through street" signs with "No Thru Traffic" ones! Not only that but you're trying to muddy things up by making ludricous assertions like claiming "So the solution is to put up signs at every intersection".

The only conclusion is that you, Ol Olsoc, are a troll whose only goal is to derail the discussion.

Tech bros never heard of tragedy of the commons

[Anonymous Coward]

Waze sucks and their "algorithms" are worse.

Re:Tech bros never heard of tragedy of the commons

[orion205]

It always bugs me when Waze routes me through residential streets. I wish there were a setting to stick to thoroughfares.

Re:Tech bros never heard of tragedy of the commons

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing that compels you to follow the directions that waze gives you. If you don't want to drive through a residential street, don't. Waze will happily recalculate the route for you. If you aren't interested in getting to your destination in a timely fashion, why are you using a navigation app that does just that?

Re:Tech bros never heard of tragedy of the commons

[Gavagai80]

Whether it can recalculate your route really depends on whether your mobile internet is spotty where you're driving. I wouldn't risk it a lot of places with t-mobile.

It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

... if you don't like people driving on a public road, then... well, it's a public road.

By definition, the public can go on a public road.

Are people speeding? Give them tickets.

Are people not stopping at lights/stop signs? Give them tickets.

Otherwise STFU.

Re: It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. Well said.

Re: It's a public road...

[khb]

Waze is causing accidents by ignoring the grade and routing the unwary (generally speeding) http://www.thedrive.com/news/1...

Re: It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

Waze isn't causing accidents.. poor city planning and road maintenance caused those accidents.

If the city/county doesn't believe the road is passable for the majority of vehicles, then they should fix or close the road entirely.

Furthermore, if they fix the congestion issues that are causing the re-routing, the problem disappears - instead they'd rather blame someone else for their municipal nightmare that they subject travelers to on a daily basis.

Re:It's a public road...

[jittles]

... if you don't like people driving on a public road, then... well, it's a public road.

By definition, the public can go on a public road.

Are people speeding? Give them tickets.

Are people not stopping at lights/stop signs? Give them tickets.

Otherwise STFU.

I would agree with you if people weren't selfish assholes in general. Waze routes people through my neighborhood and then they end up not realizing that the way they want to go only has one lane of access from a two lane thoroughfare. So they block traffic and make people stop unnecessarily so that they can avoid going to the next light to make their turn, or make a u-turn. So what happens? It takes me 15 minutes to drive a distance that the slowest, most geriatric person you know could walk in about 5 minutes and it's absolutely infuriating. I don't really care if they drive through my neighborhood but for the love of god, know where you are going or just accept that you can't end up where you want to be and let everyone else go by accepting the consequences of your actions.

Re: It's a public road...

[dcw3]

Waze is causing accidents by ignoring the grade and routing the unwary (generally speeding) http://www.thedrive.com/news/1...

Um, no. Bad drivers are causing accidents. If they're speeding that's the driver's fault, not Waze. If they can't handle a steep grade, they can turn around. Do you do everything Waze tells you to? If so, you should throw away your license.

Re:It's a public road...

[zabbey]

Waze doesn't do any of that in my town but it still takes 15 minutes for me to drive across the street because of people using my town as a throughway to the metro area. Who can I sue?

Re: It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

The wazers drive through my neighborhood too and I DO care. If I try to drive to work I canâ(TM)t get out of my driveway and Iâ(TM)ve already been rear ended twice by wazers whose eyes and attention was on their phones in addition to that they are in an uncontrollable rage because the traffic on my narrow street is barely moving due to the huge number of other wazers clogging it up.
If I chose to walk to work I risk my life because wazers are in no mood to stop at stop signs or red lights, and are simply not interested in not running down pedestrians.

Re:It's a public road...

[jittles]

Waze doesn't do any of that in my town but it still takes 15 minutes for me to drive across the street because of people using my town as a throughway to the metro area. Who can I sue?

I am not proposing that anyone be sued whatsoever. I am merely pointing out that just because we can do something, doesn't mean we OUGHT to do it. I am not certain that Waze actually makes traffic better or safer.

Re: It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you live in a residential area like that, organize a neighborhood "road safety" course. Where the locals know that a tiny spike strip is place on either side of the road on alternate days. I'm sure a local towing company would offer to sponsor it.

It's the same as spiking the non locals, but legal. Plus parking tickets can be issued before the tow! Win win win, except for the nonlocals who will learn to avoid Waze.

Re: It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

Traffic engineers and planners design roads based on a number of factors including vehicle types, design speeds, traffic rates, services on those roads, etc. The result are roads designed to handle a certain types and rates of traffic, and classified by their function (major and minor arterials and collectors, local roads). From this the road pavement construction is often specified based on use. Same goes for road maintenance. Minor or local roads are low on the totum pole of maintenance programs as compared major arterials.

And then their is Waze. It reroutes arterial traffic onto minor, residential roads that were not designed for the amount and type of traffic volumes it is now seeing. They might even be seeing truck traffic (STAA, KPRA) loads that the pavement was not designed for. Of course traffic engineers anticipate some amount of alternative routing, but what Waze is encouraging is unmanageable.

Yea yea, congestion is a sign of traffic issues. Unfortunately there is often little that can be done to sufficiently solve the problem of congestion. Jurisdictions have limited rights of way to improve roads short of taking land (eminent domain) and then often have limited funding for road. (Remember that measure you voted against?) And population (traffic volumes) are increasing so quickly that the common joke is that as soon as a road improvement is finished it is undersized.

One way I see planners managing this problem is by designing residential roads to be non-through street âoedead endsâ. For some reason I am envisioning a somewhat apocalyptic future where communities go vigilante under the cover of darkness and plunk concrete barricades on one end of their road to physically prevent through traffic.

Other alternatives might be traffic calming measures: chicanes, speed tables, (narrowing, removing lanes, shared uses), etc. that physically prevent vehicles from safely traveling faster than 35mph. I know we all hate these bastards so I am sure that loads of people will avoid those alternative routes.

My point is, from a transportation management standpoint, Waze is a nightmare.

I used it once and was sent on a circuitous route on frontage roads, under expressways, along a river, and routed through an industrial area before being spit out one block from the expressway I was originally on (near an exit ramp to boot), not more than a few miles from where I got off the expressway. Fuck that. Iâ(TM)d rather stick to the slow moving access controlled expressway than save 3 minutes on another one of those routes.

Re: It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are an optimist. Roads are mostly an afterthought

Re:It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

IF Waze is doing this, then someone needs to look at the maps, something isn't right there. Otherwise Waze might route a couple drivers on that route, but after the first one or two spends 5 to 15 minutes sitting trying to turn left, Waze will realize it's a bad route and not use it.

Unless something is set wrong on the better routes, a broken intersection where road segments don't connect leaving Waze to think it's not a throughway. Miss-set turn restrictions, something is preventing the algorithm from recognizing that route does not work and choosing another. I'm betting it's other GPS apps, not Waze because Waze looks for issues like that and learns to avoid them.

Or you can go in to the forums, explain the situation and how the left turn really needs to be marked as not allowed (at certain times or ever).

Simply put the real beauty of Waze isn't the traffic routing, it's the fact that if there are problems, they can and will be fixed if someone bothers.

Re: It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

No that is not legal. Placing any device to intentionally damage vehicles is criminal.

Re: It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Waze forcing people to follow their suggested routes and making them speed, ignore stop signs, etc?

No, so STFU

Re:It's a public road...

[drinkypoo]

"for the love of god, know where you are going or just accept that you can't end up where you want to be and let everyone else go by accepting the consequences of your actions."

You mean like the action of buying a house on a through street that was virtually guaranteed to wind up carrying more traffic with or without Waze?

Re:It's a public road...

[jittles]

"for the love of god, know where you are going or just accept that you can't end up where you want to be and let everyone else go by accepting the consequences of your actions."

You mean like the action of buying a house on a through street that was virtually guaranteed to wind up carrying more traffic with or without Waze?

I'm not on a through street, though. Not at all. Not remotely. In fact, due to the number of special events that occur on the spring and summer weekends in my neighborhood, my street is designed to discourage traffic and encourage pedestrian, bicycle, and transit traffic. I know my neighborhood can be loud and busy on the weekends and that there can be unusual traffic during those times. These people are actually going out of their way, leaving a through street, to go to a street that literally ends to prevent them from going where they are trying to go. So they just drive through the neighborhoods to get back onto the thoroughfare they got off of a few miles earlier.

Re: It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the main roads are slower than alternative routes then the problem is the design of the main roads.
Roads are there to provide vehicles with a efficient path to reach their destination.
Quit blaming the symptoms and address the causes (shit road capacity and urban planning)

Re:It's a public road...

[drinkypoo]

These people are actually going out of their way, leaving a through street, to go to a street that literally ends to prevent them from going where they are trying to go. So they just drive through the neighborhoods to get back onto the thoroughfare they got off of a few miles earlier.

Sounds like another problem which could be solved by adequate signage... or adequate transportation networks.

Re:It's a public road...

[whoda]

Park closer to the on-ramp. Walk 5 minutes.

Re: It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

Traffic engineers and planners design roads based on a number of factors including vehicle types, design speeds, traffic rates, services on those roads, etc.

Ok, but it's a public road. You're designing a road based on an estimate of how it will be used. In a free country, the public can drive on a public road. If your road estimate is wrong, that isn't the fault of the driver who is licensed and explicitly authorized by law to drive on a public road.

And then their is Waze. It reroutes arterial traffic onto minor, residential roads that were not designed for the amount and type of traffic volumes it is now seeing. They might even be seeing truck traffic (STAA, KPRA) loads that the pavement was not designed for.

Driving around, I often see signs saying "No heavy trucks", "No vehicles over 10 tons" or something like that. If truckers aren't following the law, give them tickets.

Re:It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

By definition, the public can go on a public road.

As it turns out, real life is more complex than simple statements.

Re:It's a public road...

[jittles]

These people are actually going out of their way, leaving a through street, to go to a street that literally ends to prevent them from going where they are trying to go. So they just drive through the neighborhoods to get back onto the thoroughfare they got off of a few miles earlier.

Sounds like another problem which could be solved by adequate signage... or adequate transportation networks.

Well, people who live off of my street do legitimately need to take the route that these people are taking. It is busy because of that. But I live in a metro area and most of the traffic is designed to be early morning commute traffic to office buildings or weekend traffic to a large urban park in the area. There is way higher traffic flow in the mornings but it is a lot more organized. The commuters all know what is up and are very considerate and polite. It’s the evening traffic that gets snarled and it’s entirely due to people using navigation apps. It did not happen prior to the Waze craze and has actually been getting worse over the last few years as Google maps now starts routing people that way, too.

The signage isn’t great, to be honest, but there are multiple subway lines and bus routes that service the area. The city intentionally took measures to block the traffic in the last 30 years or so. The streets are more than adequate for the planned traffic. To be honest, if I had to guess what makes it so bad is suburban traffic coming into town for special events during the week. There are multiple museums and concert halls that are close by, but actually on the main thoroughfare that the city has been trying to get people to use.

Re:It's a public road...

[jittles]

Park closer to the on-ramp. Walk 5 minutes.

I’d actually have to park in a neighborhood. It’s no where near an off-ramp or on-ramp to the interstate. By no where near, I mean that it is over 1.5 miles to the nearest one. Because of nearby amenities the parking in that neighborhood is generally permit only. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind the people at all. It’s a great urban location near to a huge park, musuems, concert halls, etc. I think the people that come in to take advantage of those amenities make the neighborhood more fun. But the city has taken action to try to prevent people from using it as a short cut to those amenities. There are multiple subway stations and bus lines that service the area, even from the suburbs. The morning traffic has more vehicles but fewer problems because they are all daily office commuters going to their high rise office buildings that are also in my neighborhood. The evening traffic contains a lot of suburbanites going to these amenities even though they are on a main thoroughfare that the city is trying to push all the traffic onto. Again, I don’t mind that, either. It is a public road. I am only irritated by the selfish way in which they block traffic. If they knew where they were going and where they needed to be, it wouldn’t be an issue. The signage could be better but they could also accept that there’s no reasonable way for them to get into the lane they want and make other plans rather than causing an issue for hundreds of others.

Re:It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because it's a public road does not preclude restrictions such as "no thru traffic" laws. There are all sorts of restrictions on "public property"; roads are no different.

Re:It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you have business in a residential neighborhood, stay out and use the thoroughfares. That's called common courtesy. It's hard to legislate courtesy and we shouldn't have to. You absolutely have the "right" to drive on public roads, just like you have the right to be a whiny, entitled, prick. Attitudes like yours are why we can't have nice things.

Re:It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I would agree with you"... but I'm a selfish prick that has decided that my convenience is more important that your public access too!

Re: It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

I used it once and was sent on a circuitous route on frontage roads, under expressways, along a river, and routed through an industrial area before being spit out one block from the expressway I was originally on (near an exit ramp to boot), not more than a few miles from where I got off the expressway. Fuck that. IÃ(TM)d rather stick to the slow moving access controlled expressway than save 3 minutes on another one of those routes.

To each his own, because I love those routes. You got to see lots of cool stuff instead of a boring freeway. There's a place outside of town I regularly go to where I tell Google Maps to avoid highways. It is a beautiful route and varies slightly depending on traffic.

Re:It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we all know how good the average driver is at reading signs.

Re: It's a public road...

[sg_oneill]

Up until recently Waze kept sending cars down a spagettiish back alley around the corner from me, that turned into a narrow footpath at the end. By the time the car got to the foot part they've turned two 90 degree turns that are almost impossible to back out of. The houses along there all have knocked over fences and other damage from cars trying to bash their way back out, and the old boy whos caretaker at the freemason hall next to the footpath had a motorist threaten him if he didnt open up the driveway through the yard of the hall.

Waze was creating some serious chaos back there. It seems to have stopped recvently though

Re: It's a public road...

[HiThere]

If you've got a residential road with houses on both sides, what is your proposal for improving the road? Condemn one set of houses so there's room? Double deck the road?

Roads are always designed to accommodate some maximum amount of traffic. When too much traffic is routed through them, it causes problems. When massively too much traffic is routed through them, it causes massive problems.

Re:It's a public road...

[Nethead]

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?

Re: It's a public road...

[Bitbeard]

Waze gives verbal turn instructions and alerts, so if the drivers are staring at their screens, they're not using Waze!

I hope in the future you will think harder about purchasing a home on a public through street.

Re: It's a public road...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Other alternatives might be traffic calming measures: chicanes, speed tables, (narrowing, removing lanes, shared uses), etc. that
> physically prevent vehicles from safely traveling faster than 35mph. I know we all hate these bastards so I am sure that loads of
> people will avoid those alternative routes.

I have never seen one of these setups that didn't cause more accidents due to either

a) the incompetent people that were driving there before smashing straight through them
or
b) People using them to test out the performance limits of their cars... (Yeah, there's a lot of cross over between a and b)...

Another grandstanding politician

[MDMurphy]

The city could have pushed through a road reclassification. Had they done so the routing would be updated and problem solved. But this lets someone stand up to Big Bad Google, rather than actually fixing the problem.

I'm with Waze/Google on this one. They route based on accurate and legal road information. Once they start tweaking it things will break. The city can change the road signage to match what they want for traffic and map routing ( not just Waze, but any app based on the actual road network ) will change to match.

Re: Another grandstanding politician

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but that has been tried some places and waze didnâ(TM)t change.

Re: Another grandstanding politician

[Anonymous Coward]

Then get the cops out to ticket and fine.

Re:Another grandstanding politician

[AmiMoJo]

Is there some classification that states something like "local through traffic only"? I don't know how you handle road classifications in the states, or if Waze can deal with non-standard signage etc.

I think you have the right idea, I'm just wondering if there is some practical reason why it can't be implemented.

Re:Another grandstanding politician

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I am there are many streets with "no through traffic" signs, but I donâ(TM)t know if they are mandates or merely advisory / suggestions.

Re:Another grandstanding politician

[JackieBrown]

How do you define local?

Do you have to live in that zipcode, that neighborhood, or just in the city? If the city, I don't think many cities would be helped (some sure - like New York/New Jersey).

If you need to live in the zip code or neighborhood then how does waze enforce it? Do they need to require proof of residence to use their app or to be able to use certain routes?

Re:Another grandstanding politician

[AmiMoJo]

Well, quite. I don't think it's that easy to solve.

Re:Another grandstanding politician

[suutar]

remember, there's a difference between "through" and "into/out of" and it's not honestly that difficult to tell whether your destination is on the "no through traffic" road or not.

How stupid can he be

[SmaryJerry]

If those cars weren't taking the side streets the other roads would get more traffic and would probably need to be two or three times as many lanes anyways. If anything Waze or any map application is reducing congestion.

Re:How stupid can he be

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much this.

Google's "refusal to fix" the issue is a subtle way of saying: "Fix your goddamn roads so our software wouldn't have to direct people through terrible routes that are still faster than the main ones."

Politicians just can't wrap their heads around cause and effect.

Re: How stupid can he be

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. Because of waze people drive considerably more. They donâ(TM)t stop as much as they would if they took the main roads that were built for high capacity, but they creep around small residential roads and cause congestion in more places.
And crashes. Every day this week thereâ(TM)s been a waze-crash in front of my house. That is pretty normal.

Re:How stupid can he be

[BlueStrat]

Politicians just can't wrap their heads around cause and effect.

No, actually, they understand it very well.

They pander and grandstand, do 'favors' for their contributors/lobbyists/cronies, tell blatant lies to the public, exempt themselves from laws we must obey while enriching themselves, and the effect is that the idiots keep reelecting them again and again.

Because otherwise the wrong lizard might get in.

Strat

Re: How stupid can he be

[Anonymous Coward]

They donâ(TM)t stop as much as they would if they took the main roads that were built for high capacity,

If that's really true, then there is a problem with the main roads, and it is inacurrate to claim that they were built for high capacity.

I've noticed that in my area, if I take the detour, more often than not I end up stuck in even more stoppy traffic, which makes sense because even at reduced capacity a controlled access highway designed for high-speed traffic will still have a vastly greater flow rate than a local "main road" with cross-streets every quarter mile.

It's pointless to try and do anything about traffic other than choosing when to start your trip or take a break.

Re:How stupid can he be

[JackieBrown]

If those cars weren't taking the side streets the other roads would get more traffic and would probably need to be two or three times as many lanes anyways. If anything Waze or any map application is reducing congestion.

In Texas, the state has been trying to force San Antonio to build toll roads and has deliberately allowed traffic to get worse in main areas (281/1604 comes to mind) since we keep voting against those toll roads every time it comes up.

I love waze/google maps. I use it even on routes I know. It's like having a scout in front of me checking for accidents and making sure all is open for me

It looks like people are

[jennatalia]

Wazed and Confused.

Maybe

[neoRUR]

Its because the traffic planning is so bad that they use these apps. I know quite a few bottle necks that if they fixed in LA would clean up a lot of traffic.

Re:Maybe

[UnknownSoldier]

Yup. Typical government knee-jerk reaction.

Blame the symptom instead of fixing the problem.

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

Fixing the real problem costs money, Grandstanding makes it look like you are doing something while actually doing nothing....
 

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

+1

I used to use Google Maps and Waze in Denver while they were doing construction on US-36 because alternative routes saved significant time. After the construction was complete, every time I open the app it says to just take US-36. After a while, I stopped opening the app. If the traffic problems are solved, the best way to arrive somewhere will be consistent and predictable.

Re:Maybe

[houghi]

Well, another person who has no idea how traffic works. Adding more roads to traffic can make it worse. Solving those crossings might bring other problems to the table that are worse than what you have now.

The difference between the app and traffic planning is that the app looks at 1 person. Traffic planning looks at 1.000.000 and they all interact with each other.

If you arrive 10 minutes earlier because of Waze, the rest might be 1 second later each. That is still a loss for traffic planning as a whole.

Re:Maybe

[thegarbz]

Its because the traffic planning is so bad that they use these apps.

Traffic planning may be bad, but that's not why in general people use these apps. They serve many purposes including getting to somewhere you don't know, informing you of unforeseen problems along your route and routing around them, redirecting you if you need to take a detour etc.

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of the reason that traffic planning is so bad is because any one who is really good at civil engineering gets a job designing buildings, bridges, and other interesting things. The dregs who are left are stuck as traffic engineers.

Re: Tech bros never heard of tragedy of the common

[Anonymous Coward]

Waze doesnâ(TM)t help you get to your destination in a âtimely fasionâ(TM) They help you avoid traffic lights and main thoroughfares. The idea is to keep you from having to stop and wait. You end up driving a longer distance and clogging up small residential streets.

Publicity stunt

[Anonymous Coward]

Rerouting only occurs if traffic is congested. Fix the cause....not the effect. The rerouting actually gets more cars off the road as a whole because they get to the destination faster...

I am a waze user ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and I do not fkn stare at my phone to get where I am going. I read the directions then I drive where I want to go. If I need to update my knowledge of the route I pull over! I am sorry there are drivers who suck. Waze did not make them suck any more or less. Google maps, Apple Maps, Garmin did not make them suck any more or less. These people would be texting and driving just as much as they Waze and drive.

Re:I am a waze user ...

[Anonymous Coward]

so you're in the minority. big fucking deal. pat yourself on the back.

Idiot politicians.

[www.sorehands.com]

Los Angeles is a city that had a major that kept failing the bar exam. They took away lanes on Wilshire Blvd. and assigned it for buses to "improve traffic flow." They cut down lanes of roads because having two lanes of traffic is not safe for people to j-walk at night.

Re:Idiot politicians.

[Anonymous Coward]

Having two lanes of traffic each way is unsafe for legal pedestrian crossing, as well.

It's the government's fault...

[brokie]

Actually, if tax hungry asshats would stop using stopped cars as a means to generate capital, we wouldnt have this issue at all...
Examples of this are as follows...
1). Event driven streetlights.
        Instead of using the flow of traffic to control the red / green traffic control signals, these single digit IQ bastards think we are stupider than them, and use YOU stopping at every possible red light as a means to generate tax dollars from the pump.
2). METER ON.
          Metering the traffic entering the freeways ACTUALLY SLOWS DOWN THE FREEWAYS. It doesn't reduce congestion. As people enter the freeway, because they were stopped, now they have to accelerate harder to get up to speed, and because the onramp is shorter, now they will slow the traffic behind them, as they get up to speed, if they can, because all the people in front of them had to play the same BS game...
3). Police refuse to enforce tailgating laws, and lawmakers refuse to change the tailgating laws to an enforceable wording...
4). Police refuse to enforce laws regarding impeding traffic.

All this made possible due to triple taxing californians to drive:
Gas taxes
Use taxes on cars per year (everywhere else that humans drive, gas taxes pay for this)
Earmarking taxes from income taxes for road work (Wasnt this why we paid twice for the right to drive in the first place?)

The truth is, because they want to spend on average 11 times more for road maintenance than anywhere else in the human occupied universe for things like PAINTING LINES ($94 per mile in California, US Average is $4 per mile), repairing potholes (How many times have the pothole in LA County been paid for, and they are STILL THERE!!!)

Fire the government, they cannot govern effectively.

If you fix all of the above issues, then there would be no reason for Waze in California, and no need to send people AWAY from the congestion caused by the broken traffic management systems in the normal thoroughfares.

   

Why not make the most of it?

[Ichijo]

If Waze is sending traffic down a residential street, have that street rezoned to commercial. It would raise the value of the land, bring in more tax revenue, bring in jobs, and bring people closer to places they need to go.

Traffic isn't good for residential areas but businesses love it!

LA wants to enforce the law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet, the law about entering the country illegally is not enforced by the city of LA. Since the city of LA chooses to obey some laws, enforce others, and still make up more, I choose to not to obey the laws of LA while transiting that municipality. Killing, murder, arson, child exploitation are all fair game.

Its a brave new world.

The only thing that is illegal is to not pay off your city council women with enough campaign donations to get your crime overlooked. Might makes right, and God is always on the side of the winners.

LA's Load Balancing Leaves Something to be Desired

[Anonymous Coward]

Dealing with LA traffic daily is rough, and I welcome apps like Waze that try to optimize it. The city does a lot to help move traffic through it well, but there's so many cases where I feel like I have a *huge* advantage over non-locals (FILTHY GAIJIN) because I know the right sidetreets to take to get around traffic.

Someone needs to solve this with software. Moving through traffic quickly shouldn't be a matter of tribal knowledge. Politicians acting like they're heroes for opposing this are making the wrong stand. They should be helping the apps succeed, not soapboxing.

Tried it.

[fponias]

Driving Manhattan Beach to Santa Monica, I tried many many different routes to avoid the 405. Turns out, none of them were significantly faster. 45 to 75 minutes guaranteed. All Waze and Google maps did was direct me along obnoxious circuitous routes that got me stuck at too many stop signs. Of course, it took me nearly 3 months of trying to reach that conclusion: statistically tracking peak traffic times, determining when traffic was worst on which streets. So imagine if every driver was trying this, which they obviously are.

I certainly wouldn't have been driving at all if there was a metro line that didn't take 2-3 hours to complete the same route. Though to take the metro from Manhattan Beach it's the Green line to the Blue line to the Expo line and then walk or take the bus another half mile to the office. Or it's take the bus to the LAX and then another bus up Sepulveda and then another bus along Wilshire.

Eventually I just decided to ride my bike because it took just as long and I got to ride on the beach every day. LA traffic sucks enough that people would take public transit if it meant you didn't have to drive the freeways. I will certainly use proximity to a metro line to influence the next place I live.

Maybe a knee jerk reaction deserves one in return

[Alpha232]

48 Hours without Google Maps or Waze for the LA Metro area....

Misdirect

[QuadEddie]

So, instead of addressing the problem they combat a solution. Classic politics.

Re:Misdirect

[Virtucon]

That's what I was thinking as well. The traffic is bad and rather than working on that problem, let's go after an app that takes maximum advantage of the infrastructure already built out? It's a classic diversionary tactic.

Re: Tech bros never heard of tragedy of the common

[Anonymous Coward]

And it bugs me when Waze doesnâ(TM)t do it. Harmon are especially bad, having me make 2 left turns and lose 8 minutes to take me from a highway parallel road to a highway for one exit to bring me on the same parallel road, with no traffic lights or intersections in between.
It especially bugs me when a route finding app set to best time does not even try to calculate through residential streets that I know for a fact are faster than the congested boulevard or highway.

Nuts and Bolts

[Anonymous Coward]

All states compile a GIS Roads database from data collected from cities. This data is then fed on to the service providers. In Virginia the entire data set is available publicly from VGIN, and updated every quarter.

The data includes speed limit, directional, etc - FGDC GEOSPATIAL STANDARDS If LA changes the signage (or the speed limit) the information should propagate to all service providers in a few months through the normal channels. This is probably faster than trying to arrange a special data push.

âoeSHORR-YUKEN!!!â

[Anonymous Coward]

Ryu was also quoted as saying that he would like to subject Waze to a Hurricane Kick, also known as a âoeAck plack back ba-tick!â

Re:âoeSHORR-YUKEN!!!â

[Anonymous Coward]

It blew my mind when I learned he was saying "tatsumakisenpukyaku".

Even now knowing what he's supposedly saying, it still doesn't fucking sound like what it's supposed to be at all. I try to make my brain hear what it's supposed to, but nope, all I get is ATAKBACKSPRUHHHGUKT.

However, in SNK vs. Capcom, which was developed by SNK, they actually managed to nail the line in the recording booth. It took until Capcom's competition made a game with their characters in it before you can properly hear what the name of that damn attack is supposed to be.

Awwwwwww

[Zurkeyon3733]

Stop putting up so many Cop-Traps to Avoid, and Start Building some Roads with all those Tax Dollars you Collect... Maybe?

Re:Awwwwwww

[whoda]

You haven't been here long.
In California, your tax dollars are used to fund social programs, not update infrastructure.

algorithms

[rtkluttz]

These types of absurd lawsuits need to be shot down immediately. Companies should not be liable for results of calculations, no matter what that calculation is or how offensive it may be.

Re:algorithms

[Virtucon]

except when they directly cause harm or injury, like flying into terrain?
or maybe when they run over someone?

meh

[cascadingstylesheet]

If the main routes are so dang slow, that's your fault, city, not an app's fault.

Don't want to put speed bumps in the fancy neighborhoods? Then build more or wider main roads.

Re:meh

[f00zbll]

clearly you've never lived in LA. The streets in southern CA are quite wide and the 405 freeway is 4 lines in each direction from Orange county to Sherman oaks. There are sections where it's 5 lanes each side. The problem isn't the roads aren't wide enough. The problem is the car culture of southern CA and the city planning. For anyone that knows the history of CA, you'd know the auto industry played a big hand in the design and zoning. Basically, the design forces people to drive 1-2 miles to do basic things like buy groceries. Compare that to European cities where you can walk from your house to buy groceries and run basic errands.

If you take a minute to look at southern CA on google maps, you'll see there's a freeway every 4-5 miles running north-to-south and east-to-west. Many streets are 3 lanes each side like Hawthrone and PCH. Don't take my word for it, look on google maps. I grew up in LA area and it's gotten worse since the 80's.

Re:meh

[Virtucon]

I grew up in LA area and it's gotten worse since the 80's.

60s.. #FTFY

Re:meh

[Joey Vegetables]

4 lanes per direction is not a particularly wide road by large, car-oriented-city standards. The metro area I live in (Cleveland) is not even a fifth of LA's size .. by any reasonable measure it's more like a tenth. But we have 10 lane roads (e.g., I-271 - 3 local and 2 express lanes) that regularly turn into parking lots. Toronto, closer to LA's size but with much better transit and I believe higher density, has roads like 401 with 18 lanes, which also still get congested. Houston has some very wide roads also. Now, obviously, you can't always add enough lanes to meet demand, and sometimes you can't add any at all. And sometimes adding capacity results in added demand via sprawl. I'm not suggesting otherwise. I am saying, though, that a 4 lane can easily be a bottleneck in even a drastically smaller town, so it's hard for me to believe that it wouldn't be in LA.

Or you could fix you stinking roads

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical California, look for some private company to blame rather than fixing the roads. If the roads were passable, people wouldn't be looking for alternate routes!

Clever solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Donâ(TM)t make public roads that you donâ(TM)t intend for people to drive on. Itâ(TM)s that simple. Waze optimizes traffic- sensing people the quickest route. Itâ(TM)s good for all traffic to distribute it across the roads we all pay for.

Re: Tech bros never heard of tragedy of the common

[JackieBrown]

Same. It must be possible for cities or people to get this done because Waze has stopped reporting some of the shortcuts that it taught me for longer and more congested main roads.

Almost as annoying as when I tell it to avoid freeways and it routes me to the access road (frontage road) for the bulk of my way home.

Link is not to a lawsuit.

[MDMurphy]

That's not a PDF of a lawsuit, just a letter complaining to the City Attorney by the councilman. The content is just whining in general no specifics. There's mention of "a street designated for local use", but doesn't name the street.

If the complaints to Waze were as vague as this letter, I wouldn't be surprised that nothing changed.

It also doesn't let him and his buddies

[rsilvergun]

cut through the street when they want to get home sooner.

Re:It also doesn't let him and his buddies

[suutar]

you assume he and his buddies will pay attention to the sign. Maybe, maybe not, but I wouldn't put money on it.

There is

[rsilvergun]

it's called closing the app.

Possible legal action???

[CrimsonAvenger]

I'm curious.

Just what part of the CA legal code could Waze POSSIBLY have broken? Surely it's not illegal to tell someone "take an alternate route because there's a wreck on the freeway"???

Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Put "LA City Councilman David Ryu " in prison for being an authoritarian. We need to purge all authoritarians from positions of power.

Re:Maybe a knee jerk reaction deserves one in retu

[Anonymous Coward]

Scary movie for millennials.

Any different than Garmin or TomTom or ???

[Kazoo the Clown]

How is Waze any different than a GPS that handles traffic re-routing, like my TomTom, or Garmin or any other GPS?

Where is Councilman's and Mayor's House?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Waze should route traffic by the councilman's and mayor's house.......
Or add a 'popup' when folks are near.....'Would you like to drive by Councilman's house?' That could allow individuals to express their political feelings and let Waze also.

Public roads, are wel...public.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they public roads paid for with tax dollars? Yes? Then go fuck yourself Councilman. And I don't even use WAZE and rarely go to LA

Just the facts, ma'am

[Bitbeard]

How does he know the drivers are using Waze? I was taking shortcuts through neighborhoods a decade before there were any commercial navigation products.

Re:Maybe a knee jerk reaction deserves one in retu

[Anonymous Coward]

Love it!

Is it such a bad technical alternative?

[shufflingb]

It's easy to say it's a matter of freedom; those roads are open to anyone to drive them so why is Waze being pilloried for routing people over them.

However, think about it for a moment longer.

As, with speeding and the march of speed cameras, road humps etc. We know the slow IRL infrastructure response will be to no-through signs, blocked up roads and similar restrictions. In the meantime though, the unfortunate neighborhood that this has this inflicted on them suffer.

Neighborhoods, that were formerly quiet and safe for their inhabitants become noisy, polluted and unsafe. All ultimately for nothing.

In the end, no matter how many $$$'s the car lobby spends on marketing its unsustainable public health disaster transport policy. It will, like cigarettes, be found out. Life is not about cars and building roads over anything worth visiting; it's about giving people somewhere that is not shit to live.

Waze and the auto lobby are seeking to screw the majority of us for a bit longer to keep their business model going. They want us to trade the destruction of our neighborhoods and damage to our health so that they can make a profit.

Now, ask yourself this. Who do you think will be picking the $$$ bill for this pile of short-term shit? Is it going to be Waze and the lobby? Or is going to be the general public?

So really, is getting Waze to alter its software such a bad technical solution?