https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/traffic-weary-homeowners-and-waze-are-at-war-again-guess-whos-winning/2016/06/05/c466df46-299d-11e6-b989-4e5479715b54_story.html
QuoteWhen the traffic on Timothy Connor's quiet Maryland street suddenly jumped by several hundred cars an hour, he knew who was partly to blame: the disembodied female voice he could hear through the occasional open window saying, "Continue on Elm Avenue . . . ."
While I'm certainly empathetic to people's previously "secret" streets being "discovered" by commuters, my thought is this: The public may drive on public roads. If the public is driving unsafely on public roads, then a grievance is justified. However, to buy a house on a public street and expect people not to use it is no different than living near an airport and complaining about jet noise (which also happens in the DC area...)
It also goes to show the importance of a true street grid. In most of DC and the inner suburbs, if 7th street is jammed, you can usually just go to 8th or 6th easily (notional examples), and continue on your war. However, in the more outer suburbs, which depend more on heirarchical road networks, if the local parkway or medium-capacity thoroughfare is jammed, you're in trouble, and the few connector roads will get overwhelmed.
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on June 05, 2016, 11:00:39 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/traffic-weary-homeowners-and-waze-are-at-war-again-guess-whos-winning/2016/06/05/c466df46-299d-11e6-b989-4e5479715b54_story.html
QuoteWhen the traffic on Timothy Connor's quiet Maryland street suddenly jumped by several hundred cars an hour, he knew who was partly to blame: the disembodied female voice he could hear through the occasional open window saying, "Continue on Elm Avenue . . . ."
While I'm certainly empathetic to people's previously "secret" streets being "discovered" by commuters, my thought is this: The public may drive on public roads. If the public is driving unsafely on public roads, then a grievance is justified. However, to buy a house on a public street and expect people not to use it is no different than living near an airport and complaining about jet noise (which also happens in the DC area...)
It also goes to show the importance of a true street grid. In most of DC and the inner suburbs, if 7th street is jammed, you can usually just go to 8th or 6th easily (notional examples), and continue on your war. However, in the more outer suburbs, which depend more on heirarchical road networks, if the local parkway or medium-capacity thoroughfare is jammed, you're in trouble, and the few connector roads will get overwhelmed.
Just wait fro auto drive cars to start makeing the same moves.
This is definitely a place where full grid exist; Elm ave, Takoma park MD is well within beltway, and there are a lot of bigger streets around. But I assume they get saturated during rush hour..
A few general thoughts: the street is really narrow, 25 MPH one. There is not much room - one parking and one driving lane total (not each way): https://www.google.com/maps/place/51+Elm+Ave,+Takoma+Park,+MD+20912/@38.9745046,-77.0012959,3a,66.8y,76.95h,84.09t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sXQpBRq-Oun8rIHSJwcSwXg!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x89b7c62835a601f7:0x8eb6efdd641796e
Pavement doesn't look highway grade, and likely suffers under heavy traffic - and we know how often side streets get fixed.
Last, but not the least - I've seen those maps send traffic through side street not because the main one is backed up, but because side street is 20' shorter drive...
Although, I must admit that Wase was doing miracles during my last trip to Chicago. When you're not local and don't know which roads are commonly backed up... ("all of them!" seems about right, but sort of useless). Can make a difference between getting to that meeting on time or missing it, or being at the airport in time for the plane.
I actually like Waze and have used it some. However, because it is a garbage in-garbage out self-selected deal, the solution to Mr. Connors' problem is pretty simple. Get a Waze account (or better yet 20 of them) and report Elm Avenue as totally backed up every day.
As to self-driving cars, since the main function of GPS is to get you lost (challenge: ask any mapping program a proper route for 20 random multi-state trips and at least one will be wrong in terms of mileage or time by at least 20% ) and because one of the main limitations of GPS based systems is the inability to distinguish quality of non-Interstates, self-driving cars pouring over residential streets, or hopeless creeping along on rural roads not designed for thru travel will indeed be a problem.
QuoteI actually like Waze and have used it some. However, because it is a garbage in-garbage out self-selected deal, the solution to Mr. Connors' problem is pretty simple. Get a Waze account (or better yet 20 of them) and report Elm Avenue as totally backed up every day.
Guessing you didn't read the article. He'd already tried that.
I was hoping the article would address the legality of the "No Thru Traffic" signs that the residents purchased of their own volition. Not to mention how one enforces a "No Thru Traffic" sign generally, let alone one that is a yellow diamond when it should be a white rectangle. ;-)
Quote from: Joe The Dragon on June 06, 2016, 08:11:24 AM
Just wait fro auto drive cars to start makeing the same moves.
Will be less likely. For one thing, self-driving cars can still be efficient at much higher levels of congestion, since they don't need anywhere near the physical and reactional lead time as human-driven cars; thus, they won't need to seek detour routes nearly so often because of congestion. For another, they can all talk to each other (without coming to blows during the morning commute) and sort out a network-wide plan so that not all of them have to use the same side street as a detour, should one become necessary.
One key difference between self-driving cars and human-driven cars is that the self-driving car will not always aim for the
very fastest possible route; it will select any available route that gets it to its destination within the given parameters and will often even adjust its speed downward to make the network flow better. Now, there will surely be an option for the passenger to select "fastest route", but the car will only apply that to the extent possible within the network. Obviously, it's not possible for every car on the road to be granted the actual fastest route whenever requested, because doing so would require pre-empting other vehicles, which defeats the whole point of the network and will presumably be reserved only for emergency vehicles.
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on June 05, 2016, 11:00:39 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/traffic-weary-homeowners-and-waze-are-at-war-again-guess-whos-winning/2016/06/05/c466df46-299d-11e6-b989-4e5479715b54_story.html
QuoteWhen the traffic on Timothy Connor's quiet Maryland street suddenly jumped by several hundred cars an hour, he knew who was partly to blame: the disembodied female voice he could hear through the occasional open window saying, "Continue on Elm Avenue . . . ."
While I'm certainly empathetic to people's previously "secret" streets being "discovered" by commuters, my thought is this: The public may drive on public roads. If the public is driving unsafely on public roads, then a grievance is justified. However, to buy a house on a public street and expect people not to use it is no different than living near an airport and complaining about jet noise (which also happens in the DC area...)
It also goes to show the importance of a true street grid. In most of DC and the inner suburbs, if 7th street is jammed, you can usually just go to 8th or 6th easily (notional examples), and continue on your war. However, in the more outer suburbs, which depend more on heirarchical road networks, if the local parkway or medium-capacity thoroughfare is jammed, you're in trouble, and the few connector roads will get overwhelmed.
I do have a certain sense of sympathy for these people. If you purchase a hope in a development-type area off a main road, you expect it to be mostly people living in that development.
There was this interesting quote:
Quote"We had traffic jams, people were honking. It was pretty harrowing."
If there's traffic jams, why is Waze still sending them down that road?
The article hinted at the street in question: Elm Avenue, in Takoma Park, MD. Taking an aerial look, you can see why it's a convenient cut-thru road. But taking a GSV look at it, you can see why the residents would be upset as the road is quite narrow and doesn't allow for efficient two-way traffic. What usually comes next isn't in the favor of residents either...restricting curbside parking!
It's really a fault of road planning ages ago, when developers would make some roads easy for the residents to cut to either side of the neighborhood. But that was in an era of lower traffic volumes and main roads that could handle the traffic volumes. In today's age, most developments don't allow for cutting thru, or make it trickier to do so. My neighborhood, built long ago, actually does have these advantages. Of the 4 main roads surrounding the development, we have access to 3 of them. There is only one road that allows a direct cut-thru, but it's parallel to one of the main roads. It's not heavily utilized unless there's an issue on that main road They also installed a few 4-way stop intersections to try to prevent it from becoming an often-used alternative, which does seem to work.
It's one of those things where I understand the "It's a public road, so you gotta expect the public to use it". I get that POV. But until you're the "victim", you don't really get it. If you suddenly can't back out of your driveway, or a pleasant 1 minute drive down a side road turns into a 10 minute wait, you will change that POV fairly quickly!
I always thought this issue was known as "rat running", there are many things city governments can do to discourage rat running, which can be double edged swords to the residents, such as speed bumps everywhere, time restricted turns, a confusing set of one ways that will send you back to the road you tried to escape from.
In my opinion, when this issue happens, it's a failure of traffic engineering, if you want to keep the arterials and collectors less congested than widen existing freeways and build new freeways, it really is that simple. I seen the positive effect of freeway construction myself in Brampton, when the 410 was extended, it took an immense burden off Heart Lake Road, which used to be jammed nearly all times of the day.
A lot of the issues with rat running has to do with traffic signal phasing around here at least, obviously you are going to try to do something else if it takes you five cycles of a busy suburban intersection to make a left turn. It seems like in my opinion, the powers that be like to make things difficult to discourage driving as much as possible.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 06, 2016, 11:10:00 AM
If there's traffic jams, why is Waze still sending them down that road?
Perhaps Waze is discounting reports of jams on that road, because of all the false positives planted by the residents?
Quote from: empirestate on June 06, 2016, 10:25:32 AM
I was hoping the article would address the legality of the "No Thru Traffic" signs that the residents purchased of their own volition. Not to mention how one enforces a "No Thru Traffic" sign generally, let alone one that is a yellow diamond when it should be a white rectangle. ;-)
Maybe that is the big point in defence - this is apparently not a real sign, if someone acted based on that - this is their problem/
Quote from: empirestate on June 06, 2016, 10:25:32 AM
Quote from: Joe The Dragon on June 06, 2016, 08:11:24 AM
Just wait fro auto drive cars to start makeing the same moves.
Will be less likely. For one thing, self-driving cars can still be efficient at much higher levels of congestion, since they don't need anywhere near the physical and reactional lead time as human-driven cars; thus, they won't need to seek detour routes nearly so often because of congestion. For another, they can all talk to each other (without coming to blows during the morning commute) and sort out a network-wide plan so that not all of them have to use the same side street as a detour, should one become necessary.
One key difference between self-driving cars and human-driven cars is that the self-driving car will not always aim for the very fastest possible route; it will select any available route that gets it to its destination within the given parameters and will often even adjust its speed downward to make the network flow better. Now, there will surely be an option for the passenger to select "fastest route", but the car will only apply that to the extent possible within the network. Obviously, it's not possible for every car on the road to be granted the actual fastest route whenever requested, because doing so would require pre-empting other vehicles, which defeats the whole point of the network and will presumably be reserved only for emergency vehicles.
Cars which are sold today have expected lifespan of about 20 years. So even if industry switches to 100% self-driving today (unlikely due to costs etc) - 10 years from now we are going to have just 50-50 mix on the road as a best case scenario.
And you're talking about algorithms in such cars as if they are in mass production for few decades, and didn't change much for past 10-20 years ...
Quote from: MisterSG1 on June 06, 2016, 11:33:09 AM
In my opinion, when this issue happens, it's a failure of traffic engineering, if you want to keep the arterials and collectors less congested than widen existing freeways and build new freeways, it really is that simple. I seen the positive effect of freeway construction myself in Brampton, when the 410 was extended, it took an immense burden off Heart Lake Road, which used to be jammed nearly all times of the day.
How many new freeways are being built in US? Even if you can sort out right of way and imminent domain issues (political nightmare preventing any action), there is no money to pay for that anyway.
Quote from: empirestate on June 06, 2016, 10:25:32 AM
I was hoping the article would address the legality of the "No Thru Traffic" signs that the residents purchased of their own volition. Not to mention how one enforces a "No Thru Traffic" sign generally, let alone one that is a yellow diamond when it should be a white rectangle. ;-)
On a similar vein, I work with a guy who got a ticket for violating this sign - https://goo.gl/maps/jqX9RPaFmZ72
Cop was sitting in the one driveway before the stop sign and writing up folks who drove by him on the side road...essentially to enforce that type of sign you need a cop doing a stake out...and possibly a short stretch of road subject to a prohibition like that.
I've also seen cops in Austin TX enforcing via ticket the signed prohibition to drive on a shoulder (to escape sitting in a long line to turn right at a busy stoplight ahead of here: https://goo.gl/maps/eFa1MPDsqvn )...
I have to side with the homeowners on this. There is no way a street like that can handle 10k cars a day, much less 45k. In order for it to handle that many, it would have to be a six lane divided suburban arterial, not a dinky little residential street. The homeowners NEED a street that isn't backed up just to get to/from their house. If it gets backed up regularly, you might as well demolish all the homes, because their is no point in living in a house you can't get in or out of.
QuoteWaze's mission is to distribute traffic more efficiently across the grid of public streets, Mossler said, not to create traffic jams.
Clearly, if that's their mission, they have failed miserably.
Quote from: empirestate on June 06, 2016, 10:25:32 AM
I was hoping the article would address the legality of the "No Thru Traffic" signs that the residents purchased of their own volition. Not to mention how one enforces a "No Thru Traffic" sign generally, let alone one that is a yellow diamond when it should be a white rectangle. ;-)
Quote from: Joe The Dragon on June 06, 2016, 08:11:24 AM
Just wait fro auto drive cars to start makeing the same moves.
Will be less likely. For one thing, self-driving cars can still be efficient at much higher levels of congestion, since they don't need anywhere near the physical and reactional lead time as human-driven cars; thus, they won't need to seek detour routes nearly so often because of congestion. For another, they can all talk to each other (without coming to blows during the morning commute) and sort out a network-wide plan so that not all of them have to use the same side street as a detour, should one become necessary.
One key difference between self-driving cars and human-driven cars is that the self-driving car will not always aim for the very fastest possible route; it will select any available route that gets it to its destination within the given parameters and will often even adjust its speed downward to make the network flow better. Now, there will surely be an option for the passenger to select "fastest route", but the car will only apply that to the extent possible within the network. Obviously, it's not possible for every car on the road to be granted the actual fastest route whenever requested, because doing so would require pre-empting other vehicles, which defeats the whole point of the network and will presumably be reserved only for emergency vehicles.
Of course, as soon as you throw in even one human-driven car, the whole system has to revert to the way it is now, so unless driving is banned, I'm not sure how much they'll help. Plus there's the congestion that would be caused by the expected usage changes.
Quote from: kalvado on June 06, 2016, 12:25:09 PM
Quote from: MisterSG1 on June 06, 2016, 11:33:09 AM
In my opinion, when this issue happens, it's a failure of traffic engineering, if you want to keep the arterials and collectors less congested than widen existing freeways and build new freeways, it really is that simple. I seen the positive effect of freeway construction myself in Brampton, when the 410 was extended, it took an immense burden off Heart Lake Road, which used to be jammed nearly all times of the day.
How many new freeways are being built in US? Even if you can sort out right of way and imminent domain issues (political nightmare preventing any action), there is no money to pay for that anyway.
A few, but most of them are in North Carolina.
Quote from: Mapmikey on June 06, 2016, 12:42:47 PM
I've also seen cops in Austin TX enforcing via ticket the signed prohibition to drive on a shoulder (to escape sitting in a long line to turn right at a busy stoplight ahead of here: https://goo.gl/maps/eFa1MPDsqvn )...
At least that you don't need a sign for!
Quote from: vdeane on June 06, 2016, 01:09:19 PM
Quote from: kalvado on June 06, 2016, 12:25:09 PM
How many new freeways are being built in US? Even if you can sort out right of way and imminent domain issues (political nightmare preventing any action), there is no money to pay for that anyway.
A few, but most of them are in North Carolina.
Since His Excellency, Honorable Governor of NY Mr. Cuomo II ordered boycott of NC - that doesn't count!
I enjoin anyone who sides with the homeowners here to never use a side street when driving around a major metro area, or really any area where they don't live.
The way I see it is that a road is either public or it isn't. If the citizens of the neigborhood want to purchase the road from the local government, then they might begin to have a case, but I highly doubt anyone would bother.
Besides, if a neighborhood road becomes too backed-up, then Waze users won't bother using it. It's self-correcting.
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on June 06, 2016, 02:08:50 PM
I enjoin anyone who sides with the homeowners here to never use a side street when driving around a major metro area, or really any area where they don't live.
The way I see it is that a road is either public or it isn't. If the citizens of the neigborhood want to purchase the road from the local government, then they might begin to have a case, but I highly doubt anyone would bother.
Besides, if a neighborhood road becomes too backed-up, then Waze users won't bother using it. It's self-correcting.
In many newer developments, developer builds those roads and then hands them over to municipality - talking about buyout.
As for overall situation, I do see that as a grey area. Some of those side roads are clearly not designed and not maintained for the loads they can get.
Quote from: kalvado on June 06, 2016, 02:19:28 PM
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on June 06, 2016, 02:08:50 PM
I enjoin anyone who sides with the homeowners here to never use a side street when driving around a major metro area, or really any area where they don't live.
The way I see it is that a road is either public or it isn't. If the citizens of the neigborhood want to purchase the road from the local government, then they might begin to have a case, but I highly doubt anyone would bother.
Besides, if a neighborhood road becomes too backed-up, then Waze users won't bother using it. It's self-correcting.
In many newer developments, developer builds those roads and then hands them over to municipality - talking about buyout.
As for overall situation, I do see that as a grey area. Some of those side roads are clearly not designed and not maintained for the loads they can get.
Plenty of public amenities are overused relative to their intended level. Schools get overcrowded all the time, for example.
What I don't see is how this is a grey area. When schools are over-capacity, they don't ban the excess students. They accomodate them.
Basically, the homeowner wants other roads that go through other people's neigborhoods more crowded so that they will necessarily lighten the traffic load on the roads that go through his neighborhood.
As a researcher in the field, I can say that stuff like Waze is what we've been wanting for a while: technology that routes vehicles in a way that optimizes available capacity to achieve the system optimal. If you don't want people driving down your street, live on a dead-end road or in a gated community where the public isn't allowed. It's a public road, not your road. I have zero sympathy for these people. Once you start banning people from public property, a new legal can of worms is opened.
And here's the thing: Waze routes people based on real-time travel speeds. If the side road is faster, it will route people down the side road. Only way to change that is to reduce the speed of the cutoff, whether it be by traffic calming or blocking a couple of streets off.
Quote from: kalvado on June 06, 2016, 12:21:22 PM
Cars which are sold today have expected lifespan of about 20 years. So even if industry switches to 100% self-driving today (unlikely due to costs etc) - 10 years from now we are going to have just 50-50 mix on the road as a best case scenario.
And you're talking about algorithms in such cars as if they are in mass production for few decades, and didn't change much for past 10-20 years ...
That's correct, I'm describing the system as it would be fully deployed.
Quote from: vdeane on June 06, 2016, 01:09:19 PM
Of course, as soon as you throw in even one human-driven car, the whole system has to revert to the way it is now, so unless driving is banned, I'm not sure how much they'll help. Plus there's the congestion that would be caused by the expected usage changes.
Yes, so the same caveat applies. However, while the system is being developed, I don't predict the same intermingling of modes as you describe. Self-driving cars will at first be limited to segregated facilities in order to operate in a fully autonomous mode. Those vehicles operating in mixed traffic will be subject to the limitations of mixed-mode facilities: that is, they will have to allow for the presence of some human-driven vehicles. As a result, and this is the pertinent point*, a self-driving vehicle using the detour from the article scenario won't have any noticeable effect that a regular vehicle wouldn't have, because it will be functioning within the predominantly human-driven network we have now.
Once the system is fully autonomous, moreover, you still wouldn't notice an effect for a different reason: the network will operate vastly differently and so the whole concept of even needing a detour like this will be largely obsolete.
*The specific point I'm responding to, as a reminder, was this:
Quote from: Joe The Dragon on June 06, 2016, 08:11:24 AM
Just wait fro auto drive cars to start makeing the same moves.
Quote from: Joe The Dragon on June 06, 2016, 08:11:24 AM
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on June 05, 2016, 11:00:39 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/traffic-weary-homeowners-and-waze-are-at-war-again-guess-whos-winning/2016/06/05/c466df46-299d-11e6-b989-4e5479715b54_story.html
QuoteWhen the traffic on Timothy Connor's quiet Maryland street suddenly jumped by several hundred cars an hour, he knew who was partly to blame: the disembodied female voice he could hear through the occasional open window saying, "Continue on Elm Avenue . . . ."
While I'm certainly empathetic to people's previously "secret" streets being "discovered" by commuters, my thought is this: The public may drive on public roads. If the public is driving unsafely on public roads, then a grievance is justified. However, to buy a house on a public street and expect people not to use it is no different than living near an airport and complaining about jet noise (which also happens in the DC area...)
It also goes to show the importance of a true street grid. In most of DC and the inner suburbs, if 7th street is jammed, you can usually just go to 8th or 6th easily (notional examples), and continue on your war. However, in the more outer suburbs, which depend more on heirarchical road networks, if the local parkway or medium-capacity thoroughfare is jammed, you're in trouble, and the few connector roads will get overwhelmed.
Just wait fro auto drive cars to start makeing the same moves.
A typo that fits so well referencing DC.
Similar situation in the mountains of eastern Kentucky recently -- all four lanes of US 23 between Prestonsburg and Pikeville were closed due to a rock/mudslide. Traffic was routed over KY 1428, a narrow, crooked, hilly road lined by homes. Vehicles were bumper-to-bumper, big trucks had trouble negotiating some of the curves, especially when meeting other big rigs, and residents had trouble getting in and out of their homes. There was no other practical detour for the busiest north-south route in eastern Kentucky.
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on June 06, 2016, 02:08:50 PM
I enjoin anyone who sides with the homeowners here to never use a side street when driving around a major metro area, or really any area where they don't live.
The way I see it is that a road is either public or it isn't. If the citizens of the neigborhood want to purchase the road from the local government, then they might begin to have a case, but I highly doubt anyone would bother.
Besides, if a neighborhood road becomes too backed-up, then Waze users won't bother using it. It's self-correcting.
It's not a binary issue. A few people on a side street for whatever reason is one thing 10k or more, on the other hand, is a different matter. As I said, the people living there need to be able to get in and out of their driveways. Making it impossible for them to get to/from their homes is an unreasonable infringement on their quality of life (one that I have experienced a couple times on a road I commute on (Forts Ferry for the curious), thanks to a water main break and the opening of a nearby Sonic (on the day it opened, the line extended onto the Northway SB lanes past the Twin Bridges (not exaggerating), and it took a month or two for the Sonic Effect to dissipate to reasonable levels, and a few more for all the effects to go away, most notably the opening of the Sonic driveway directly off of NY 7 WB)). People who live in/near an area have rights too. I would not consider "the road will get jammed because some stupid app developers are unable to prevent their code from routing thousands of people down a street that can't handle those traffic counts" to be a reasonable thing that one could predict.
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on June 06, 2016, 02:31:21 PM
Plenty of public amenities are overused relative to their intended level. Schools get overcrowded all the time, for example.
What I don't see is how this is a grey area. When schools are over-capacity, they don't ban the excess students. They accomodate them.
Well, if schools are getting over capacity, there are usually some remedies beyond sqeezing 50-60 bodies in a class. New/temporary schools, more teachers... That is not cheap, but way cheaper and easier than couple of new arterials, nad usually accommodated under "our kids need that!" banner.
Quote from: SP Cook on June 06, 2016, 09:37:48 AM
As to self-driving cars, since the main function of GPS is to get you lost (challenge: ask any mapping program a proper route for 20 random multi-state trips and at least one will be wrong in terms of mileage or time by at least 20% ) and because one of the main limitations of GPS based systems is the inability to distinguish quality of non-Interstates, self-driving cars pouring over residential streets, or hopeless creeping along on rural roads not designed for thru travel will indeed be a problem.
And will remain so because routing traffic is an NP-hard problem. There is no way to write a computer program that efficiently and correctly identifies the shortest or fastest route between two points in a complex network 100% of the time.
Programs attempting to account for traffic in their routing can, even if something does not unpredictably change the circumstances, fail spectacularly in their attempts to find the fastest route. I've noted that when there is significant traffic on the GW and Verrazano Bridges, Google has been known to suggest cutting across midtown Manhattan as a faster alternative. Protip: don't do this. Google is failing to correctly identify the fastest route because it assumes any street which it does not have traffic data for is free-flowing. Some of the crosstown streets in Manhattan may at times be streets where Google lacks traffic data. To assume they are free-flowing in such a circumstance is, of course, horribly wrong.
Even when things are not particularly trafficky, Google tends to overestimate average speeds on surface streets in NYC because their algorithm is failing to properly account for the impact of the city's generally poorly coordinated signals.
Quote from: cl94 on June 06, 2016, 02:40:37 PM
As a researcher in the field, I can say that stuff like Waze is what we've been wanting for a while: technology that routes vehicles in a way that optimizes available capacity to achieve the system optimal. If you don't want people driving down your street, live on a dead-end road or in a gated community where the public isn't allowed. It's a public road, not your road. I have zero sympathy for these people. Once you start banning people from public property, a new legal can of worms is opened.
Lots of public property restricts access to authorized individuals only. Try walking into the White House and see how far you get.
Even with roads specifically, as car drivers we're not used to worrying about bans on through traffic but they're common as dirt for trucks.
Also, while it isn't relevant for law in the US, there is precedent from other countries of doing this sort of thing. The city of Madrid has signs like these (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4068144,-3.7081554,3a,42y,30.25h,94.7t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skPWgyX6Pr1khqmAxK80a-Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656), which state that the street in question is closed to all cars except those belonging to local residents.
As for the broader issue here, I'm going to take the side that if it's a public road, the the public is allowed to use it, and the people living on it do not have any inherent right for it to not be congested.
That said - the homeowners do have legitimate cause for complaint. Their complaints, however, should be directed at the authorities who have failed to build a sufficient transportation network to meet traffic demands. Not at the drivers using the street or at Waze for sending them there.
Quote from: Duke87 on June 06, 2016, 09:12:57 PM
Even when things are not particularly trafficky, Google tends to overestimate average speeds on surface streets in NYC because their algorithm is failing to properly account for the impact of the city's generally poorly coordinated signals.
Poorly coordinated? You can get over 50 green lights in a row.
Quote from: 1 on June 06, 2016, 09:35:06 PM
Quote from: Duke87 on June 06, 2016, 09:12:57 PM
Even when things are not particularly trafficky, Google tends to overestimate average speeds on surface streets in NYC because their algorithm is failing to properly account for the impact of the city's generally poorly coordinated signals.
Poorly coordinated? You can get over 50 green lights in a row.
Try getting around the outer boroughs. The signals are miserable now that the speed limit went down and they installed speed cameras.
Heck, Google Maps routes people down that side street depending on the time of day (https://www.google.com/maps/dir/38.9756669,-76.9908481/38.9670171,-77.0274914/@38.9748448,-77.018094,14.25z/data=!4m6!4m5!2m2!7e2!8j1465323000!3e0!5i2). Don't blame technology for finding the fastest route- blame the government for making it so the residential neighborhood is the fastest route.
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on June 06, 2016, 02:08:50 PM
I enjoin anyone who sides with the homeowners here to never use a side street when driving around a major metro area, or really any area where they don't live.
The way I see it is that a road is either public or it isn't. If the citizens of the neigborhood want to purchase the road from the local government, then they might begin to have a case, but I highly doubt anyone would bother.
Besides, if a neighborhood road becomes too backed-up, then Waze users won't bother using it. It's self-correcting.
You are clearly not getting it. No one here is saying people shouldn't be permitted to use a public road. The main gist is that these mapping programs shouldn't be using undersized residential side streets to send obscene amounts of traffic down as a detour route.
And you've yet to comment if this would be acceptable to you if you lived on such a side street, especially if it seriously hindered you getting to or from your house.
Quote from: Duke87 on June 06, 2016, 09:12:57 PM
Quote from: cl94 on June 06, 2016, 02:40:37 PM
As a researcher in the field, I can say that stuff like Waze is what we've been wanting for a while: technology that routes vehicles in a way that optimizes available capacity to achieve the system optimal. If you don't want people driving down your street, live on a dead-end road or in a gated community where the public isn't allowed. It's a public road, not your road. I have zero sympathy for these people. Once you start banning people from public property, a new legal can of worms is opened.
Lots of public property restricts access to authorized individuals only. Try walking into the White House and see how far you get.
My typical response here is prison. People will spend thousands of dollars on lawyers to avoid this public space their tax dollars paid for.
QuoteNo one here is saying people shouldn't be permitted to use a public road. The main gist is that these mapping programs shouldn't be using undersized residential side streets to send obscene amounts of traffic down as a detour route.
As a taxpayer, I would hope that resources would be as efficiently allocated as possible. What's the point of building a public road if the entirety of the public doesn't have an equal chance to use it? People are more than welcome to build private roads but I think they'd find it's not very efficient.
QuoteAnd you've yet to comment if this would be acceptable to you if you lived on such a side street, especially if it seriously hindered you getting to or from your house.
I don't really see the relevance, but I find it acceptable. In fact, I live on a street which is often used as an alternate route to VA-7 in Alexandria. I knew the road existed when I signed the lease.
I don't know of many cases where people literally can't get out of their driveways, so that doesn't really register to me. People exaggerate that stuff anyway. People are so used to leaving their driveway immediately, that if they get held up by even 30 seconds, they'll claim they were stuck in their driveway for a "long time".
Blame the bad road networks. My neighborhood is designed to have multiple exits to the main road (two exist), but there is no way to cut through, since they all dead end or just lead you in a loop. I actually like this, and usually the streets are quiet in that I don't have to hear a conga line of car engines cutting through my neighborhood.
It's a public road, and it's ok if I have other people driving down the street outside my porch. But when THAT happens, I should say "Your taxpayer dollars at work." and have second thoughts about why this road was constructed in such a way.
There's reasons why I will never trust a GPS, and this is one of them.
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on June 06, 2016, 10:28:21 PM
I don't know of many cases where people literally can't get out of their driveways, so that doesn't really register to me. People exaggerate that stuff anyway. People are so used to leaving their driveway immediately, that if they get held up by even 30 seconds, they'll claim they were stuck in their driveway for a "long time".
Except when I was an undergrad at UB, I have lived on a major road for my entire life. Even where I live now, I consider myself lucky if I get out in under a minute. I knew this going in and I really don't have a problem with it. These people live in one of the densest metropolitan areas in the country. Sooner or later, people were going to find the empty side streets to bypass the traffic. Then again, as a licensed transportation engineer, I might see things a little differently than most people.
No I agree. The roads were always there and available. People are now just pissed that others know about their "secret" roads.
It's no different than if an app like Yelp lets you know about a previously-hidden restaurant and then it's all of a sudden difficult to get a table. Such is life.
Quote from: vdeane on June 06, 2016, 07:30:58 PM
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on June 06, 2016, 02:08:50 PM
I enjoin anyone who sides with the homeowners here to never use a side street when driving around a major metro area, or really any area where they don't live.
The way I see it is that a road is either public or it isn't. If the citizens of the neigborhood want to purchase the road from the local government, then they might begin to have a case, but I highly doubt anyone would bother.
Besides, if a neighborhood road becomes too backed-up, then Waze users won't bother using it. It's self-correcting.
It's not a binary issue. A few people on a side street for whatever reason is one thing 10k or more, on the other hand, is a different matter. As I said, the people living there need to be able to get in and out of their driveways. Making it impossible for them to get to/from their homes is an unreasonable infringement on their quality of life (one that I have experienced a couple times on a road I commute on (Forts Ferry for the curious), thanks to a water main break and the opening of a nearby Sonic (on the day it opened, the line extended onto the Northway SB lanes past the Twin Bridges (not exaggerating), and it took a month or two for the Sonic Effect to dissipate to reasonable levels, and a few more for all the effects to go away, most notably the opening of the Sonic driveway directly off of NY 7 WB)). People who live in/near an area have rights too. I would not consider "the road will get jammed because some stupid app developers are unable to prevent their code from routing thousands of people down a street that can't handle those traffic counts" to be a reasonable thing that one could predict.
Somewhat philosophical question.. I am getting home through one of very heavily used intersections, and pretty much the only alternative is a 10 mile detour.
I don't dare that intersection during rush hour (and thanks god, I can do that with my schedule), even reasonably late in commute cycle, 3-4 traffic cycle wait is not uncommon. 1 mile traffic queue and a wait that easily approaches 10 minutes, especially if a pedestrians initiates 36 second walk phase. Should I call that " unreasonable infringement on their quality of life " and demand immediate action from NYSDOT? Should people waiting in daily backup on Twin Bridges do the same?
Quote from: Duke87 on June 06, 2016, 09:12:57 PM
Also, while it isn't relevant for law in the US, there is precedent from other countries of doing this sort of thing. The city of Madrid has signs like these (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4068144,-3.7081554,3a,42y,30.25h,94.7t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skPWgyX6Pr1khqmAxK80a-Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656), which state that the street in question is closed to all cars except those belonging to local residents.
How different is this really from "No Thru Traffic" and "Local Traffic Only" signs? Is it any easier to enforce?
Quote from: bzakharin on June 07, 2016, 11:01:46 AM
Quote from: Duke87 on June 06, 2016, 09:12:57 PM
Also, while it isn't relevant for law in the US, there is precedent from other countries of doing this sort of thing. The city of Madrid has signs like these (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4068144,-3.7081554,3a,42y,30.25h,94.7t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skPWgyX6Pr1khqmAxK80a-Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656), which state that the street in question is closed to all cars except those belonging to local residents.
How different is this really from "No Thru Traffic" and "Local Traffic Only" signs? Is it any easier to enforce?
I assume many drivers would just accept the sign. And if sign makes it way to the map database, that may eliminate the routing completely.
Quote from: bzakharin on June 07, 2016, 11:01:46 AM
Quote from: Duke87 on June 06, 2016, 09:12:57 PM
Also, while it isn't relevant for law in the US, there is precedent from other countries of doing this sort of thing. The city of Madrid has signs like these (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4068144,-3.7081554,3a,42y,30.25h,94.7t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skPWgyX6Pr1khqmAxK80a-Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656), which state that the street in question is closed to all cars except those belonging to local residents.
How different is this really from "No Thru Traffic" and "Local Traffic Only" signs? Is it any easier to enforce?
Laws might be different. Other than trucks, which are required to follow legally-designated truck routes, you can't enforce them in the US. Spanish law might allow for enforcement.
Quote from: cl94 on June 07, 2016, 11:09:48 AM
Quote from: bzakharin on June 07, 2016, 11:01:46 AM
Quote from: Duke87 on June 06, 2016, 09:12:57 PM
Also, while it isn't relevant for law in the US, there is precedent from other countries of doing this sort of thing. The city of Madrid has signs like these (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4068144,-3.7081554,3a,42y,30.25h,94.7t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skPWgyX6Pr1khqmAxK80a-Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656), which state that the street in question is closed to all cars except those belonging to local residents.
How different is this really from "No Thru Traffic" and "Local Traffic Only" signs? Is it any easier to enforce?
Laws might be different. Other than trucks, which are required to follow legally-designated truck routes, you can't enforce them in the US. Spanish law might allow for enforcement.
It seems like it depends on where you live:
http://bloomingdaleneighborhood.blogspot.com/2012/05/mcmillan-how-local-traffic-only-signs.html
http://www.myfloridalegal.com/ago.nsf/Opinions/B762787E37D4A3CD85256E620055999C
http://pugetsoundblogs.com/roadwarrior/2010/12/28/local-traffic-only-signs-are-tough-to-enforce/
Quote from: bzakharin on June 07, 2016, 11:01:46 AM
Quote from: Duke87 on June 06, 2016, 09:12:57 PM
Also, while it isn't relevant for law in the US, there is precedent from other countries of doing this sort of thing. The city of Madrid has signs like these (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4068144,-3.7081554,3a,42y,30.25h,94.7t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skPWgyX6Pr1khqmAxK80a-Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656), which state that the street in question is closed to all cars except those belonging to local residents.
How different is this really from "No Thru Traffic" and "Local Traffic Only" signs? Is it any easier to enforce?
The most obvious thing would be that restricting it to local residents gives you a concrete method of determining whether there's a violation: if the vehicle isn't registered to an address on the street, you've violated the regulation. "Local Traffic Only" could mean something similar if it's defined by statute, but with "No Thru Traffic", how exactly do you determine a violation? (I posted a thread about this very question some time back.)
An additional consideration would be whether a public right-of-way can in fact be closed to a segment of the public, and if so, to what extent and by what means?
iPhone
Again, I recommend that people buy easements from their respective local or state governments to restrict access or put quots on the roads in their neighborhoods. Not gonna hold my breath on those ones.
Living on the street / in the neighborhood is a pretty weak criteria to go on. What if you are visiting someone who does live there? Do you have to find parking on a different street and walk there? On the other hand, what if you do live there, but are cutting through on an unrelated trip? And if it's a longer street (unlike the single block in the Madrid example), either they have to stop everyone exiting the area just to check their address (is that even permitted?) or follow the car until it's clear it hasn't stopped in the local traffic area. Neither makes a lot of sense.
Not to mention deliveries, taxis, services and contractors, as well as public services (I would hope that a fire truck could cut through!)
Quote from: empirestate on June 07, 2016, 11:35:12 AM
The most obvious thing would be that restricting it to local residents gives you a concrete method of determining whether there's a violation: if the vehicle isn't registered to an address on the street, you've violated the regulation.
-I am delivering/ dropping off a friend/ picking up relative form the location
-My friends invited me for party/ asked to feed their cat and water plants in their house during vacation
-I am meeting with realtor to show a house in 15 minutes
-Soliciting donations for charity
And a few million other possible - many not verifiable - explanations.
Quote from: bzakharin on June 07, 2016, 11:58:28 AM
Living on the street / in the neighborhood is a pretty weak criteria to go on. What if you are visiting someone who does live there? Do you have to find parking on a different street and walk there? On the other hand, what if you do live there, but are cutting through on an unrelated trip? And if it's a longer street (unlike the single block in the Madrid example), either they have to stop everyone exiting the area just to check their address (is that even permitted?) or follow the car until it's clear it hasn't stopped in the local traffic area. Neither makes a lot of sense.
Weak or not, that would be the criterion. Your question was how a residency requirement would differ from "No Thru Traffic" or "Local Traffic Only". The difference would be the criterion.
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 12:03:31 PM
Quote from: empirestate on June 07, 2016, 11:35:12 AM
The most obvious thing would be that restricting it to local residents gives you a concrete method of determining whether there's a violation: if the vehicle isn't registered to an address on the street, you've violated the regulation.
-I am delivering/ dropping off a friend/ picking up relative form the location
-My friends invited me for party/ asked to feed their cat and water plants in their house during vacation
-I am meeting with realtor to show a house in 15 minutes
-Soliciting donations for charity
And a few million other possible - many not verifiable - explanations.
Right, all of which would amount to a violation in the Madrid example (if the ordinance truly does close the street to all but residents' vehicles), but may arguably not be a violation in the other two cases. That's the principal difference I can see.
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 09:11:29 AM
Quote from: vdeane on June 06, 2016, 07:30:58 PM
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on June 06, 2016, 02:08:50 PM
I enjoin anyone who sides with the homeowners here to never use a side street when driving around a major metro area, or really any area where they don't live.
The way I see it is that a road is either public or it isn't. If the citizens of the neigborhood want to purchase the road from the local government, then they might begin to have a case, but I highly doubt anyone would bother.
Besides, if a neighborhood road becomes too backed-up, then Waze users won't bother using it. It's self-correcting.
It's not a binary issue. A few people on a side street for whatever reason is one thing 10k or more, on the other hand, is a different matter. As I said, the people living there need to be able to get in and out of their driveways. Making it impossible for them to get to/from their homes is an unreasonable infringement on their quality of life (one that I have experienced a couple times on a road I commute on (Forts Ferry for the curious), thanks to a water main break and the opening of a nearby Sonic (on the day it opened, the line extended onto the Northway SB lanes past the Twin Bridges (not exaggerating), and it took a month or two for the Sonic Effect to dissipate to reasonable levels, and a few more for all the effects to go away, most notably the opening of the Sonic driveway directly off of NY 7 WB)). People who live in/near an area have rights too. I would not consider "the road will get jammed because some stupid app developers are unable to prevent their code from routing thousands of people down a street that can't handle those traffic counts" to be a reasonable thing that one could predict.
Somewhat philosophical question.. I am getting home through one of very heavily used intersections, and pretty much the only alternative is a 10 mile detour.
I don't dare that intersection during rush hour (and thanks god, I can do that with my schedule), even reasonably late in commute cycle, 3-4 traffic cycle wait is not uncommon. 1 mile traffic queue and a wait that easily approaches 10 minutes, especially if a pedestrians initiates 36 second walk phase. Should I call that " unreasonable infringement on their quality of life " and demand immediate action from NYSDOT? Should people waiting in daily backup on Twin Bridges do the same?
Sounds kinda like Maxwell/Old Niskayuna Rd (though that's a county signal). It's a major reason why the Northway is impossible to bypass if it's congested (the configuration of exit 4 being the other one). I hate it and don't know how it's allowed to back up like that.
And yeah, I'm paying a fair amount more in rent each month because I refuse to live north of the Mohawk River due to the Twin Bridges (though the merges approaching the bridge would cause the issues even if the bridges were widened). I don't do long commute times. I don't understand how we as a society put up with them.
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 12:03:31 PM
-I am delivering/ dropping off a friend/ picking up relative form the location
-My friends invited me for party/ asked to feed their cat and water plants in their house during vacation
-I am meeting with realtor to show a house in 15 minutes
-Soliciting donations for charity
All of these can probably be proven false in a court of law. But how about the following?
*Looking for yard sales
*Thinking of moving into the area and checking it out
*Clinching local streets :P
Quote from: empirestate on June 07, 2016, 12:36:15 PM
Right, all of which would amount to a violation in the Madrid example (if the ordinance truly does close the street to all but residents' vehicles), but may arguably not be a violation in the other two cases. That's the principal difference I can see.
Ah, finally I got your point!
Quote from: vdeane on June 07, 2016, 01:31:47 PM
I don't do long commute times. I don't understand how we as a society put up with them.
Most infrastructure was built when population was half of what it is. Now twice as many people cannot sacrifice even as much resources for roads as smaller population did... You cannot have the cake and eat it too - we're paying by time instead of money...
Quote from: vdeane on June 07, 2016, 01:31:47 PM
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 09:11:29 AM
Quote from: vdeane on June 06, 2016, 07:30:58 PM
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on June 06, 2016, 02:08:50 PM
I enjoin anyone who sides with the homeowners here to never use a side street when driving around a major metro area, or really any area where they don't live.
The way I see it is that a road is either public or it isn't. If the citizens of the neigborhood want to purchase the road from the local government, then they might begin to have a case, but I highly doubt anyone would bother.
Besides, if a neighborhood road becomes too backed-up, then Waze users won't bother using it. It's self-correcting.
It's not a binary issue. A few people on a side street for whatever reason is one thing 10k or more, on the other hand, is a different matter. As I said, the people living there need to be able to get in and out of their driveways. Making it impossible for them to get to/from their homes is an unreasonable infringement on their quality of life (one that I have experienced a couple times on a road I commute on (Forts Ferry for the curious), thanks to a water main break and the opening of a nearby Sonic (on the day it opened, the line extended onto the Northway SB lanes past the Twin Bridges (not exaggerating), and it took a month or two for the Sonic Effect to dissipate to reasonable levels, and a few more for all the effects to go away, most notably the opening of the Sonic driveway directly off of NY 7 WB)). People who live in/near an area have rights too. I would not consider "the road will get jammed because some stupid app developers are unable to prevent their code from routing thousands of people down a street that can't handle those traffic counts" to be a reasonable thing that one could predict.
Somewhat philosophical question.. I am getting home through one of very heavily used intersections, and pretty much the only alternative is a 10 mile detour.
I don't dare that intersection during rush hour (and thanks god, I can do that with my schedule), even reasonably late in commute cycle, 3-4 traffic cycle wait is not uncommon. 1 mile traffic queue and a wait that easily approaches 10 minutes, especially if a pedestrians initiates 36 second walk phase. Should I call that " unreasonable infringement on their quality of life " and demand immediate action from NYSDOT? Should people waiting in daily backup on Twin Bridges do the same?
Sounds kinda like Maxwell/Old Niskayuna Rd (though that's a county signal). It's a major reason why the Northway is impossible to bypass if it's congested (the configuration of exit 4 being the other one). I hate it and don't know how it's allowed to back up like that.
And yeah, I'm paying a fair amount more in rent each month because I refuse to live north of the Mohawk River due to the Twin Bridges (though the merges approaching the bridge would cause the issues even if the bridges were widened). I don't do long commute times. I don't understand how we as a society put up with them.
There's a reason why I've started cutting up to Exit 8A if I need to get to Saratoga/Queensbury in the afternoon. Just have to watch out for the cops that sit just north/west of the Waterford village line. US 9 isn't a horrible alternative if you're east of the Northway and going between 6 and 8A, either.
The merge would cause issues no matter what, but the issues would be less pronounced if there were 8 lanes south of Exit 9. The backup starts there and only gets worse. Of course, it needs to be 6 lanes within Exit 7, so a lane can be added and dropped in each direction to help with that merge. The NB merge causes the backups, but going from NY 7 WB to I-87 SB is damn near impossible in heavy traffic due to the short merge distance. And the lanes at Exit 1 need to be restriped to give NB I-87 2 continuous lanes, but that's another issue altogether.
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 01:43:47 PM
Most infrastructure was built when population was half of what it is. Now twice as many people cannot sacrifice even as much resources for roads as smaller population did... You cannot have the cake and eat it too - we're paying by time instead of money...
Yep. More people means higher travel times for everyone.
Quote from: cl94 on June 07, 2016, 01:48:57 PM
The merge would cause issues no matter what, but the issues would be less pronounced if there were 8 lanes south of Exit 9. The backup starts there and only gets worse. Of course, it needs to be 6 lanes within Exit 7, so a lane can be added and dropped in each direction to help with that merge. The NB merge causes the backups, but going from NY 7 WB to I-87 SB is damn near impossible in heavy traffic due to the short merge distance. And the lanes at Exit 1 need to be restriped to give NB I-87 2 continuous lanes, but that's another issue altogether.
This may be too local problem for this thread.. But if there was an option of getting extra lane or 2 for twin bridges, there would be much more room for discussion...
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 01:57:39 PM
Quote from: cl94 on June 07, 2016, 01:48:57 PM
The merge would cause issues no matter what, but the issues would be less pronounced if there were 8 lanes south of Exit 9. The backup starts there and only gets worse. Of course, it needs to be 6 lanes within Exit 7, so a lane can be added and dropped in each direction to help with that merge. The NB merge causes the backups, but going from NY 7 WB to I-87 SB is damn near impossible in heavy traffic due to the short merge distance. And the lanes at Exit 1 need to be restriped to give NB I-87 2 continuous lanes, but that's another issue altogether.
This may be too local problem for this thread.. But if there was an option of getting extra lane or 2 for twin bridges, there would be much more room for discussion...
I only brought it up because it was previously mentioned and I fully agree.
Back to the original topic...
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 01:43:47 PM
Most infrastructure was built when population was half of what it is. Now twice as many people cannot sacrifice even as much resources for roads as smaller population did... You cannot have the cake and eat it too - we're paying by time instead of money...
Not just that... the number of working people per capita was also half what it is now because a middle class family could live on one income.
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 01:43:47 PM
Quote from: empirestate on June 07, 2016, 12:36:15 PM
Right, all of which would amount to a violation in the Madrid example (if the ordinance truly does close the street to all but residents' vehicles), but may arguably not be a violation in the other two cases. That's the principal difference I can see.
Ah, finally I got your point!
Yeah, the point to which I was directly responding kept getting clipped off of the quotes.
iPhone
There's a difference between an app saying "this is a faster way" and the mass migration of people all using that and similar navigation apps that say 'this is the way' given the current variables.
That's the problem. The navigation apps switched from being a single-person routing-finding app and turned into a hive-minded non-coordinated traffic rerouter. It spawns its own problems. Of which, you can't anticipate because the app doesn't realize it's the fault of if its own routing. It doesn't care, either. Traffic engineering (which it's doing in real time) isn't really it's purpose and therefore not its concern.
Easy way to correct this is pass a law that navigation systems used in the municipality cannot use that street to syphon through traffic. Spend one day with an officer at the far end of the street and ticket everyone that comes through without stopping at a house. One by one. Problem solved in about a day. The angry drivers can take it up with whatever navigation system company they've purchased or used theirs through.
Quote from: Sykotyk on June 07, 2016, 03:36:29 PM
There's a difference between an app saying "this is a faster way" and the mass migration of people all using that and similar navigation apps that say 'this is the way' given the current variables.
That's the problem. The navigation apps switched from being a single-person routing-finding app and turned into a hive-minded non-coordinated traffic rerouter. It spawns its own problems. Of which, you can't anticipate because the app doesn't realize it's the fault of if its own routing. It doesn't care, either. Traffic engineering (which it's doing in real time) isn't really it's purpose and therefore not its concern.
Easy way to correct this is pass a law that navigation systems used in the municipality cannot use that street to syphon through traffic. Spend one day with an officer at the far end of the street and ticket everyone that comes through without stopping at a house. One by one. Problem solved in about a day. The angry drivers can take it up with whatever navigation system company they've purchased or used theirs through.
Better ban public funding of any road that is not fully accessible by general public. Much easier to enforce and saves money for maintenance of actually used roads. Just withhold highway funds from states which are not willing to play by the rule, and problem will be solved within next week or so.
Quote from: vdeane on June 07, 2016, 02:10:43 PM
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 01:43:47 PM
Most infrastructure was built when population was half of what it is. Now twice as many people cannot sacrifice even as much resources for roads as smaller population did... You cannot have the cake and eat it too - we're paying by time instead of money...
Not just that... the number of working people per capita was also half what it is now because a middle class family could live on one income.
Very good point. The homemaker might just do errands by bus, bicycle, or foot, or not do errands on days the wageearner drove to work, but no matter what there would be less car traffic per household.
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 03:48:49 PM
Better ban public funding of any road that is not fully accessible by general public. Much easier to enforce and saves money for maintenance of actually used roads. Just withhold highway funds from states which are not willing to play by the rule, and problem will be solved within next week or so.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in jurisdictions I'm familiar with, state and federal funds pay nothing toward local roads.
Usually the local roads are built by the developer who subdivided them, and maintenance is paid for by property taxes at the city or county level. So it's the people who live nearby who are paying for it.
Quote from: kkt on June 07, 2016, 03:52:48 PM
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 03:48:49 PM
Better ban public funding of any road that is not fully accessible by general public. Much easier to enforce and saves money for maintenance of actually used roads. Just withhold highway funds from states which are not willing to play by the rule, and problem will be solved within next week or so.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in jurisdictions I'm familiar with, state and federal funds pay nothing toward local roads.
Usually the local roads are built by the developer who subdivided them, and maintenance is paid for by property taxes at the city or county level. So it's the people who live nearby who are paying for it.
Just name the jurisdiction and lets look at their budget.
Quote from: kkt on June 07, 2016, 03:52:48 PM
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 03:48:49 PM
Better ban public funding of any road that is not fully accessible by general public. Much easier to enforce and saves money for maintenance of actually used roads. Just withhold highway funds from states which are not willing to play by the rule, and problem will be solved within next week or so.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in jurisdictions I'm familiar with, state and federal funds pay nothing toward local roads.
Usually the local roads are built by the developer who subdivided them, and maintenance is paid for by property taxes at the city or county level. So it's the people who live nearby who are paying for it.
I can tell you in NJ developers typically pay very little towards road widening and improvements. The state typically provides grants to municipalities to assist with some of their road and road-related projects, and there are federal grants that can be applied for as well.
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 04:01:39 PM
Quote from: kkt on June 07, 2016, 03:52:48 PM
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 03:48:49 PM
Better ban public funding of any road that is not fully accessible by general public. Much easier to enforce and saves money for maintenance of actually used roads. Just withhold highway funds from states which are not willing to play by the rule, and problem will be solved within next week or so.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in jurisdictions I'm familiar with, state and federal funds pay nothing toward local roads.
Usually the local roads are built by the developer who subdivided them, and maintenance is paid for by property taxes at the city or county level. So it's the people who live nearby who are paying for it.
Just name the jurisdiction and lets look at their budget.
It's not a question of funding, it's a a question of right-of-way. To what extent can a government prohibit a subset of the public from using a public thoroughfare?
(My guess is that the answer lies in being able to restrict a highway to certain modes of transportation–i.e., motor vehicles–but again, is this something that can be enacted only for some motor vehicles and not others? Do the property owners along a public road have more right-of-way to that road than a non-owner does?)
iPhone
Quote from: empirestate on June 07, 2016, 04:21:59 PM
It's not a question of funding, it's a a question of right-of-way. To what extent can a government prohibit a subset of the public from using a public thoroughfare?
(My guess is that the answer lies in being able to restrict a highway to certain modes of transportation–i.e., motor vehicles–but again, is this something that can be enacted only for some motor vehicles and not others? Do the property owners along a public road have more right-of-way to that road than a non-owner does?)
Well, commercial traffic is in the league of its own with different rules to play.
Safety is always a simple excuse. No turns, weight limit, speed limit - those are common.
As for same type vehicle going on same exact road.. My impression is that would be difficult. If you want to ban non-local by residence, out-of-state plates come into play, and federal regulations should kick in. If there was a way to charge/restrict for out of state plates, NY would be doing that since beginning of times..
On the other hand, parking restricted to locals is common enough. However, parking and passing are two different animals.
Quote from: empirestate on June 07, 2016, 12:36:15 PM
Quote from: bzakharin on June 07, 2016, 11:58:28 AM
Living on the street / in the neighborhood is a pretty weak criteria to go on. What if you are visiting someone who does live there? Do you have to find parking on a different street and walk there? On the other hand, what if you do live there, but are cutting through on an unrelated trip? And if it's a longer street (unlike the single block in the Madrid example), either they have to stop everyone exiting the area just to check their address (is that even permitted?) or follow the car until it's clear it hasn't stopped in the local traffic area. Neither makes a lot of sense.
Weak or not, that would be the criterion. Your question was how a residency requirement would differ from "No Thru Traffic" or "Local Traffic Only". The difference would be the criterion.
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 12:03:31 PM
Quote from: empirestate on June 07, 2016, 11:35:12 AM
The most obvious thing would be that restricting it to local residents gives you a concrete method of determining whether there's a violation: if the vehicle isn't registered to an address on the street, you've violated the regulation.
-I am delivering/ dropping off a friend/ picking up relative form the location
-My friends invited me for party/ asked to feed their cat and water plants in their house during vacation
-I am meeting with realtor to show a house in 15 minutes
-Soliciting donations for charity
And a few million other possible - many not verifiable - explanations.
Right, all of which would amount to a violation in the Madrid example (if the ordinance truly does close the street to all but residents' vehicles), but may arguably not be a violation in the other two cases. That's the principal difference I can see.
Yup, AFAIK the ordinance closes not just a street but a whole neighborhood to all traffic except local residents, loading and unloading, and urban buses (if any). One has to apply for a permit, otherwise it would face a fine, and this is enforced by cameras placed at the entrances and exits of the restricted areas. A similar system is in place in my hometown.
Quote from: CNGL-Leudimin on June 07, 2016, 04:54:12 PM
Yup, AFAIK the ordinance closes not just a street but a whole neighborhood to all traffic except local residents, loading and unloading, and urban buses (if any). One has to apply for a permit, otherwise it would face a fine, and this is enforced by cameras placed at the entrances and exits of the restricted areas. A similar system is in place in my hometown.
How does Spanish ROW law differ from US law to allow this (if at all)?
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 04:40:58 PMWell, commercial traffic is in the league of its own with different rules to play.
Safety is always a simple excuse. No turns, weight limit, speed limit - those are common.
As for same type vehicle going on same exact road.. My impression is that would be difficult. If you want to ban non-local by residence, out-of-state plates come into play, and federal regulations should kick in. If there was a way to charge/restrict for out of state plates, NY would be doing that since beginning of times..
On the other hand, parking restricted to locals is common enough. However, parking and passing are two different animals.
Parking makes sense, since it's the human that enjoys right-of-way, not the vehicle. You have every right to pass along the road, but not to deposit a piece of machinery alongside it. A similar principle could be applied to commercial vehicles; presumably, even though the vehicles themselves may be banned, their occupants would still be allowed to pass along the road to ply their trade.
Out-of-state plate prohibition doesn't work, of course, since it suggests that other states' registration practices carry less weight than the home state's, which is a big no-no (reciprocity and all that).
iPhone
I have an idea that doesn't run into the issue of banning certain people from public roads (which I believe is problematic despite my sympathy for the homeowners): ban Waze and other services from sending large amounts of traffic down local roads. Tell the companies that they must change their algorithms so they don't create a fire hose of cars on these streets that can't handle that kind of traffic or the app will be banned, the company find, and anyone caught using the app for navigation given a ticket.
Quote from: vdeane on June 07, 2016, 07:43:46 PM
I have an idea that doesn't run into the issue of banning certain people from public roads (which I believe is problematic despite my sympathy for the homeowners): ban Waze and other services from sending large amounts of traffic down local roads. Tell the companies that they must change their algorithms so they don't create a fire hose of cars on these streets that can't handle that kind of traffic or the app will be banned, the company find, and anyone caught using the app for navigation given a ticket.
But then you run into free market concerns...on what grounds can the government require the company to modify its software that way?
I would say that the well-being of the people who live and drive on the road takes precedence over the free market. By letting their defective code run wild, Waze is destroying the ability to equitably use public infrastructure and creating a tragedy of the commons situation. The fact that they are not fixing the code and are actively thwarting people who are attempting to prevent the jams is clear evidence that this destruction is willful and with intent. Businesses exist from a functional perspective to provide goods and services to the public. The moment they start doing a disservice to the public or any subset thereof is the moment they need to get shut down.
QuoteWaze is destroying the ability to equitably use public infrastructure
I'd argue that by letting more of the public know about public infrastructure, there's more equality.
QuoteThe moment they start doing a disservice to the public or any subset thereof is the moment they need to get shut down.
Most of the public loves Waze, and shutting Waze would be a disservice to the general public.
Get off your high horse.
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on June 07, 2016, 08:29:16 PM
QuoteWaze is destroying the ability to equitably use public infrastructure
I'd argue that by letting more of the public know about public infrastructure, there's more equality.
QuoteThe moment they start doing a disservice to the public or any subset thereof is the moment they need to get shut down.
Most of the public loves Waze, and shutting Waze would be a disservice to the general public.
Get off your high horse.
Waze is a transportation engineer's dream come true. Instead of us needing to design systems that tell people the travel times along each route in order to distribute traffic, a private company did it for us (using virtually identical algorithms), saving the taxpayers money. Many government agencies use the app to track traffic, incidents, and hazards (i.e. potholes) in real time. Yes, people on the shortcut routes are inconvenienced. In the time I have been using Waze, it has yet to send me down a route I have not considered, and this includes some pretty hidden back roads. Going back to the Northway example, Waze is how I determine the best way to get around that mess (whether it's worth sitting in the traffic on NY 7 or if local roads should be used instead).
Quote from: vdeane on June 07, 2016, 07:43:46 PM
I have an idea that doesn't run into the issue of banning certain people from public roads (which I believe is problematic despite my sympathy for the homeowners): ban Waze and other services from sending large amounts of traffic down local roads. Tell the companies that they must change their algorithms so they don't create a fire hose of cars on these streets that can't handle that kind of traffic or the app will be banned, the company find, and anyone caught using the app for navigation given a ticket.
I would say that the well-being of the people who live and drive on the road takes precedence over the free market. By letting their defective code run wild, Waze is destroying the ability to equitably use public infrastructure and creating a tragedy of the commons situation. The fact that they are not fixing the code and are actively thwarting people who are attempting to prevent the jams is clear evidence that this destruction is willful and with intent. Businesses exist from a functional perspective to provide goods and services to the public. The moment they start doing a disservice to the public or any subset thereof is the moment they need to get shut down.
Why should a private enterprise be forced to expend resources to fix a problem that's the government's responsibility? Software developers can't just wave a magic wand and have a new feature suddenly deployed across its entire userbase (despite what many in government seem to think). The current problem is merely just a symptom of stage agencies' inability to foresee future development patterns and adapt to new circumstances (for a variety of reasons, many of which stem from funding). After all, Waze would not be routing users along this road were it not a faster route. Banning a much-used service because you couldn't regulate away the problem is itself a disservice to the public.
Quote from: vdeane on June 07, 2016, 08:11:14 PM
I would say that the well-being of the people who live and drive on the road takes precedence over the free market.
That's fine, but with all due respect, what you would say is not a principle that can actually be applied. What legitimate government interest, under what law, would justify compelling the company to make the proposed changes?
Quote from: empirestate on June 07, 2016, 08:58:29 PM
Quote from: vdeane on June 07, 2016, 08:11:14 PM
I would say that the well-being of the people who live and drive on the road takes precedence over the free market.
That's fine, but with all due respect, what you would say is not a principle that can actually be applied. What legitimate government interest, under what law, would justify compelling the company to make the proposed changes?
And remember the company of interest: Google. Think they'll back down easily if there's not a legal reason for them to?
Quote from: kkt on June 07, 2016, 03:52:48 PM
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 03:48:49 PM
Better ban public funding of any road that is not fully accessible by general public. Much easier to enforce and saves money for maintenance of actually used roads. Just withhold highway funds from states which are not willing to play by the rule, and problem will be solved within next week or so.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in jurisdictions I'm familiar with, state and federal funds pay nothing toward local roads.
At least in NY, you are to be corrected. In NY, there are locally-owned roads that are eligible for federal-aid and federal-aid does fund a lot of local road work. However, if a locally-owned road is not federal-aid eligible, the locality is on the hook. State funds can only be used on local facilities under very, very specific circumstances (e.g., one case I'm aware of involved the Willis Ave. Bridge in NYC, where State Dedicated Funds (SDF) were used for a portion of the project).
Quote from: vdeane on June 07, 2016, 07:43:46 PM
I have an idea that doesn't run into the issue of banning certain people from public roads (which I believe is problematic despite my sympathy for the homeowners): ban Waze and other services from sending large amounts of traffic down local roads. Tell the companies that they must change their algorithms so they don't create a fire hose of cars on these streets that can't handle that kind of traffic or the app will be banned, the company find, and anyone caught using the app for navigation given a ticket.
I have a lot of sympathy for the homeowners, but I think Waze and similar companies have a pretty compelling 1st amendment free speech right to distribute their informed opinion about routing.
Ban trucks, except for local deliveries. Narrow the road, put in traffic circles, and lower the speed limit. Enforce the speed limit. If all else fails, consider a maze of one-ways (yes, I hate those too).
Quote from: Rothman on June 08, 2016, 08:21:51 AM
Quote from: kkt on June 07, 2016, 03:52:48 PM
Quote from: kalvado on June 07, 2016, 03:48:49 PM
Better ban public funding of any road that is not fully accessible by general public. Much easier to enforce and saves money for maintenance of actually used roads. Just withhold highway funds from states which are not willing to play by the rule, and problem will be solved within next week or so.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in jurisdictions I'm familiar with, state and federal funds pay nothing toward local roads.
At least in NY, you are to be corrected. In NY, there are locally-owned roads that are eligible for federal-aid and federal-aid does fund a lot of local road work. However, if a locally-owned road is not federal-aid eligible, the locality is on the hook. State funds can only be used on local facilities under very, very specific circumstances (e.g., one case I'm aware of involved the Willis Ave. Bridge in NYC, where State Dedicated Funds (SDF) were used for a portion of the project).
Okay, thanks for the info.
Quote from: kkt on June 08, 2016, 12:27:41 PM
Quote from: vdeane on June 07, 2016, 07:43:46 PM
I have an idea that doesn't run into the issue of banning certain people from public roads (which I believe is problematic despite my sympathy for the homeowners): ban Waze and other services from sending large amounts of traffic down local roads. Tell the companies that they must change their algorithms so they don't create a fire hose of cars on these streets that can't handle that kind of traffic or the app will be banned, the company find, and anyone caught using the app for navigation given a ticket.
I have a lot of sympathy for the homeowners, but I think Waze and similar companies have a pretty compelling 1st amendment free speech right to distribute their informed opinion about routing.
Ban trucks, except for local deliveries. Narrow the road, put in traffic circles, and lower the speed limit. Enforce the speed limit. If all else fails, consider a maze of one-ways (yes, I hate those too).
That's my point. There are perfectly legal ways to lower travel speeds to make routes slower.
When I type directions into Google, it generally gives me routes that don't involve residential streets. Depending on the start and ending location, 2 of the 3 options are generally involving just main roads. The 3rd option may include a residential road, but it still wasn't the absolute shortest route, it was for the residential route that provided a straight path, sorta like what we're talking about in this thread.
But again, it gave that option last, not first, unlike what Waze does.
Quote from: kkt on June 08, 2016, 12:27:41 PM
Ban trucks, except for local deliveries. Narrow the road, put in traffic circles, and lower the speed limit. Enforce the speed limit. If all else fails, consider a maze of one-ways (yes, I hate those too).
All of which make it worse for the residents in that area. It's one thing when you move into a neighborhood knowing that exists. It's another thing when the homeowners need to go thru a lot of hassle because of a single, minor construction project on a main road that was only going to last for a few days, and now they're going to have to deal with this issue for quite a while.
How good is Waze these days? I've had some god-awful routes lately and have been using Waze just to report incidents, and Google/Apple to route.
For instance, going to my parents requires a direct path on Interstate 71 and US 23, a four-lane highway. Somewhere south of Columbus, Ohio, the app will start routing me to a lot of old alignments of US 23 and sometimes dirt roads. With my settings, I've used both routing options (shortest and fastest) and have gotten the same or equally frustrating routes.
When I ignore it, Waze will spend a considerable amount of times (and miles) to reroute me onto its preferred path before sticking to the main route, which in this case is US 23. It's gotten so bad that I can't give reliable ETA's - I can do the drive to my parents in 4.5 hours or so, and Waze will tack on an extra hour easy.
I've been using Waze for about two and a half years now. I'm a map editor, and an Area Manager (https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Area_Manager) for parts of Carroll, Baltimore, and Adams (PA) counties. I'd like to move up to State Manager, but I just don't have the time to devote to map editing what with work and life and pets and wife and other hobbies.
That all said, my preferred route between home in Westminster and work in Columbia is MD-140 to MD-97 to I-70 to (US-40 or US-29 depending on time of day) to US-29 to MD-100 to Snowden River. At least 75% of the time, despite near daily use and supposed "learning" of my preferred routes, Waze tries to insist on MD-140 to I-795 to I-695 to I-95 to MD-175. I've complained about this several times in the editor forums and the Google Hangouts. It has to do with the algorithm's strong preference for freeway class roads above all other roads. Yet if you've tried the Baltimore Beltway during rush hour you know why I prefer to avoid it by several miles.
This can also be seen approaching Columbia when Waze does all it can to avoid Snowden River Parkway, insisting on a US-29 to MD-175 routing.
Shortly after Christmas 2014, Waze had a northeastern states map editors' meetup, catered, at a hotel in Manhattan. Some of the developers flew in from Tel Aviv (Waze was started in Israel; this was before they were bought out by Google) to meet with us. I and several other editors brought up this routing issue directly with the software engineers. They seemed to understand the problem, but I don't think the issue has improved. Short of quitting my job as a software engineer myself and joining the Waze/Google team in Tel Aviv, I think I have limited influence here.
I did learn about a shortcut through Ellicott City via Centennial Drive to Old Annapolis Road using Waze. It's a decent one, though not great, if both 70 and 40 are backed up, and it DOES go through a more residential area.
It's ridiculous, though, to expect that if you buy a house on any street that isn't a dead end, you're going to be immune from people using the street. I'm of the "distribute cars to all available roads in the road network to improve capacity and throughput of the highway/road system as a whole" school of thought. I have no sympathy whatsoever for these kinds of people, and I'm glad Waze has a mechanism to find them and ban them from the app.
Given that Waze has entered into partnerships with a number of DOTs to exchange information, it's not likely that any government is going to try telling Waze what information it can and cannot relate to users.
And I think a company like Waze has every right to attempt to prevent hackers -- because in essence, that's what they are -- from posting false or faulty information on their system, such as that a road is congested when it really isn't.
How is making it impossible for people to get out of their driveway equitable? How is it people are unable to see the difference between a few people who aren't local traffic using the road and a fire hose of 40k vehicles backing up the street?
Fact: we can't turn every single street into a four lane divided arterial or a cul de sac. And we wouldn't want to live in a world where we did.
It shouldn't be hard to fix the problem. Simply record the function class of the road in the map data, and set the routing priority based on the function class. Default to arterials, route to collectors as applicable, and don't use locals except to get to the destination.
Quote from: vdeane on June 08, 2016, 07:21:06 PM
How is making it impossible for people to get out of their driveway equitable?
I keep hearing this same rhetoric; "impossible for people to get out of their driveway".
Is it
really? Or are you just saying that?
Quote from: empirestate on June 06, 2016, 11:43:47 AM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 06, 2016, 11:10:00 AM
If there's traffic jams, why is Waze still sending them down that road?
Perhaps Waze is discounting reports of jams on that road, because of all the false positives planted by the residents?
Could Waze be tricked into "closed due to accident"?
Quote from: vdeane on June 08, 2016, 07:21:06 PM
It shouldn't be hard to fix the problem. Simply record the function class of the road in the map data, and set the routing priority based on the function class. Default to arterials, route to collectors as applicable, and don't use locals except to get to the destination.
No, the programming itself would not be difficult at all. But your idea was to
compel the companies to do so; that's the difficult part. How is that accomplished?
I've never used Waze as a routing service the way one might use a standalone GPS, Google Maps or Apple Maps. I've only used it to indicate problems along the road I'm currently using at the time.
But if I have access to street-level-detail paper maps, or an electronic service like Google Maps, and I encounter a problem that has my intended through route congested or closed, I will use those sources to route me around the problem regardless of the type of public road it is (residential street, major arterial, what have you.)
A public road is a public road.
Waze is programmed to give higher-class routes a higher priority and will route one along them if the difference is less than a couple of minutes. From looking at it from the editor interface, the street in the article is set to the lowest allowable priority level. For the system to route people along that street instead of the nearby major streets (which are 2-3 levels higher), the time difference has to be significant.
People are going to get around disturbances no matter what. If anything, a system like Waze makes it more orderly, as people not from the area don't try to feel their way around.
Quote from: jakeroot on June 08, 2016, 08:19:09 PM
Quote from: vdeane on June 08, 2016, 07:21:06 PM
How is making it impossible for people to get out of their driveway equitable?
I keep hearing this same rhetoric; "impossible for people to get out of their driveway".
Is it really? Or are you just saying that?
THIS is what I want to know. If you live on a residential street, and you have to wait for 5 or 6 cars and 30 seconds, I can see that as annoying but I don't think it's worth ranting and raving. BUT...if that wait is 2 or 3 minutes because traffic is now backed up on your street...and we all know how well people abide by "don't block the driveway laws"; and we all know how nice some people are about letting people out of driveways and side streets, instead of rushing up to block and protect your position in line...then I'd have a beef, too.
IMO, the beef should be directed to the local government to see what they can do - not that there would be many real, quick, cheap options. Chances are, residential areas that have traffic problems, the overall infrastructure there is not easily expandable, especially with the transportation crisis we're facing.
Quote from: cl94 on June 08, 2016, 11:39:18 PM
Waze is programmed to give higher-class routes a higher priority and will route one along them if the difference is less than a couple of minutes. From looking at it from the editor interface, the street in the article is set to the lowest allowable priority level. For the system to route people along that street instead of the nearby major streets (which are 2-3 levels higher), the time difference has to be significant.
People are going to get around disturbances no matter what. If anything, a system like Waze makes it more orderly, as people not from the area don't try to feel their way around.
I think the problem, as mentioned before, is that if there is no data for a given street (and local streets are the most likely to suffer from this), Waze assumes that there is no traffic there
Quote from: ARMOURERERIC on June 08, 2016, 08:26:10 PM
Quote from: empirestate on June 06, 2016, 11:43:47 AM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 06, 2016, 11:10:00 AM
If there's traffic jams, why is Waze still sending them down that road?
Perhaps Waze is discounting reports of jams on that road, because of all the false positives planted by the residents?
Could Waze be tricked into "closed due to accident"?
Did you read the article? That's exactly what they tried doing. You can get away with it once or twice maybe. But other drivers are going to record that the road isn't closed and that that's no accident. And once Waze detects these false reports, you're banned completely from reporting.
Quote from: jakeroot on June 08, 2016, 08:19:09 PM
Quote from: vdeane on June 08, 2016, 07:21:06 PM
How is making it impossible for people to get out of their driveway equitable?
I keep hearing this same rhetoric; "impossible for people to get out of their driveway".
Is it really? Or are you just saying that?
While it's clearly not impossible (unless an accident or cop pulled someone over directly in front of your driveway), it can be difficult.
DOTs hear this all the time for road projects: "It's impossible to get out of my driveway", or "It's impossible to get into my business because of the road work". It's never really impossible; it's just very difficult. And in general, transportation departments don't want to make it difficult; they want to make it safe and allow traffic to flow.
And that's definitely a fault of programs like Waze. Transportation departments design roads, lanes, signal timings, etc., based on excepted flows of traffic. In a case like this, the expectation is that traffic will stay on the multi-lane road. Even though it may be a little longer in terms of mileage, it's quicker because the main road tends to have priority, more lanes, more signals, more turning lanes, etc. When Waze comes along and says "hey, use this 30 feet wide road with parking on both sides", it sees the road is available, but doesn't take into account the many other features, or lack thereof, of the road. The signal timing may be short for that road. Or maybe the signal can allow for more traffic, but at the expense of the main road's cycle, reducing the green time for them, causing congestion there too. And that's if there is a signal. Maybe it's only a stop sign, and traffic needs to find limited gaps to cut out into traffic.
It's also a problem for the town, the state, or whoever is in charge of road maintance. If a road is expected to see 500 trips per day, mostly cars, the roadbed, layers of asphalt, and underlying stone and gravel isn't going to be as robust as a road expected to see 30,000 vehicles per day, and thus will need additional maintenance at an earlier than expected date in time, increasing costs and delaying other roadwork.
So, yes, the road is open to the public. But there's
wayyyyyyyyy more to it than that, which most people fail to see or care about.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 09, 2016, 09:59:37 AM
And that's definitely a fault of programs like Waze. Transportation departments design roads, lanes, signal timings, etc., based on excepted flows of traffic. In a case like this, the expectation is that traffic will stay on the multi-lane road. Even though it may be a little longer in terms of mileage, it's quicker because the main road tends to have priority, more lanes, more signals, more turning lanes, etc. When Waze comes along and says "hey, use this 30 feet wide road with parking on both sides", it sees the road is available, but doesn't take into account the many other features, or lack thereof, of the road. The signal timing may be short for that road. Or maybe the signal can allow for more traffic, but at the expense of the main road's cycle, reducing the green time for them, causing congestion there too. And that's if there is a signal. Maybe it's only a stop sign, and traffic needs to find limited gaps to cut out into traffic.
It's also a problem for the town, the state, or whoever is in charge of road maintance. If a road is expected to see 500 trips per day, mostly cars, the roadbed, layers of asphalt, and underlying stone and gravel isn't going to be as robust as a road expected to see 30,000 vehicles per day, and thus will need additional maintenance at an earlier than expected date in time, increasing costs and delaying other roadwork.
So, yes, the road is open to the public. But there's wayyyyyyyyy more to it than that, which most people fail to see or care about.
It was explained more than once on this thread: there should be a major backup on the main road for Wase to go all the way down to such bypasses. Which means that major road is clogged at all times. Which means that
Quote
Transportation departments design roads, lanes, signal timings, etc., based on excepted flows of traffic.
and were unable to do their job.
To make things worse... If you look at the map, road in question in not parallel to arterial or such. these must be drivers who are trying to make it to main road from a local residence. Meaning they are paying taxes to same - or very nearby - municipality. And denying them use of road which is billed to their taxes is even more interesting proposition than limiting general public use...
Quote from: kalvado on June 09, 2016, 10:34:23 AM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 09, 2016, 09:59:37 AM
And that's definitely a fault of programs like Waze. Transportation departments design roads, lanes, signal timings, etc., based on excepted flows of traffic. In a case like this, the expectation is that traffic will stay on the multi-lane road. Even though it may be a little longer in terms of mileage, it's quicker because the main road tends to have priority, more lanes, more signals, more turning lanes, etc. When Waze comes along and says "hey, use this 30 feet wide road with parking on both sides", it sees the road is available, but doesn't take into account the many other features, or lack thereof, of the road. The signal timing may be short for that road. Or maybe the signal can allow for more traffic, but at the expense of the main road's cycle, reducing the green time for them, causing congestion there too. And that's if there is a signal. Maybe it's only a stop sign, and traffic needs to find limited gaps to cut out into traffic.
It's also a problem for the town, the state, or whoever is in charge of road maintance. If a road is expected to see 500 trips per day, mostly cars, the roadbed, layers of asphalt, and underlying stone and gravel isn't going to be as robust as a road expected to see 30,000 vehicles per day, and thus will need additional maintenance at an earlier than expected date in time, increasing costs and delaying other roadwork.
So, yes, the road is open to the public. But there's wayyyyyyyyy more to it than that, which most people fail to see or care about.
It was explained more than once on this thread: there should be a major backup on the main road for Wase to go all the way down to such bypasses. Which means that major road is clogged at all times. Which means that
Quote
Transportation departments design roads, lanes, signal timings, etc., based on excepted flows of traffic.
and were unable to do their job.
There was construction on the main road. Thus, a temporary condition which is causing permanent issues.
If those transportation people weren't able to do their jobs, this issue would've been a problem for years.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 09, 2016, 10:40:50 AM
Quote from: kalvado on June 09, 2016, 10:34:23 AM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 09, 2016, 09:59:37 AM
And that's definitely a fault of programs like Waze. Transportation departments design roads, lanes, signal timings, etc., based on excepted flows of traffic. In a case like this, the expectation is that traffic will stay on the multi-lane road. Even though it may be a little longer in terms of mileage, it's quicker because the main road tends to have priority, more lanes, more signals, more turning lanes, etc. When Waze comes along and says "hey, use this 30 feet wide road with parking on both sides", it sees the road is available, but doesn't take into account the many other features, or lack thereof, of the road. The signal timing may be short for that road. Or maybe the signal can allow for more traffic, but at the expense of the main road's cycle, reducing the green time for them, causing congestion there too. And that's if there is a signal. Maybe it's only a stop sign, and traffic needs to find limited gaps to cut out into traffic.
It's also a problem for the town, the state, or whoever is in charge of road maintance. If a road is expected to see 500 trips per day, mostly cars, the roadbed, layers of asphalt, and underlying stone and gravel isn't going to be as robust as a road expected to see 30,000 vehicles per day, and thus will need additional maintenance at an earlier than expected date in time, increasing costs and delaying other roadwork.
So, yes, the road is open to the public. But there's wayyyyyyyyy more to it than that, which most people fail to see or care about.
It was explained more than once on this thread: there should be a major backup on the main road for Wase to go all the way down to such bypasses. Which means that major road is clogged at all times. Which means that
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Transportation departments design roads, lanes, signal timings, etc., based on excepted flows of traffic.
and were unable to do their job.
There was construction on the main road. Thus, a temporary condition which is causing permanent issues.
If those transportation people weren't able to do their jobs, this issue would've been a problem for years.
So if the issue is temporary - why bother? With real time data, Waze will start sending people to main road once work is done.
Or, thinking broadly... If there is a major accident on a main road, police will send people around on whatever roads are available. Including - and not limited to - parking lots and any paved areas. DO you think they should not use certain type of roads for such situations as well?
Quote from: vdeane on June 08, 2016, 07:21:06 PM
It shouldn't be hard to fix the problem. Simply record the function class of the road in the map data, and set the routing priority based on the function class. Default to arterials, route to collectors as applicable, and don't use locals except to get to the destination.
This is already in the Waze map database. Each segment of a road is assigned what us map editors call a "functional class" (FC) as follows:
Highway types: Freeway (FW), Ramp, Major Highway (MH), Minor Highway (mH)
Street types: Primary Street (PS), Street (S)
Other Driveable types: Dirt Road or 4x4 Trail, Private Road, Parking Lot Road, Ferry
Non-Driveable types: Walking Trail, Pedestrian Boardwalk, Stairway (I've never seen this used), Railroad, Runway or Taxiway (at airports)
Waze routing algorithms are written to route using, in order of preference -- FW, MH, mH, PS, S, Dirt Road/4x4, Private Road, Parking Lot Road. The non-driveable types only exist so that they show up on the screen when navigating.
My issue is that the routing algorithm so strongly prefers FW when routing that it will send me through bad traffic on MH and FW roads (MD-140, I-795, I-695) rather than my preferred route on an mH road (MD-97).
Here in Maryland, the FC of a segment is based directly on SHA route logs for state-maintained highways and county and local route logs (where they exist) for other roads, with editors allowed some discretion. For example, I classed MD-800 as PS as opposed to mH, which it would be if SHA route logs were strictly followed. Reason being is that MD-75 is mH and runs parallel, and is also a "better" road in terms of design capacity and speed.
I'm sure other states follow similar guidelines for setting the FC of road segments.
Quote from: kalvado on June 09, 2016, 11:08:58 AM
So if the issue is temporary - why bother? With real time data, Waze will start sending people to main road once work is done.
That doesn't help if people continue following the local road after the project is done, like they were doing here.
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Or, thinking broadly... If there is a major accident on a main road, police will send people around on whatever roads are available. Including - and not limited to - parking lots and any paved areas. DO you think they should not use certain type of roads for such situations as well?
Accidents are usually shorter duration than construction (and, honestly, it seems like they take their sweet time "investigating" open and shut cases, such as a pedestrian who got killed because she didn't bother to look before darting into the middle of Central Ave far from the nearest intersection).
Quote from: vdeane on June 09, 2016, 12:53:48 PM
Quote from: kalvado on June 09, 2016, 11:08:58 AM
So if the issue is temporary - why bother? With real time data, Waze will start sending people to main road once work is done.
That doesn't help if people continue following the local road after the project is done, like they were doing here.
So problem is that commuters discovered a hidden road? Hardly a reason to blame the app...
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Or, thinking broadly... If there is a major accident on a main road, police will send people around on whatever roads are available. Including - and not limited to - parking lots and any paved areas. DO you think they should not use certain type of roads for such situations as well?
Accidents are usually shorter duration than construction (and, honestly, it seems like they take their sweet time "investigating" open and shut cases, such as a pedestrian who got killed because she didn't bother to look before darting into the middle of Central Ave far from the nearest intersection).
And? It is still same type of situation - main road lost most/all of its capacity...
They wouldn't have discovered the "hidden" road if not for the app.
Another problem: If it's raining/snowing so much that you can't go the normal speed on any road, Waze will think that every road that has been tracked has traffic... but those that nobody has been on yet will be shown as normal, even though they're just as bad as all the other roads.
Quote from: vdeane on June 09, 2016, 01:25:30 PM
They wouldn't have discovered the "hidden" road if not for the app.
Welcome to First Ammendment
Reminds me of the issue years ago with the Hollywood Sign, theres a decent viewing point on the 6100 block of Mulholland Highway and the residents were complaining at GPS companies to remove it and force people to a more distant location
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1297887,-118.321576,3a,37.8y,349.98h,84.57t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sMoQ-__H68ddWncFxqrfT6Q!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DMoQ-__H68ddWncFxqrfT6Q%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D263.34027%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656
theyve taken to practically barricading this street now since i was last there in 2012.
It seems to me that if the residents don't want their residential street used as a through route then they should take it up with the municipality to install appropriate traffic calming measures; a few speed tables and chicanes should solve the problem.
Quote from: mariethefoxy on June 13, 2016, 12:09:35 AM
Reminds me of the issue years ago with the Hollywood Sign, theres a decent viewing point on the 6100 block of Mulholland Highway and the residents were complaining at GPS companies to remove it and force people to a more distant location
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1297887,-118.321576,3a,37.8y,349.98h,84.57t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sMoQ-__H68ddWncFxqrfT6Q!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DMoQ-__H68ddWncFxqrfT6Q%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D263.34027%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656
theyve taken to practically barricading this street now since i was last there in 2012.
Take a look at the street. That's exactly what I referred to a while back: The street's not prepared to handle the flow of traffic, thus it becomes cracked and in need of replacement probably much earlier than normally expected.
Quote from: jakeroot on June 08, 2016, 08:19:09 PM
Quote from: vdeane on June 08, 2016, 07:21:06 PM
How is making it impossible for people to get out of their driveway equitable?
I keep hearing this same rhetoric; "impossible for people to get out of their driveway".
Is it really? Or are you just saying that?
In parts of Los Angeles during rush hour this is a real thing. It's not technically impossible, but finding a break in the traffic (on a narrow residential street) can take several minutes.