from the shortest-distance-between-two-points dept.
An L.A. Councilman is attempting to blame the application Waze for neighborhood "cut-throughs", where people divert to side streets during traffic congestion.
In his view this is a new phenomenon that has never happened before, although it is widespread around the world and has been so for many years, certainly existing long before 'apps' became popular. The councilor is planning on using a data sharing agreement with Waze in order to strong-arm the application into becoming less useful, which will not solve the problem because people will just use other applications, and those with local knowledge will still know the quickest route from A to B.
The popularity of Waze is largely because it helps drivers avoid delays and to find alternative routes based on the the reports received from other drivers. Applying the measures that the councilor is hoping for will neuter the app completely, rendering it pointless. However, the councilor does make one good point - there are more pedestrian safety facilities (e.g. crossing points, barriers etc) on major routes and that the practice might lead to increased casualty rates in residential areas.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @09:00AM
Less traffic on the roads and fewer idiots in their city would make pedestrians so much happier.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @09:10AM
I knew it!
Once upon a time maps were for the military, and only for them, and that's how we should have kept it!
In those times, the plebs stayed in their assigned place. Literally and figuratively. And it was good!
(well, until the revolution came, that is)
/irony off
Don't want people escaping from traffic jams to other drivable streets? Instead of lying to them about the existence of said streets, how about a constructive solution like offering them a sane way of getting to work?
Nah, can't do that, strong-arming the powerless has always been easier and much cheaper than solving real-world problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @09:33AM
Don't you draw a Basic Income from the Revolutionary Treasury like the rest of us after we toppled the Aristocracy in the Leisure Revolution?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Justin Case on Thursday April 30 2015, @11:24AM
Indeed! What's with these serfs, trying to find a way to get there quicker? Just get in line and wait your turn like everybody else.
And then they complain about half their income taken by taxes. Anarchists! Don't they know without taxes we wouldn't have these fine roads? Plus, it is bloody expensive adding a lane! Money which could be much better spent on another study of dung beetles, or on flushing a trillion gallons of California water down the river to save five endangered fish.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by canopic jug on Thursday April 30 2015, @02:56PM
Perhaps my sarcasm detector is broken but adding lanes only makes the traffic jams worse [wired.com]. It's a known phenomenon that new or expanded roads don't ease congestion [bicycleuniverse.info]. What is needed there is to get mass transit to get the cars off the road. Or reduce the number of people. Move to where the water is.
And the fish had plenty of water before clever people decided to grow rice and alfalfa in the desert. Yes, the U.S. has deserts and it's just as stupid to live in them [youtube.com] as other country's deserts. Food should be grown where the water is. With the current climate, much of what is grown in California ought to be moved to Georgia or thereabouts.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday April 30 2015, @03:18PM
When you think about it, California is approximately the worst possible place for water-intensive agriculture. Especially compared with, say, Oregon or Lousiana or Ohio, all of which are much wetter. The attitude seems to be along the lines of "All the banks said I was daft to build a farm in a desert, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em!"
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Thursday April 30 2015, @04:36PM
Sadly there is no swamp for their farm to sink in to.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Thursday April 30 2015, @03:59PM
With this sort of logic no highways, rails, or subways should be built because people will use them. Madness. All that "induced demand" is traffic that is already trying alternate routes because the ones we paid for aren't working!
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @04:08PM
I read that article and it does put up a reasonable argument. The argument is that we're compelled to pay for roads so why not fully utilize them when it better suits us since I'm paying for them anyways and my additional cost of using what I already paid for is small compared to my entire cost of building the roads. For instance if I can get a better job further away with higher pay and my transportation costs in addition to what I'm compelled to pay through taxes are $10 a month but I can make $30 a month more (just an example) my net benefit is $20 a month. However, what the government compelled me to pay for those roads is an additional $30 a month making my total cost for building the roads and using them an additional $40 a month. $40 - $30 = $10 that I'm out if you factor in what I pay for those roads as a taxpayer into the equation. If I get to choose not to pay for those roads if I don't use them and getting a slightly lower paying local job instead I would choose that because my net income would still be greater.
Perhaps this is a decent argument for toll roads but if we are to have toll roads the proceeds should be government collected to be distributed back into the general fund. If a business far away wants you bad enough ensure that they pay for your transportation as well, heck, they can even negotiate deals with government over bulk payment plans for larger quantities of employees.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @03:25PM
Agreed. These stupid for profit express lanes have to go.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday April 30 2015, @04:33PM
Us plebs should stick to the signed roads. The back way through this councilman's neighborhood should be kept empty!
In my city a few years back there was a huge row over snow removal. The city workers were plowing the streets with city council members first, then leaving the slums a complete disaster for days on end.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @04:57PM
Building roads to solve traffic jams has been shown not to work. Better public transport somewhat works but even there supply (i.e. more transport capacity) creates demand (even more people traveling). It is a difficult to solve problem, and in no way will it be solved by letting annoyed commuters take shortcuts trough residential areas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @05:10PM
There's an upper limit to travel: At no time, more than all of the people can travel at the same time.
Well, at least until time travel gets invented.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @09:48AM
Tor's New Search Provider Built By Ex-Google And Ex-NSA Engineers
$$$
https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-browser-45-released [torproject.org]
^ https://blog.torproject.org/#Search [torproject.org]
"New Search Provider[1]
Our default search provider has also been changed to Disconnect. Disconnect provides private Google search results to Tor users without Captchas or bans."
[1] https://search.disconnect.me/ [disconnect.me]
$$$
"Disconnect Search, Built By Ex-Google And Ex-NSA Engineers, Lets You Use Google, Bing And Yahoo Without Tracking"
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/07/disconnect-search-built-by-ex-google-and-ex-nsa-engineers-lets-you-use-google-bing-and-yahoo-without-tracking/ [techcrunch.com]
FTA:
"notes Patrick Jackson, the ex-NSA engineer who is now CTO of Disconnect"
Yeah.. sounds like a good choice for a default TBB Search Engine... NOT!
$$$
-- On April 28th, 2015 Anonymous said:
"What prompted the change in search engine? Are we now getting paid to include disconnect as the default search engine?"
-- On April 28th, 2015 gk said:
"We don't get paid for that as it currently stands. But Startpage was not happy with our traffic and showed sometimes CAPTCHAs. Disconnect on the other hand approached us with respect to search engine traffic and donated some money."
Donated some money? Hahahahahhaaha. I wonder WHY they approached Torproject? You don't get paid for that CURRENTLY? Nice wording! But there was a DONATION, rrrriiiiight? I can't wait for future news! Please do let us know if and when you start collecting further $$ from the source.
I am insulted. I will continue to use Startpage's free web proxy service in TBB, and DuckDuckGo's .onion hidden service free search engine:
http://3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion/ [3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion]
So what's next, Torproject? Keystroke logging for Amazon or another company? Partnering with Recorded Future or something like it? Is this what the project has come to now? But that "Disconnect" Search Engine site is so pretty. So nice and clean, WOW! It sort of reminds me of the polished DoD sites I have wandered through.
$$$
Read Their Privacy Policy:
https://disconnect.me/privacy [disconnect.me]
Disgusting.
"I love how they "never collect your Personal Info, except when they do" and "never share your Personal Info (the one they didn't collect, remember?), except when they do""
$$$
With this new "Search Engine", I feel like a rug is being pulled out from underneath me and damn it "that rug really tied the room together."
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @09:51AM
I piss on your off-topic comment. Take that, Dude, I fuck with the Jesus!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @02:18PM
Mary Magdalene, is that you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @02:32PM
He just posted it to the wrong story, I'm about 80% sure he meant to post it to the one above this - Stop the War Between Privacy and Security – EU Data Watchdog. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday April 30 2015, @05:15PM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by lentilla on Thursday April 30 2015, @09:58AM
In his view this is a new phenomenon
He certainly isn't wrong. Of course anyone with a map, an abundance of curiosity (or need), or local knowledge has always been able to take a "short cut" through back streets to get from A to B. The difference now is that everybody has a computer in their car that is perfectly capable of calculating these alternate routes. The result is that traffic has (and will continue) to increase where taking a short-cut through suburban back streets offers time savings over sitting in traffic on designated main roads.
As a commuter, I like saving time. As a suburbanite, I really don't appreciate the extra through-traffic. Even the driving style is different - locals tend to drive at a sedate pace, whereas through-traffic is decidedly business-like and is highly intolerant of every little delay - little old ladies crossing the road and small children running after their ball - that sort of thing.
Sadly for our councillor, his novel approach is doomed to failure. He might be able to strong-arm Waze (whomever that happens to be) but he won't be able to fight off their "competition". Be it Google Maps, OpenStreetMap or the coming age of self-learning navigation units - he's fighting a losing battle.
In the end, the only way to prevent through-traffic is to turn your neighbourhood into a series of cul-de-sacs by blocking off one end of the street. Whilst it may solve the problem of through-traffic it will also inconvenience the locals. (Not to mention that in the interim you'll end up with a lot of cars racing up your road, finding a newly-erected dead end, and racing back in the other direction at twice the speed!) Modifying your local roads is also a highly political problem - and the ability of the local governance to do this is highly dependant on the political landscape of the locality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:15AM
He is certainly not wrong. (And I don't understand all the people lambasting the 'stupid politicians because there have always been maps!'. I know for mayself I am much more incline to take unknown backalleys when I have some nav system available than when I only have an old school paper map.)
Best option is to make local roads *slow*. Here in holland most local roads have a max speed of 30 km/h (about 20 mph) . This does not really inconvenience locals, which tend to drive slowly anyway, but it makes the roads less attractive as shortcut.
In the city where I live they even have some convoluted one-way-streets system which makes you traverse the whole neighbourhood if you go in, tis makes it uneconomical to drive through the neighborhood (but not impossible, which would be very inconvenient for the locals).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:20AM
And here in America where drivers are illiterate, you can't reduce speed by posting limits with signs. You have to use speed bumps. Speed bumps are very, very effective.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:39AM
And here in America where drivers are illiterate, you can't reduce speed by posting limits with signs. You have to use speed bumps. Speed bumps are very, very effective.
Of course it's America, so the speedbumps have guns, tazers and automatic cameras that can detect whether the driver is black.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:49AM
To detect whether the driver is a black man, speedbumps contain millimeter wave scanners to find any black testicles in the driver's seat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @01:15PM
They also detect if you have a Corvette.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @06:30PM
Or enforced by radar!
https://what-if.xkcd.com/87 [xkcd.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by epl on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:45AM
stop taking bribes and filling their own wallets andstart thinking a few more years into the future and offering alternative ways for people to get where they need to go. I take the car to work, not because I want to, but because getting there by other means e.g. public transport will take forever-and-a-day each way. All of our larger cities have roads that are already filled to, or beyond, capacity, limiting the number of routes over them will not solve the problem in the long term.(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 30 2015, @02:07PM
No, they really aren't. People can drive over them pretty quickly, especially in larger SUVs.
What's more effective is speed dips. These are concrete trenches in the road. If you drive into one of them too fast, you bottom out.
(Score: 2) by jdccdevel on Thursday April 30 2015, @03:01PM
Around here they've been installing Speed Humps [trafficlogix.com] instead of Speed Bumps. (The website sells rubber ones, but most of the ones I've seen are permanent.)
With a normal speed bump, driving faster makes the effect less noticeable, because the suspension of the vehicle absorbs the impact. With a speed hump on the other hand, the driving faster makes the effect larger. Like speed bumps, they're most effective when you use a bunch of them in series. Unlike speed bumps, when you drive slowly you barely notice them at all.
Speed humps vs Speed Bumps [ct.gov]
Here's a video showing some Russians driving too fast over one. [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by snick on Thursday April 30 2015, @01:02PM
A 25 mph speed limit and a couple weeks of strict enforcement should be perfect for a social app like Waze. "Stay away ... it is a speed trap!" should do the trick.
I know folks here are equating not wanting through traffic in a residential neighborhood with being Hitler, but as someone whose kids used to play out front, I have to say that _anything_ that encourages folks to use residential streets as shortcuts is a bad thing.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Thursday April 30 2015, @04:22PM
A 25 mph speed limit and a couple weeks of strict enforcement should be perfect for a social app like Waze. "Stay away ... it is a speed trap!" should do the trick.
Why not just have neighborhood members flood Waze with police and traffic jam reports along those residential streets?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @02:28PM
> Best option is to make local roads *slow*.
There is an entire area of research devoted that, it is called traffic calming. [pps.org]
It isn't just about physical impediments either, more important are psychological impediments. That includes things like narrowing the streets and using tight corners because wide streets with make drivers feel like it is safe to speed because they have more room to manoeuvre. Another very effective option is to use brick pavers - the rumbling sound that tires make rolling over bricks is disturbing and makes drivers more cautious.
(Score: 2) by M. Baranczak on Thursday April 30 2015, @02:43PM
Another very effective option is to use brick pavers - the rumbling sound that tires make rolling over bricks is disturbing and makes drivers more cautious.
And you don't think it would be disturbing to the people who live there?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @03:58PM
> And you don't think it would be disturbing to the people who live there?
As someone who lives on a brick-paved road, I can't even hear it from inside the house.
(Score: 2) by lentilla on Thursday April 30 2015, @04:10PM
That includes things like narrowing the streets [...] because wide streets with make drivers feel like it is safe to speed
Not necessarily... here is a suggestion to do the opposite [nytimes.com]:
To make communities safer and more appealing, Mr. Monderman argues, you should first remove the traditional paraphernalia of their roads - the traffic lights and speed signs; the signs exhorting drivers to stop, slow down and merge; the center lines separating lanes from one another; even the speed bumps, speed-limit signs, bicycle lanes and pedestrian crossings. In his view, it is only when the road is made more dangerous, when drivers stop looking at signs and start looking at other people, that driving becomes safer.
the rumbling sound that tires make rolling over bricks is disturbing
Hell no. Not in my backyard, not in anybody's backyard.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @05:05PM
>> Not necessarily... here is a suggestion to do the opposite:
Did you read your own link?
It says get rid of what makes it easy for drivers to feel like it is safe to speed - in that case signs regulating traffic that implicitly give cars the right of way.
> Hell no. Not in my backyard, not in anybody's backyard.
Spoken like someone who has never lived on a brick-paved road. I have in both Tampa, FL and Tyler, TX. It wasn't a problem. For one thing, much of the vibration noise is transmitted into the car by contact. For the slower you drive, the less noise your tires make. So not only does that give the driver feedback to drive slower but it also warns pedestrians when someone is speeding. Basically only bad drivers get noticed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @08:39PM
Speed bumps/humps and brick pavers are moot if you drive over them fast enough. Try it next time in a parking lot; you can sail right through a speed bump at 30-40mph (high profile tires only). Sure it makes a bit of racket, but there is virtually no vertical motion to the car.
(Score: 2) by soylentsandor on Friday May 01 2015, @06:07AM
That depends on their design. Some are awkward at any speed. Also, shock absorbers don't come cheap.
(Score: 2) by jcross on Thursday April 30 2015, @01:03PM
When I used to work in L.A. about 10 years ago, a lot of locals seemed to have GPS units in their cars, but this was before smartphones so I don't think there was any traffic-based routing. After a couple experiences of getting stuck on the freeway, we bought a map book and navigated through the local and residential streets, where there was often no other traffic at all. One thing that struck me was how wide residential streets tend to be there. A lot of them looked like they were 3 or 4 lanes wide, and really straight, and of course really flat (at least where the common folk live), in a nice grid with the only complicating factor being that some towns have their streets turned 45 degrees in the Spanish style [wikipedia.org] and others don't.
Now there are a bunch of ways to calm traffic, from the cul-de-sacs you mention to slaloms, speed bumps, traffic circles, increasing the number of T intersections, decreasing visibility, and so on, but the residential streets of L.A. are the exact opposite in every respect. It's a city built around the automobile, and that's going to be tricky to change in a meaningful way. The big change here is automating the person in the passenger seat with a paper map and some geographic know-how, but L.A. is also the perfect setup for that automation to run amok.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Thursday April 30 2015, @01:47PM
When we lived back in the States, we had problems with through-traffic in our 150-house neighborhood despite signs prohibiting such. There was a north and south entrance / exit. The home owners association looked into blocking off one of those entrances, but the politicians didn't like because it was prohibited for fire truck reasons. (Actually, it was a law. No neighborhood could have fewer than two entrances / exits. It made it harder for the fire trucks to get to the fires.) It was an interesting reason and one I could certainly understand.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday April 30 2015, @02:07PM
I see you too have been to New Jersey.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by WillR on Thursday April 30 2015, @02:58PM
In the end, the only way to prevent through-traffic is...
... to buy the land under those streets back form the city and put up gates. If they're public streets, the public has a right to drive on them.
(Score: 2) by Aichon on Thursday April 30 2015, @03:03PM
He might be able to strong-arm Waze (whomever that happens to be) but he won't be able to fight off their "competition". Be it Google Maps
Waze is owned by Google. It used to be an independent, crowd-sourced map app and database that relied on users to supply traffic info and map updates, but Google bought it out a few years back so that it could integrate Waze's traffic information and more up-to-date map info into Google Maps. They kept Waze around as a separate product, however.
So, if you're thinking that this councilman can't hold off Google...well, that fight is already on his doorstep.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday April 30 2015, @02:21PM
Last year here in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a 12-yr old boy was run down by a van speeding on Prospect Park West. The boy was chasing a soccer ball, but he had the light and the driver was doing one of those rolling stops anticipating a light change to green. The boy died. The driver was not charged. Park Slope is an intensely family-oriented neighborhood, so the tragedy galvanized every parent here to support Vision Zero, an initiative to reduce annual traffic deaths in New York City to zero. It is inspired by and based upon the UK campaign, "Twenty is Plenty." [20splentyforus.org.uk] Vision Zero was taken up by another parent from Park Slope, Bill de Blasio, who has since become mayor of the city and implemented it as city-wide policy. The speed limit has been lowered to 25mph from 35mph and hundreds of millions of dollars have been allocated to comprehensive traffic calming. We have not yet gotten to where "Twenty is Plenty" is, which calls for neighborhood slow zones, gateway grade changes (so, at the entrances to a neighborhood or subdivision, there is an extended raised area with abundant signage to signal drivers to slow down), chicanes, speed humps, curb extensions, and others, but I hope we do because I know I'll breathe easier as a father when we do.
But those sort of measures would be a better solution to the councilman's problems than penalizing Waze. If they shut Waze down, other apps will fill the gap. And, as others have pointed out, locals will still take those shortcuts without any app to help them. The best way is to change the weighting in the calculation of, "Is this the quickest way from point A to point B?"
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Thursday April 30 2015, @04:07PM
Rather than making traffic problems worse, why not use the money to improve the main congested areas so people don't need to be in the neighborhood to begin with?
These zero-death initiatives are an excuse for heavy-handed police presence, and I'm amazed how many people don't see that as a revenue collection trap.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday April 30 2015, @06:20PM
What does that mean, though? How do you improve the main congested area (I assume you mean a congested highway or business district or the like)? Do you mean add another layer on top of the highway, like they had on the Embarcadero in San Francisco that pancaked all those cars during the 1989 earthquake? Even absenting the earthquake factor, that's an expensive proposition. And if you add more layers to the existing highway, you spend a lot of money to re-weight the "do I drive there or not?" calculation to encourage more driving; then, once the people have decided to drive to some place, say the business district, then they're going to spend a lot of time finding parking, which will develop relatively more scarcity as you encourage more people to drive.
You could also go a different way and say, hey, let's expand public transportation to give more people less reason to drive. That's fine, but that only works if you're talking about modes of transportation with dedicated paths like subways, light rail, elevated trains/monorails/etc. Buses compete with cars for the same lanes, so they get caught in the same traffic the cars do, without the convenience of your own car. But subways and such also cost a pretty penny. NYC's in the process of trying to add *1* subway line on 2nd Ave in Manhattan, and it's a 50-year project with an astronomical price tag. In the end, though, you're spending a lot of money to re-weight the "do I drive there or not?" calculation.
Traffic calming (speed humps, chicanes, etc) and enforcement also re-weight the "do I drive there or not?" calculation, but it can be done for a song compared to the other two options. The engineering costs are trivial. The material inputs are a fraction of the others. It's also worth considering that police don't ticket drivers for driving, they ticket drivers for speeding or failure to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk (or running red lights, etc). If drivers speed or blow through pedestrians, they deserve a ticket, or, as I like to think of it, pay an asshole tax. If assholes insist on contributing more to the public purse by behaving like assholes, I'm personally OK with that. In fact, more, please (that is, be an asshole, pay more, though fewer assholes would be far preferable).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Friday May 01 2015, @03:33AM
Often the highways have features from 1950s-1970s designs that are inefficient, and those bottlenecks can also be fixed for less than the ideas you suggest.
We could also expand our public transit so highways connect to subway lines, but rarely do. Even the garages that do fill up before 7AM. So clearly there is unmet demand. But we don't want to induce parking demand, apparently.
That's exactly what they do one street over from me. The road is one-way forbidden during commute hours because people there want their kids to be able to play in the streets; Street hockey, mostly.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday April 30 2015, @03:39PM
And certainly not because they simply don't repave the streets in poor neighborhoods. Where I live
Also, people would not find "short cuts" if the infrastructure of the main roads could handle the traffic. Though I don't blame city councils for that. When a new housing development or shopping center goes up, they are better here in the past few years about being proactive about traffic signals. But sometimes you just can't predict when a change will mess up traffic patterns.
Around here, the state workers that operate the highways love to detour traffic through towns and city streets. They also do no not give a single shit if an intersection is designed poorly causing traffic to be routed all over the place. I wonder if those towns get any money from the to get their roads repaired.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh