SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
[...] In mid-January, the borough’s police force will close 60 streets to all drivers aside from residents and people employed in the borough during the morning and afternoon rush periods, effectively taking most of the town out of circulation for the popular traffic apps — and for everyone else, for that matter.
[...] While a number of communities have devised strategies like turn restrictions and speed humps that affect all motorists, Leonia’s move may be the most extreme response.
[...] Borough officials say their measure is legal, although it may yet get tested in court. Some traffic engineers and elected officials elsewhere say the move may set a precedent that could encourage towns to summarily restrict public access to outsiders.
Source: Navigation Apps Are Turning Quiet Neighborhoods Into Traffic Nightmares
Also: New Jersey town will close streets to fight navigation app traffic
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:17AM (11 children)
No, the problem is that the civil engineering utterly failed, otherwise the nav apps *would* route the traffic on the main thoroughfares instead of these tiny residential roads. Either the main roads are so poorly placed that driving through some slow-ass residential road is faster (which it shouldn't be because the apps take into account the traffic speeds), or they're so overcrowded that the same happens. Either way, the engineers and the city planners failed in their job. The apps are just using automated algorithms to work around this failure in politics.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by legont on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:44AM (3 children)
The answer probably is that there are good - rich areas where taxes built good roads - and poor bad ones. Similar to schools.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:48AM (2 children)
The answer probably is that there are good - rich areas where taxes built good roads - and poor bad ones. Similar to schools.
Honestly, I doubt this. Money isn't a guarantee of competence. Places with local governments with more money have more resources to take advantage of, true, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to do a better job with traffic engineering. Just look at the NJ town in this article: that's not a poor neighborhood at all. But they're obviously too stupid to plan their roads well. I used to live in northern NJ, in and among many very wealthy towns, with very high home values and utterly absurd property tax rates, and the roads there were a complete fucking disaster. They were paved well enough (and repaved because they got torn up every winter by the snow plows), but the layouts were utterly stupid, and there wasn't any apparent effort to fix that. Getting from town to town almost always meant driving on little 2-lane (1 each side) roads, and passing people on the shoulder when they were turning left, and frequently using weird little short cuts because there simply was no rational planning to these roads at all. There was absolutely no shortage of money: the local schools had absurdly high budgets and could afford very expensive football fields, and the local cops got ridiculously generous pay and pensions and early retirements.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday December 28 2017, @08:09AM (1 child)
In places like New Jersey, which was settled well before the advent of motor vehicles, a good many roads were originally horsepaths. Most of those designed for motor vehicles were originally built in rural areas where no more than a single lane in each direction was needed. Most of those areas of course can no longer be considered rural by an stretch. Many roads have been reengineered to deal with more traffic after the fact, which is far less optimal than designing roads at the start to deal with a lot of traffic. The end result is what they have, a few major arteries fed by a mismash of local roads of all sorts, where any attempts at "rational" planning is merely an attempt to incorporate and deal with what was already there.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 28 2017, @03:39PM
Yes, but many of these places are also very wealthy with huge tax bases, so they have no real excuse for not methodically exercising eminent domain and cleaning up the mess and putting in better highways.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:34AM (1 child)
He said it was a single lane driveway. That would suggest it was not a public street. So you can't blame the city engineers.
Lazy or cloud Mapping companies, perhaps? Waze was famous for this, because one guy would find this route and report it, and that's all it took. Originally nobody even checked to see if it actually existed. I doubt they have even fixed that yet.
Since its a single lane driveway, chip in and buy some Dead End (No Outlet) signs, and put them up. If that doesn't solve it rent a jersey barrier for a month after explaining to the neighbors.
After all, its a private street.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:52AM
When I first moved into this area (outside of Vancouver, BC) I ordered some topographical maps from the government, large scale, perhaps 3x4 ft official maps from the government. I was surprised how there were non-existent roads on the map including one going right by where I lived. it was just a gated logging road.
Looking at Google maps, it still shows these roads, even has a name for the one I mentioned, some avenue according to Google.
Perhaps at one time it was a road, I did find an old Hupmobile up there, but it sure isn't now but I guess Google is just getting the info from the official maps, so you can't blame them too much. I do hope they update these things as reports come in.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:18AM (2 children)
Yes, but at the top of a mountain, that situation often reflects "success", not failure, in that a road was placed and serviceable where it probably initially appeared that none would be. Mountaintop road placement is nontrivial.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:31PM (1 child)
No mountains in New Jersey.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday December 28 2017, @07:48AM
Sure there are. They may not be that high anymore, but they have been there for far longer than mountain ranges in the western U.S.
(Score: 2) by http on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:55PM (1 child)
It's not clear from the rest of this thread why you've got such a blinding hate-on for planners, engineers, and councillors - only that it's blinding you. It's really hard, politically and financially, to put a main road directly through an established residential neighbourhood. Impossible, if it's rich. You're asking a bit much of the baby-kissing pencil pushers to re-write history.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 28 2017, @01:34AM
No, it's not that hard. It's called "eminent domain": if century-old crap is in the way, you exercise eminent domain, buy up the properties, bulldoze them, and build a new road. It happens all the time in various jurisdictions, even here in the US. Not using this tool when it's appropriate is a failure of local government.