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The problem is that what is most efficient for getting a car from point a to b is not what is best for society overall. There are many articles online where pe

The problem is that what is most efficient for getting a car from point a to b is not what is best for society overall. There are many articles online where people on residential streets got flooded with traffic because of apps like waze.[1] In the valley we only seem good at solving single isolated problems, and we are remarkably tone deaf to the effects these 'disruptions' have on the rest of society. 1. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/shortcut-app-waze-1.3463004 http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/shortcut-app-waze-1.346300...

mhroth 9y ago
> In the valley we only seem good at solving single isolated problems... I'd suggest that's precisely because that's how engineers are taught to solve problems (and not just in the valley). Reduce a problem to it's simplest representation (by abstracting everything else away) and solve.
- gerbilly 9y ago
  Then maybe that's why these problems were solved in the past by more than just engineers, city planners, politicians individual residents etc...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - mcrad 9y ago
    Right - not just an engineer-agent of the marketing dept
robbrown451 9y ago
A good argument can be made that using the residential streets is best for "society overall." The amount it disrupts those who live in the neighborhood could very well be outweighed by a large reduction of wasted time by all those stuck in a traffic jam.
- gerbilly 9y ago
  I'd argue the harm to a neighbourhood street far outweighs the needs of people in cars. It creates noise, discourages kids from playing outside, basically it decreases the quality of life generally when the street you live on becomes a river of traffic. Basically, this new innovation disrupts a balance that has been achieved incrementally over time. Go into any neighbourhood and talk to people and you will find that over time they have called the city councillor spoken to each other to come to an agreement about how their street is to be used, from parking issues, to street furniture to common access to some areas such as school parking lots off hours for example. Some of these agreements are formal, others informal and unspoken, but they always exist. I don't buy your argument that waze, by optimizing for a single variable, and which ignores all of these agreements between residents can be a greater benefit 'overall.' Also, by solving the congestion problem this way, they actually divert attention away from proper solutions being implemented at the city level.
  - colefichter 9y ago
    This idea that local residents are more entitled to the street becomes problematic, though. I live in a high-rise condo on a busy arterial road in the city centre. Should my enjoyment of the street override the needs of suburbanites to commute to work daily? I might think so, but somehow I don't think the suggestion that we should force thousands of people onto public transit or bicycles or whatever is going to wash. So then the question becomes, why are people in certain neighbourhoods entitled to things that people in other neighbourhoods clearly are not entitled to? If others can use "my" street when they please, why can't I do the same on "their" street?
- lightedman 9y ago
  Streets are made for driving upon. If people don't like people driving on their streets, they should vote to get rid of them. To boot, most people in those neighborhoods SHOULD be going to work anyways, so they shouldn't notice people going up and down their streets for the most part. We haven't hit Japan's retirement-age population level problem, yet.
  - 9y ago
cmurf 9y ago
The solution to the neighborhood problem is to make it impossible for a car to use those roads as through streets. Basically you put up a bunch of bollards, so people can still walk and bike through a neighboorhood, but cars would only use the roads to get to a specific destination in that neighborhood. There's a word for this layout, I can't think of it - with the bollards in place, it turns the neighborhood into a maze of hard right and left turns. It's totally pointless to find a work around (in a car).
- sjwalter 9y ago
  Portland has aggressively pursued traffic calming and these traffic shaping measures you discuss. I first thought it was brutal and everyone drive really slow. On residential streets, both sides almost always allow forstreet parking, and so the roads don't allow for two way traffic. On other roads they narrow the lanes a lot, using bollards or increasing shoulder. They realize that traffic is a social engineering problem and not a highway engineering one. Now I love it. I drive slower when it makes sense to, and I do so because it's what feels right at the slice of road I'm on, not because of the sign that says the max speed.

mhroth 9y ago

> In the valley we only seem good at solving single isolated problems... I'd suggest that's precisely because that's how engineers are taught to solve problems (and not just in the valley). Reduce a problem to it's simplest representation (by abstracting everything else away) and solve.

gerbilly 9y ago
Then maybe that's why these problems were solved in the past by more than just engineers, city planners, politicians individual residents etc...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- mcrad 9y ago
  Right - not just an engineer-agent of the marketing dept

robbrown451 9y ago

A good argument can be made that using the residential streets is best for "society overall." The amount it disrupts those who live in the neighborhood could very well be outweighed by a large reduction of wasted time by all those stuck in a traffic jam.

gerbilly 9y ago
I'd argue the harm to a neighbourhood street far outweighs the needs of people in cars. It creates noise, discourages kids from playing outside, basically it decreases the quality of life generally when the street you live on becomes a river of traffic. Basically, this new innovation disrupts a balance that has been achieved incrementally over time. Go into any neighbourhood and talk to people and you will find that over time they have called the city councillor spoken to each other to come to an agreement about how their street is to be used, from parking issues, to street furniture to common access to some areas such as school parking lots off hours for example. Some of these agreements are formal, others informal and unspoken, but they always exist. I don't buy your argument that waze, by optimizing for a single variable, and which ignores all of these agreements between residents can be a greater benefit 'overall.' Also, by solving the congestion problem this way, they actually divert attention away from proper solutions being implemented at the city level.
- colefichter 9y ago
  This idea that local residents are more entitled to the street becomes problematic, though. I live in a high-rise condo on a busy arterial road in the city centre. Should my enjoyment of the street override the needs of suburbanites to commute to work daily? I might think so, but somehow I don't think the suggestion that we should force thousands of people onto public transit or bicycles or whatever is going to wash. So then the question becomes, why are people in certain neighbourhoods entitled to things that people in other neighbourhoods clearly are not entitled to? If others can use "my" street when they please, why can't I do the same on "their" street?
lightedman 9y ago
Streets are made for driving upon. If people don't like people driving on their streets, they should vote to get rid of them. To boot, most people in those neighborhoods SHOULD be going to work anyways, so they shouldn't notice people going up and down their streets for the most part. We haven't hit Japan's retirement-age population level problem, yet.
- 9y ago

cmurf 9y ago

The solution to the neighborhood problem is to make it impossible for a car to use those roads as through streets. Basically you put up a bunch of bollards, so people can still walk and bike through a neighboorhood, but cars would only use the roads to get to a specific destination in that neighborhood. There's a word for this layout, I can't think of it - with the bollards in place, it turns the neighborhood into a maze of hard right and left turns. It's totally pointless to find a work around (in a car).

sjwalter 9y ago
Portland has aggressively pursued traffic calming and these traffic shaping measures you discuss. I first thought it was brutal and everyone drive really slow. On residential streets, both sides almost always allow forstreet parking, and so the roads don't allow for two way traffic. On other roads they narrow the lanes a lot, using bollards or increasing shoulder. They realize that traffic is a social engineering problem and not a highway engineering one. Now I love it. I drive slower when it makes sense to, and I do so because it's what feels right at the slice of road I'm on, not because of the sign that says the max speed.