48 ms·

Traffic apps turned L.A.’s neighborhoods into ”shortcuts”

185 points by 80mph 7y ago

valiant-comma 7y ago
When these articles show up now and again, it’s not clear to me why the various impacted cities don’t choose to ban through traffic. Some articles have implied that this is not possible. Los Altos did this a while back[1]. Is there a legal issue the communities surrounding Los Angeles want to avoid, that Los Altos simply took the risk on? [1] https://slate.com/business/2017/06/suburbs-finally-figured-out-a-way-to-get-rid-of-pesky-drivers-on-waze-shortcuts.html https://slate.com/business/2017/06/suburbs-finally-figured-o...
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > it’s not clear to me why the various impacted cities don’t choose to ban through traffic Can you physically turn the streets into cul-de-sacs? Where I live a lot of domestic streets are cul-de-sacs presumably to prevent too many people driving past.
  - valiant-comma 7y ago
    There’s one in Los Gatos, I believe, where they did this partially. Cars can empty on to the larger street, but can’t enter from the that direction.
  - swsieber 7y ago
    Speed bumps go a long way too by dropping the effective speed.
    - bestnameever 7y ago
      Speed is a huge problem. I make sure I don't go more than 25 through one of the shortcuts I take through a residential area and when Waze starts sending people down these roads they are extremely aggressive behind me. I'm guessing they'd be driving 40 to 50 if I wasn't in their way which is pointless because the route ends in a long line of car's trying to make a turn. When I was young I used to ride my bike through these neighborhoods - I'd be surprised if parents felt comfortable letting there kids do the same today.
    - Scoundreller 7y ago
      My city seems to do this with more unorthodox methods: cheap out on road maintenance and engineering. Oh sure, take that side street with all of the sunken sewer grates. My mom’s street was riddled with potholes. We were happy when they repaved it, but blew it when they put up speed bumps.
      - megaremote 7y ago
        This is partly because drivers aren't actually paying there way, and are subsidised by others a ridiculous amount.
    - DoreenMichele 7y ago
      And by raising the aggravation and discomfort levels. Some people will avoid streets with speed bumps if they can find an alternate route because they dislike them so much.
    - pro_zac 7y ago
      Getting a speed bump added to your street is nearly impossible in LA. I lived on a street that badly needed one. It was a double length block paralleling Wilshire, so frequently used as a bypass with many speeding drivers. I looked up the process for requesting a speed bump. They only take so many requests per year, so I had to wait a few months for the request form to open up. I marked my calendar and when the date came it required that you get signatures from 50% of the residents on your street. Since my street was almost entirely apartment buildings and a double length block, this would have been hundreds of people. I gave up. I no longer live there.
  - 0xEFF 7y ago
    Yes, just add a barrier only allowing bikes and pedestrians through.
  - da_chicken 7y ago
    My small town did this 20 or 30 years ago with a number of residential streets that were commonly [ab]used for shortcuts. They erected barriers that consist of a curb across the roadway and a series of three or four "no entry" and "dead end" signs. Inconvenient, but it stops through traffic. Tucson and Phoenix have another alternative. The cities are built with the main roads being a large grid. Subdivision roads are twisty and higgledy-piggledy. It's almost always too inefficient to cut through a subdivision to bother trying.
  - Xylakant 7y ago
    You can install what’s called “Modal Filters”: A series of barriers that lets pedestrians and cycles pass, but blocks cars. This slightly inconveniences local traffic, but blocks through traffic.
    - r00fus 7y ago
      Near my downtown side-streets there are temporary barriers that you can actually drive around (but you know you're going against what the sign says). I presume enforcement is always an option. Another point, on my street there used to be horrible backup right in front of my house, but once the light near the school nearby went to a half-duplex mode, apps stopped recommending it as a sure bet shortcut. Once that happened traffic lowered considerably.
      - Freak_NL 7y ago
        If the signs prohibit passage, Waze wouldn't be able to use that (legally invalid) route, would it?
        kevingadd 7y ago
        Waze and Google Maps tend to have bad/outdated data and tell people to make illegal turns. The roads near my apartment changed over a year ago and I still see people make illegal left turns (including Lyft drivers unless I warn them about it in advance).
  - geofft 7y ago
    Actually can you just put traffic-triggered off-by-default red lights, similar to the ones used on highway on-ramps to trickle cars in during rush hour? If only one or two cars are seen on the road, turn the light off. If more than that, turn it on and allow one car per green every several seconds. It will reduce throughput enough that Waze will automatically route away from it (and eventually Waze editors will have to figure out how to encode it) without affecting normal residential traffic. For whatever reason, people don't always care about speed limits but they usually don't run red lights.
    - bonestamp2 7y ago
      That is interesting... metered off ramps. I could see them putting one at the Eastbound 101 exit for Haskell. I see very few people exit there while I'm stuck in traffic waiting to get on the 405. I'm sure a significant number of people are following waze (it often suggests I go that way to save 4 minutes).
    - pkamb 7y ago
      I don't understand why "on-ramp" metered lights aren't used in many more places. Like enforcing easy zipper merging. Put lights on both lanes that need to merge together, out there in the middle of the freeway. Turn them off when there's no traffic.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    Yes, in my neck of the woods they cut off some roads used as rat runs by installing bollards. Pedestrians and bikes can still go through but car no longer can.
  - 6nf 7y ago
    Around my area in Sydney a few new street signs have been popping up banning traffic from driving through at certain times of the day, without actually changing the roads. The signs say for example 'No right turn 7am-10am' which is when morning traffic sneaks into the side street to get to the CBD faster. Then I got to sit on my balcony for 6 weeks watching the traffic cops ticket one car after the other until they stopped catching people.
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    Yes, Portland added diverters to some of its neighborhood Greenway routes, that forcibly divert car traffic (walking and biking can still get through). It was done for basically what's talked about in the article, too many cars using local residential roads for commuting. Really, this is a design problem with the streets and lack of effective public transportation. LA brought this onto itself.
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      They made a decision not to make the roads objectively worse to thwart abusers. I think calling that a design problem they brought on themselves is unfair.
      - TulliusCicero 7y ago
        It's not objectively worse, any more than road diets make streets objectively worse, or sidewalks, or protected bike lanes, or speed limits. Making roads worse for through traffic makes them better for other uses. It comes down to what your priorities are, and right now, through design, they're choosing to prioritize the very through traffic they're complaining about. It's not unfair, and it's accurate. The design decisions the area chose as a whole, like handicapping public transportation, led to this situation. With robust public transit, you wouldn't have a huge flood of desperate car commuters driven to find any possible shortcut.
        Dylan16807 7y ago
        Road diets, sidewalks, bike lanes, and (correctly done) speed limits all have very nice features. Blocking exits does not in any way improve the road itself. It just inconveniences people that are improperly cutting through more than normal drivers. The fact that through traffic is technically possible does not mean it is 'prioritized'.
        TulliusCicero 7y ago
        > Blocking exits does not in any way improve the road itself. Incorrect. It improves the conditions of the road for local drivers, as well cyclists and pedestrians. Which is exactly why Portland did it. Unless you have an alternative explanation? > The fact that through traffic is technically possible does not mean it is 'prioritized'. It shows that they've prioritized enabling through traffic over other concerns. It's not all that different from road diets. Road diets usually reduce the carrying capacity of the road, making it "objectively worse", in your parlance, in the service of other goals. Diverters accomplish a similar function.
- nradov 7y ago
  It turns out than bans on through traffic aren't legally enforceable. The signs are merely advisory.
  - valiant-comma 7y ago
    Yep, that seems to be supported by this article[1]. https://padailypost.com/2017/11/17/traffic-complaints-to-result-in-no-through-traffic-signs-in-willows/ https://padailypost.com/2017/11/17/traffic-complaints-to-res...
  - notatoad 7y ago
    A "no thru traffic" sign may not be legally enforceable, and it's certainly difficult to enforce just from a practical perspective. But physically making the street not be a through street is possible. Just plop down a couple of Jersey walls and you're done. Check out how Vancouver made semlin, grant, and gravely forcibly "no thru traffic" here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/DFVJNDF2DftbFzpv9 https://maps.app.goo.gl/DFVJNDF2DftbFzpv9
    - ec109685 7y ago
      Aren't you then trapping the residents who live on that street in?
    - wlesieutre 7y ago
      My hometown did this in the late 90's, added three barriers across intersections to cut a neighborhood in half. Here's someone recently suggesting removing them to alleviate traffic on the main north/south road (under construction for the last two years or so), but I doubt anything would happen to them: https://www.centredaily.com/news/local/community/state-college/article210701259.html https://www.centredaily.com/news/local/community/state-colle... Traffic bound for North Atherton (bottom left of map) has to go down to the intersection with Park instead of taking Allen. Easy enough to take a bike through them, I used to ride that way regularly in to campus. But I think it's worked well to not have cars shortcutting through the neighborhood at high speeds.
    - gambiting 7y ago
- BooneJS 7y ago
  Menlo Park has a few streets labeled local traffic only as well.
  - gibolt 7y ago
    Palo Alto has quite a few as well. Some are just marked with signs, many have physical barriers allowing only bikes and large trash collection vehicles to easily pass.
    - DrScump 7y ago
      A fair stretch of Bryant St. is bike-limited, with narrow barriers every few blocks. I used it in my bike commute from Sunnyvale to Menlo (which also used pedestrian/bike bridges that cross the creeks that define the Mtn View / Palo Alto and Palo / Menlo borders).
    - stordoff 7y ago
      Is there an example of these? I'm having a hard time picturing how a barrier can allow bikes and large traffic to pass whilst blocking other traffic.
      - michaelt 7y ago
        There are barriers that restrict traffic based on dimensions - such as the 'bus trap' [1] that only allows wide vehicles, and the 'sump buster' [2] that only allows high-ground-clearance vehicles through. Of course, these have the disadvantage that (a) they damage the cars of confused motorists [6] (b) cars stuck in traps obstruct busses anyway[5], and (c) large SUVs and pick-up trucks can drive over them anyway [4]. Another option is a powered rising bollard [3] or barrier together with some mechanism (tag, ANPR, keypad) for recognising authorised vehicles. Which avoids a lot of those weaknesses - at the cost of power and maintenance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_trap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_trap [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sump_buster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sump_buster [3] https://goo.gl/maps/epSrQ2641m6ccf6cA https://goo.gl/maps/epSrQ2641m6ccf6cA [4] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-22352392 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-22352... [5] https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/car-gets-stuck-new-leigh-11299541 https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manches... [6] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-22/car-blocks-o-bahn-for-second-time-in-month/10150778 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-22/car-blocks-o-bahn-for...
- HillaryBriss 7y ago
  It can be controversial. It can pit the wealthy against the working class: a well-off hillside neighborhood may demand that its streets be off-limits to through traffic. But this would mean that another, poorer neighborhood's residents are denied an important route to work. And the question comes up: aren't these public streets? Don't the streets belong to everyone?
duxup 7y ago
In LA are these shortcuts worth it? I was surprised to find with Google maps more often than not it suggests to just take that busy highway that is crawling alone because ... it really is faster. I've tried to defy google maps ... rarely do I win. Granted google maps is wrong at times. During snowstorms it loves to send me down off streets that haven't yet been plowed or ... worse random county roads you do not want to be on during a storm. I think it inadvertently interprets "hey nobody is on this road so it must be faster" when nobody is there because that road is terrible with snow and you're far better crawling along the highway where plows will be or may have been ... or other vehicles have made tracks.
- bestnameever 7y ago
  they can be minimally quicker once Waze catches on. One of my current shortcuts that I've taken for over 10 years dropped off the Waze radar during the summer when traffic is less. With school back in session, I am now saving 15 minutes on my commute. However, once Waze catches on and starts sending folks down my shortcut, I'll be lucky to save just a few minutes. It is for this reason I don't let any apps track my commute to work.
  - duxup 7y ago
    When i'm on a detour of sorts I often look around and wonder... "Are we all just following google?"
    - bestnameever 7y ago
      I'd wager that over 90% are. It literally go's from me driving the route all by myself to me driving in an endless caravan of car's once Waze starts recommending the route. For this route, it's not even just Waze. Apple recommends the route as well.
  - esoterica 7y ago
    > It is for this reason I don't let any apps track my commute to work. That doesn't seem like it would do you any good. Either other people on the road are reporting their speed and location to Waze (in which case your resistance is futile), or no one is, in which case Waze will presumably assume that there is no traffic on the road and send more people down it.
someguydave 7y ago
If the government wants to be the big daddy of traffic control then it should also build sufficient lanes to keep the roads moving.
- intopieces 7y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
  - devit 7y ago
    Am I the only one that finds that using that theory to justify not adding capacity is utterly idiotic? If you add capacity and it ends up being all used up, it just means you didn't add enough and should add even more if possible! Kind of like saying that in a famine it's useless to provide more food because it's going to be eaten all up anyway since some people are no longer dying of famine...
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      There's definitely a balance to be struck (you can't just build lane after lane after lane and expect linear improvement) but yeah, not adding capacity because the capacity will be used is just asinine. It's just something about personally owned vehicles that makes people dumb. Most of those same people wouldn't complain about people using the new capacity if the discussion was about extending bus routes or making subways run more frequently.
    - someguydave 7y ago
      No, this canard gets raised in every traffic thread. The real reason why “induced demand” exists is because roads in urban areas are usually so under built that any reasonably good road is crushed by extra users once it is built. If governments actually kept sufficient roads available then there would not be induced demand. Alternatively, the government should charge all road users a sufficiently high toll to keep the roads moving.
    - someguydave 7y ago
parsimo2010 7y ago
The comedian Pete Holmes has a bit about Waze that is extremely relevant to this article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuDCxQdsbmc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuDCxQdsbmc
- s_Hogg 7y ago
  "It maybe works in Arkansas..." great line to fade out on
- chillwaves 7y ago
  Not often you see Conan upstaged. Great bit, appreciate the sentiment of enjoyment over efficiency. I have been seeing that reflection more and more lately.
lemmox 7y ago
I had no idea Waze was powered by anon crowd sourced map editors. If anybody here is doing it, what's the motivation? Personally I'd never disclose my shortcuts or free parking spots.
- Synaesthesia 7y ago
  Google maps and Apple maps traffic is cross sourced anonymously too
  - lemmox 7y ago
    Interesting, so you're suggesting that the Google and Apple navigation apps are also crowd-sourced social networks like Waze? If that's true I wonder why Waze is singled out for these types of articles.
    - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
      AFAIK, this is not really accurate; Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Waze often pick different routes between the same two points at the same time of day in my (admittedly informal) experiments. Google and Apple pretty consistently favored major roads unless there were serious traffic backups on them, while during anything remotely resembling commuting hour, Waze was frequently acting like your crazy uncle who swears taking 28 residential roads, two of which are unpaved and the last of which is an alleyway that ends in an unprotected left turn across three lanes of dense traffic, is clearly the best route. (And while that's an exaggeration, Waze has consistently been far more likely to send me down unpaved roads, ridiculously steep hills, and, yes, unprotected left turns onto busy highways, presumably because the residential road I was on was lower traffic than the parallel road one block away with traffic lights.)
      - lemmox 7y ago
        That was similar to my experience but I haven't used it in several years, shortly after the Google acquisition my account broke. Waze seemed to want to route me through school zones all the time. Google Navigate didn't seem to suffer from this quirk. It never occurred to me that those quirky routes could be due to competition in an anon social network ranking contest.
s_Hogg 7y ago
LA is a very strange place to me - I read about all this havoc, but whenever I fly in there and do stuff it seems fairly quiet and almost somnabulent.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Have you ever been on the 405?!
- donatj 7y ago
  This was my impression when I visited. I was entirely taken by how genuinely drivable the place was. The traffic was all quite tolerable, far better than what I regularly encounter in Minneapolis.
- bsder 7y ago
  LA is quite fine if you don't have to go very far and can stay on local streets. However, if you have to switch enclaves by crossing one of the choke points, you will get hammered by traffic.
- TimTheTinker 7y ago
  Try commuting into the greater LA area during rush hour. It’s really something else. Once I was taking my then-fiancé to LAX for an 11:30am flight. About 2-3 hours into the drive, we were on the 105 in completely stopped traffic. A man in a convertible next to us began to absolutely lose it, smacking the steering wheel with loud, desperate yelling “ARRGH!!” again and again. We decided he must have been late to a mandatory child custody hearing and would lose the right to see his kids—or something equally life-shattering. There’s nothing like LA gridlock to give you a sense of utter powerlessness.
  - HillaryBriss 7y ago
    +100
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    I have never tried to drive into NYC, but when I think back on being there, there were a lot of cars...I guess. So someone drives there, and lots of them. I don't want to, but I wonder what it's like, and just how the people in the parking spaces managed to obtain them.
sosodev 7y ago
It seems to me that Waze isn't the problem. I've seen very similar problems where I live. When the freeway gets backed up, as it inevitably does, traffic spills out into awfully designed city streets. I once got stuck in small neighborhood for 2 hours while the freeway was backed up and that was before Waze existed. In Southern California we have massive urban sprawl most of which is filled with cul-de-sacs within cul-de-sacs. Waze isn't the problem it's just exacerbating it.
- knolax 7y ago
  In this light Elon Musk's Boring Company seems more reasonable.
- apexalpha 7y ago
  But usually people don't go into neighborhoods they don't know. Locals might cut through a city but others won't. Now, with Waze and Google, literally everyone can cut through a city even though they've never been there. This is the problem: these roads weren't build for it and the neighbors are left with busy streets, noise pollution and an increase in traffic.
  - codedokode 7y ago
    But aren't those public roads, made for everyone to use?
    - falsedan 7y ago
      "Have access to" and "drive down at 35" are different things. Parks are public but you may not be able to enter one if there's some event and its massively over capacity.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    > But usually people don't go into neighborhoods they don't know. Locals might cut through a city but others won't. But they do, if the jam is big enough. Traffic signs literally exist to allow it - their job is to tell you how to navigate roads you don't know. All it takes to detour through a neighbourhood you don't know is paying attention and having a little patience.
paggle 7y ago
Can't this just be banned? "It is illegal for any individual or corporation to offer a driving route that uses streets designated as "Local" when the travel distance using streets marked as "Express" is shorter. Violators will be assessed a fine of $1000 per route offered."
taurath 7y ago
Not talked about here - that the upper (and middle) class intentionally built their communities to be minimally accessible to keep the riffraff out. That of course making the traffic hell that people are trying to get away from. Nobody can live near where they work because they can’t afford it. Traffic is as much a housing and economic problem as it is an engineering one.
- Rebelgecko 7y ago
  Or because the communities were built before car culture totally took over the area. I think it's more dependent on geography/geology. Some of these gnarly streets are in places like the Hollywood Hills, where people try and get around the chokepoint that is created by the Sepulveda pass. But plenty of them are in working class neighborhoods like Echo Park, like this very steep street: https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-echo-park-traffic-20180404-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-echo-pa...
geofft 7y ago
I feel like I must be missing something because the following potential solutions seem obvious to me: - Mark a street as "No thru traffic," or charge tolls (via video camera) to vehicles not registered in the neighborhood and not stopping on the street. - Suspend the driver's license of anyone using Waze, and use that as negotiating leverage with Waze to give edit access to city planners. What's preventing local/state government from doing so?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- zeckalpha 7y ago
  It will increase load on the bottleneck.
- Aloha 7y ago
  Large annoying Speed bumps are a better solution for the first one, the app will route people even if it's marked as not thru. The second one is unethical at best, and would certainly require changes to state law - in addition to being somewhat unenforceable.
- ec109685 7y ago
  Suspend the driver license of someone using an app?? That hardly seems legal.
  - geofft 7y ago
    Why? It's legal to suspend the license of someone using a cell phone at all, is it not? Saying "You can use cell phones, but only if ___" seems at least as legal.
- closeparen 7y ago
  Gated communities are not novel. Usually a private organization needs to buy out the streets from the municipality, though.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
pkaye 7y ago
This happens in Fremont in the bay area. Its right between 880 and 680 so when one freeway backs up people flood onto the streets to save a few minutes. Also there is a section of Mission blvd that runs parallel to 680 that people started taking as a shortcut. Many of these streets are not designed for that level of traffic. The city resorted to strategically adding some stop signs and "no right turn" signs from what I heard.
RichardCA 7y ago
I did a quick search on the relationship between traffic systems and Nash's Equilibrium and ran across this. A good read. https://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/networks-book-ch08.pdf https://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/netwo...
bparsons 7y ago
This is a function of living in an unlivable city -- not technology. It is physically impossible for there to be enough roads to move 14 million SUVs to and from home each day.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- baq 7y ago
  more like a function of driving in a place that physically can't accommodate the sheer number of cars. the city could be very livable if public transport was the better option than a private car.
simplesleeper 7y ago
Transport for London Tech Lead here. In London, we have been collaborating with google waze - we provide them with information at the local level. Streets that waze should not use for route finding (e.g. roads with schools) can be blocked for use by Waze. Both local councils and TfL can provide this data. The main difference between Waze and Google Maps is that Waze uses real time traffic data. There are multiple map providers that do this in London. There is a plan to provide different data to different TfL data consumers in the future to try and get map providers to seperate traffic across roads (at the cost of surrendering absolute truth). London is also host to discussions of taxing roads - this is unsurprising when the roads are mostly paid for by the cost of the London Underground (LU makes the majority of public transport money, but 80% of revenue goes into road, traffic and bus management). The London Assembly (who supposedly keep the London mayor accountable) have written a paper "London Stalling" to suggest road taxing related to mileage across London. This, they no doubt expect, will cut down the traffic. However, from my understanding of embellished models of Braess' paradox, this will only result in similar traffic (on maybe slightly different roads) with an optimum equilibrium between how good a route is and what the cost of it is - meaning people may just take longer to commute and pay more tax.
- L_226 7y ago
  > The main difference between Waze and Google Maps is that Waze uses real time traffic data. Do you mean that Waze uses real time data provided by 3rd parties? Because I have always had the understanding that Gmaps uses location and telemetry data from (the Google maps) mobile apps to determine traffic conditions in near real time.
  - simplesleeper 7y ago
    I don't know what happens under their hood, but I know for sure they source some data from third parties. Makes sense to, considering TfL provides a lot of data - e.g. live bus times etc
  - roelschroeven 7y ago
    Waze uses, at the very least, data from people who use Waze. But I suppose Waze also uses the location data Google gets from Android phones. And vice-versa.
blablabla123 7y ago
Since years I'm surprised that Google maps suggests routes through small roads. This makes no sense, maybe I see a minute but it's so much more stressful to navigate. Big roads are actually built for traffic, there is no point to use small roads for transit traffic. Also it is much more likely to compete with bicycle drivers and pedestrians for road space.
ishi 7y ago
The article tries to paint Waze as an "evil" corporation, but to me it sounds like they haven't perfected their algorithms yet. If Waze reroutes 1,000 cars to a shortcut that can only handle 100, that's idiotic and does not provide a good service to users. But if their algorithms took the road's capacity into account, everyone would benefit since there would be no "synthetic" traffic jams. In my experience traffic apps are imperfect and even dangerous: - Waze sent me once to a shortcut via a very shady neighborhood - Google drove me through an alley so narrow that I had to fold the side mirrors in order to pass - Google twice tried to put me on a toll-road ramp that could only be used by electronic pass holders. As a tourist, I didn't have one. That said, these apps provide huge value by telling you about road conditions (e.g. accidents) and routing you around them, estimating your ETA, and telling you how to get to your destination even if you miss a turn. I would not want to go back to the old way of navigating using paper maps and just hoping for the best...
- kevingadd 7y ago
  At this point it seems meaningful to describe behavior as "evil" if it's relatively easy to identify that your algorithm is working badly or producing bad/dangerous outcomes but still leave it running as-is. Do small scale tests until it's fixed instead. Driving cars is dangerous as-is, it's not going to be great to send thousands of people down residential roads that might be less safe than arterial roads AND make them drive worse by frustrating them with bad traffic. I share your experiences with Google Maps and Waze giving me bad or actively dangerous directions. I learned to distrust those apps as a result.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  > But if their algorithms took the road's capacity into account, everyone would benefit The people getting extra non-resident traffic on residential streets don't benefit. But let's ignore them and look only at current drivers. It's quite possible for routing even one car through shortcut neighborhoods to be a net negative, because they have to spend time leaving and merging back with the main traffic flow.
  - ovi256 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
apexalpha 7y ago
Yes, the same thing happens in Belgium and the Netherlands. Waze, Google Maps et al. will route traffic through any road they can find if it saves times. But neighborhoods are left with all the negatives. Is it really worth it to route hundreds of vehicles through a small street with a school just to save drivers 1 minute of their time?
msluyter 7y ago
I try to minimize not total driving time, but something I call "agony" (term borrowed from Hipmunk). So, I'll take meandering side streets over a stop-and-go highway if it means I'm moving most of the time, even if the total wallclock time is greater. Or I'll take 3 right turns to avoid a harrowing left hand turn. Anything that keeps my blood pressure down. AKA, "long cuts." Assuming there are at least some out there who feel the same, it occurred to me once to try to publish/monetize these agony free routes but I realized it'd pretty much instantly lead to the Waze problem.
- marble-drink 7y ago
  I don't participate in "stop and go" by positioning my car far back from the car in front and selecting an appropriate gear such that my car will keep rolling with just the engine idle. It means you don't waste any fuel or clutch actuations and it's just much easier.
  - sdfasdfsafasf 7y ago
    until some genius decides to switch to your lane to get further ahead in life a whole 3 yards.
    - marble-drink 7y ago
      Don't worry about it. It's easier to just stay in gear than try to compete with everyone else trying to get a car length ahead. If you have to go through such an ordeal every day then reducing stress should be your main priority.
- waylandsmithers 7y ago
  Yes! Something here in Boston that Google and Waze never take into account is that there are some left turns that at rush hour that can really only be accomplished by the most aggressive drivers. Sorry, I'm not doing that.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
Hitton 7y ago
You can blame traffic apps, but in reality it's just a democratization of knowledge. Locals already knew the best way to evade a traffic, now outsiders know it too.
orthoxerox 7y ago
> These thousands of homeowners and renters have arguably been injured by Waze’s and Google’s successful privatization of formerly public streets. That's a... very creative interpetation of what public and private mean. If you don't want your side street to be driven on at 30 mph, then you can't drive on it at 30 mph either. Traffic calming measures are a thing. Make it even more winding, add road bumps, bottlenecks. Turn it into a 12mph street, and no one will use it as a shortcut anymore.
- nkrisc 7y ago
  They don't even have snow. Add the speed bumps. Lots of them.
- kenned3 7y ago
  These "NIMBY" people always make me laught. if you dont want to have a ton of traffic dont buy a house on a major road. There is a street on the subdivision i live in with the same issue. it is the main entry point to the subdivision. people bought houses there, then fought the city for years over traffic? they put up stop signs, speed bumps, etc. they wanted the lower house prices associated with living on main roads, but then tried to redirect traffic elsewhere?
  - human20190310 7y ago
    The issue is that traffic apps turned non-main roads into main roads, not that people bought on main roads then tried to block them. NIMBYism can be a problem, but it's still important to characterize the issues at hand accurately.
    - XaspR8d 7y ago
      Well the issue behind that issue IMO is that so many US streets can be used as main roads. They were built overly-spaciously with only the interests of car drivers in mind.
  - SkyBelow 7y ago
    >they wanted the lower house prices associated with living on main roads, but then tried to redirect traffic elsewhere? If it works, why not? Buy a lower priced house due to traffic. Get politicians to change traffic. Sell house at higher value now that traffic conditions or better (or otherwise enjoy the now higher valued house). Are we to suggest that it is wrong to encourage politicians to act in a way that benefits an individual?
floatingatoll 7y ago
It’s disappointing to see LADOT neglecting to use a road management tool already at their disposal to stop Waze’s abuse of their residential zones: No Thru Traffic. Posting NTT signs at entry points into residential neighborhoods and specifying even as little as a $5 fine would make entry for thru routing unlawful, stopping Waze. Whether or not the city enforces these signs would be irrelevant, as long as the traffic laws were in place permitting enforcement. Their simple presence would require Waze editors to accurately identify all such entry points and force Waze to prefer the surrounding arterials. They are, I believe, requires to denote such signage to their maps so that Waze does not compel unlawful driving behaviors, even if some percentage of drivers might otherwise make the entry illegally. As an additional possible bonus, by marking zones as NTT, the Waze algorithms would not only exclude those zones but likely also reject periphery roads near those zones, as their value as a shortcut would diminish further versus the arterials they circumvent.
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  What if Waze labeled these as possibly $5 toll roads? If the penalty to the driver is $5 that is never enforced, what is the penalty to Waze if they just inform users there may be a penalty (and maybe even add the ability for people to record if it is being enforced or not)?
  - floatingatoll 7y ago
    If Waze labels a traffic violation as a toll, they will lose the moral high ground (“it’s legal, what is the problem?” negated) and expose both Waze and its contributors to significant liability - and risk being ordered by a court to take actions (such as “disable all routing within Los Angeles” or “provide a real-time data feed of all routings to LADOT for analysis and enforcement”).
  - jacques_chester 7y ago
    > What if Waze labeled these as possibly $5 toll roads? As a general rule of thumb, the law looks dimly on naked attempts to subvert it.
- 7y ago
ilamont 7y ago
A Waze spokesman, oblivious to the irony, reflexively sneered that “a group of neighbors can’t game the system.” [Ryu] told constituents that Waze would designate a liaison to work with the city, and then the company stopped returning calls. Krekorian’s office reached out to Waze and the operators of similar apps and got “a complete stonewall,” he says. Why the pseudonyms? “They all fear legal liability in case of a bigger accident or traffic situation,” suggested one Level 1 editor, who tried to obtain the email and contact information of a higher-level editor to no avail. The time for "partnering" with arrogant/dismissive/evasive app companies is over. Municipalities and state governments have been dealing with this problem for 5+ years. Why is it taking so long to legislate?
devit 7y ago
The obvious solutions seem to be either: 1. Add enough speedbumps, unsynchronized traffic lights or even unnecessary timed barriers to make the route slow enough that it's no longer optimal 2. Add cameras that fine anyone who doesn't have a permit to pass, which would be given to residents for free and anyone who pays a sufficiently high price
- pie420 7y ago
  that would make sense if those were private roads. public roads belong to the public. I have the right to use the road in your neighborhood just as much as you do.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    As is well known to any homeowner, typically anyone who owns property has certain responsibilities to care for the public property adjoining it. For instance, you have to clear snow off in a timely manner where I live. Isn't it logical that if you have responsibilities for public property next to where you live, that you may also have some rights as well? I think you are assuming a naive dichotomy between public and private that doesn't reflect the way things actually work.
Nasrudith 7y ago
I'm not sure if it is a cultural thing or different problem scales but the whole complaint strikes me as massive narcissistic self-entitlement to public resources. In my northeastern experience everyone uses neighborhoods as shortcuts when the normally faster roads are congested enough that it is faster in spite of the lower speed limit and increased stops.
HillaryBriss 7y ago
If the city's failure to prevent gridlock at major intersections across the city is any guide, LA will never get a handle on this problem. It will never have enough DPT and police to enforce any proposed solution.
i_am_proteus 7y ago
I'm always surprised when people blame L.A. traffic on Waze rather than a lack of transportation infrastructure in the city. After all, maps existed before Waze and people could have used these shortcuts the entire time.
k3oni 7y ago
As a side note just want to point out that I had Google Maps route us thru side streets marked with "No Thru Traffic" in a newer neighborhood last week in Myrtle Beach SC area to save 1 min. This was the first time i encountered this case.
iamtheworstdev 7y ago
It's interesting to see you post that because I feel like I've read articles where cities in the US have tried the same approach with Google and they generically responded with "Formally change the rules/laws/speeds/whatever and we will follow that but we don't make random, single changes for the whims of the city" (my rephrasing of what they said). I'm having trouble finding the source but I believe I saw the link here on HN and it was to an article about a city asking for Google's cooperation in regards to a sharp/blind downhill turn or something? Hope that jogs someone else's memory.
nickfromseattle 7y ago
Can confirm. When I compare LA traffic to Seattle traffic, I describe the comparison as they are both bad - but LA is much more active driving. You can always get somewhere quicker by zigging left, then zagging right (usually through a neighborhood) because it's built on a grid, where Seattle is more passive traffic because there are choke points everywhere due to water / bridges / non-grid roads, which means zig zagging is not likely to save much time, or possible at all.
thehappypm 7y ago
I often wonder if we ought to try to double the US's highway capacity. It's pretty obvious that the American appetite for public transportation is pretty low, and that car ownership in our continent is here to stay. Why not lean into that, focus on the roads, build bus lanes for public transit?
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I remember a long time ago reading an article about the bus system in Curitiba, Brazil, which supposedly was innovative and worked particularly well at a much lower cost than subways, but more efficiently than most buses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rede_Integrada_de_Transporte https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rede_Integrada_de_Transporte
auslander 7y ago
GPS jammers?
sheepybloke 7y ago
This is an issue on country roads as well. I was driving down to Cinci and Google had me cut from one freeway to the next via some county side roads. We got flicked off by some guy at his house, and from the traffic, it seemed like he was frustrated how many cars were now going down his once quiet road.
lucas_membrane 7y ago
L.A. has been a shortcut city for a very long time. It is almost 50 years since I resided there; back then good shortcuts got mentioned in the gossip columns, and magazine articles were written about great shortcuts. The difference now is that the solutions are newer, high-tech, and more expensive, but the problem is much worse.
Simulacra 7y ago
This is not the fault of Waze. This is the fault of city planners and the people who live in those houses who have opposed mass transit expansion, and highway expansion. If all else fails we will just go back to making our own routes through neighborhoods and side streets.
asdfadfadsf 7y ago
The one solution that no one will fucking mention is to increase road capacity to zoning ratios. The city planners are allowing congestion by allowing density that is too high, then everyone has to fucking drive with 1 million other people in the same space. Also, it doesn't have to be JUST road capacity. Putting in some actual subway capacity would allow the higher densities, but you have special interest groups fighting that shit NON stop. No one WANTS to take a side street over a freeway. You do it because the freeway is jammed. This means the city planning has FAILED. The money has been misused. I read somewhere that homeless in LA are having housing built for them. Sounds great, right? The cost per unit of housing is something like $450,000 .
- ThrustVectoring 7y ago
  Capacity and congestion is the wrong way to think about traffic planning. The natural response to capacity increases is to accept a longer-distance commute in exchange for lower housing costs. Instead, it's better to think in terms of accessibility - people need to go to work, buy groceries, etc, and the system must be able to accommodate those goals within reasonable amounts of time. Crucially, this means that it's just as valid to ensure that people live within a fifteen minute walk to a grocery store as it is to ensure that traffic can allow people to drive five miles to the grocery store within fifteen minutes. Density itself can help traffic, so long as it is properly located with respect to jobs and various amenities.
madisfun 7y ago
Living in Europe, I have yet to see a smart navigation app, which would allow to take into account: - tolls and fuel consumption (Via Michelin is great at offering 2-3 routes with different and realistic costs, but the app is an ad-nest and their navigator is bad; Here can avoid tolls but the UI is bad; Google Maps is useless if you want to optimize the costs). - altitude changes (a marginally shorter road which has to climb and descent 1000 m / 3000 ft is not the same as doing extra distance on the flat ground). - the shape of the road, prefer wider and more direct roads (there are many narrow and extremely curvy roads that can't be driven fast, and some may be very stressful to drive). - the realistic median speed as an estimator (not the speed limit; sometimes it is set unrealistically high; also do not assume that all tarmac roads are equivalent). - local and temporary traffic restrictions (respect car-free hours in some areas and restrictions on a particular kind of vehicle or engine). - eventual stops during long trips Google Maps is far from an ideal navigation app at this point. The only reason it is used, IMO, is the abysmall UI experience in built-in car navigators. (Anecdotal evidence: I rented a car last week, it took me five minutes to enter destination, and then I couldn't figure out how to interrupt navigation. Eventually just used the phone to drive around). Tl;dr: Dear Google, Waze, etc., distance is not everything.

185 points by 80mph 7y ago

When these articles show up now and again, it’s not clear to me why the various impacted cities don’t choose to ban through traffic. Some articles have implied that this is not possible. Los Altos did this a while back[1]. Is there a legal issue the communities surrounding Los Angeles want to avoid, that Los Altos simply took the risk on? [1] https://slate.com/business/2017/06/suburbs-finally-figured-out-a-way-to-get-rid-of-pesky-drivers-on-waze-shortcuts.html https://slate.com/business/2017/06/suburbs-finally-figured-o...

chrisseaton 7y ago
> it’s not clear to me why the various impacted cities don’t choose to ban through traffic Can you physically turn the streets into cul-de-sacs? Where I live a lot of domestic streets are cul-de-sacs presumably to prevent too many people driving past.
- valiant-comma 7y ago
  There’s one in Los Gatos, I believe, where they did this partially. Cars can empty on to the larger street, but can’t enter from the that direction.
- swsieber 7y ago
  Speed bumps go a long way too by dropping the effective speed.
  - bestnameever 7y ago
    Speed is a huge problem. I make sure I don't go more than 25 through one of the shortcuts I take through a residential area and when Waze starts sending people down these roads they are extremely aggressive behind me. I'm guessing they'd be driving 40 to 50 if I wasn't in their way which is pointless because the route ends in a long line of car's trying to make a turn. When I was young I used to ride my bike through these neighborhoods - I'd be surprised if parents felt comfortable letting there kids do the same today.
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    My city seems to do this with more unorthodox methods: cheap out on road maintenance and engineering. Oh sure, take that side street with all of the sunken sewer grates. My mom’s street was riddled with potholes. We were happy when they repaved it, but blew it when they put up speed bumps.
    - megaremote 7y ago
      This is partly because drivers aren't actually paying there way, and are subsidised by others a ridiculous amount.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    And by raising the aggravation and discomfort levels. Some people will avoid streets with speed bumps if they can find an alternate route because they dislike them so much.
  - pro_zac 7y ago
    Getting a speed bump added to your street is nearly impossible in LA. I lived on a street that badly needed one. It was a double length block paralleling Wilshire, so frequently used as a bypass with many speeding drivers. I looked up the process for requesting a speed bump. They only take so many requests per year, so I had to wait a few months for the request form to open up. I marked my calendar and when the date came it required that you get signatures from 50% of the residents on your street. Since my street was almost entirely apartment buildings and a double length block, this would have been hundreds of people. I gave up. I no longer live there.
- 0xEFF 7y ago
  Yes, just add a barrier only allowing bikes and pedestrians through.
- da_chicken 7y ago
  My small town did this 20 or 30 years ago with a number of residential streets that were commonly [ab]used for shortcuts. They erected barriers that consist of a curb across the roadway and a series of three or four "no entry" and "dead end" signs. Inconvenient, but it stops through traffic. Tucson and Phoenix have another alternative. The cities are built with the main roads being a large grid. Subdivision roads are twisty and higgledy-piggledy. It's almost always too inefficient to cut through a subdivision to bother trying.
- Xylakant 7y ago
  You can install what’s called “Modal Filters”: A series of barriers that lets pedestrians and cycles pass, but blocks cars. This slightly inconveniences local traffic, but blocks through traffic.
  - r00fus 7y ago
    Near my downtown side-streets there are temporary barriers that you can actually drive around (but you know you're going against what the sign says). I presume enforcement is always an option. Another point, on my street there used to be horrible backup right in front of my house, but once the light near the school nearby went to a half-duplex mode, apps stopped recommending it as a sure bet shortcut. Once that happened traffic lowered considerably.
    - Freak_NL 7y ago
      If the signs prohibit passage, Waze wouldn't be able to use that (legally invalid) route, would it?
      - kevingadd 7y ago
        Waze and Google Maps tend to have bad/outdated data and tell people to make illegal turns. The roads near my apartment changed over a year ago and I still see people make illegal left turns (including Lyft drivers unless I warn them about it in advance).
- geofft 7y ago
  Actually can you just put traffic-triggered off-by-default red lights, similar to the ones used on highway on-ramps to trickle cars in during rush hour? If only one or two cars are seen on the road, turn the light off. If more than that, turn it on and allow one car per green every several seconds. It will reduce throughput enough that Waze will automatically route away from it (and eventually Waze editors will have to figure out how to encode it) without affecting normal residential traffic. For whatever reason, people don't always care about speed limits but they usually don't run red lights.
  - bonestamp2 7y ago
    That is interesting... metered off ramps. I could see them putting one at the Eastbound 101 exit for Haskell. I see very few people exit there while I'm stuck in traffic waiting to get on the 405. I'm sure a significant number of people are following waze (it often suggests I go that way to save 4 minutes).
  - pkamb 7y ago
    I don't understand why "on-ramp" metered lights aren't used in many more places. Like enforcing easy zipper merging. Put lights on both lanes that need to merge together, out there in the middle of the freeway. Turn them off when there's no traffic.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  Yes, in my neck of the woods they cut off some roads used as rat runs by installing bollards. Pedestrians and bikes can still go through but car no longer can.
- 6nf 7y ago
  Around my area in Sydney a few new street signs have been popping up banning traffic from driving through at certain times of the day, without actually changing the roads. The signs say for example 'No right turn 7am-10am' which is when morning traffic sneaks into the side street to get to the CBD faster. Then I got to sit on my balcony for 6 weeks watching the traffic cops ticket one car after the other until they stopped catching people.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  Yes, Portland added diverters to some of its neighborhood Greenway routes, that forcibly divert car traffic (walking and biking can still get through). It was done for basically what's talked about in the article, too many cars using local residential roads for commuting. Really, this is a design problem with the streets and lack of effective public transportation. LA brought this onto itself.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    They made a decision not to make the roads objectively worse to thwart abusers. I think calling that a design problem they brought on themselves is unfair.
    - TulliusCicero 7y ago
      It's not objectively worse, any more than road diets make streets objectively worse, or sidewalks, or protected bike lanes, or speed limits. Making roads worse for through traffic makes them better for other uses. It comes down to what your priorities are, and right now, through design, they're choosing to prioritize the very through traffic they're complaining about. It's not unfair, and it's accurate. The design decisions the area chose as a whole, like handicapping public transportation, led to this situation. With robust public transit, you wouldn't have a huge flood of desperate car commuters driven to find any possible shortcut.
      - Dylan16807 7y ago
        Road diets, sidewalks, bike lanes, and (correctly done) speed limits all have very nice features. Blocking exits does not in any way improve the road itself. It just inconveniences people that are improperly cutting through more than normal drivers. The fact that through traffic is technically possible does not mean it is 'prioritized'.
        TulliusCicero 7y ago
        > Blocking exits does not in any way improve the road itself. Incorrect. It improves the conditions of the road for local drivers, as well cyclists and pedestrians. Which is exactly why Portland did it. Unless you have an alternative explanation? > The fact that through traffic is technically possible does not mean it is 'prioritized'. It shows that they've prioritized enabling through traffic over other concerns. It's not all that different from road diets. Road diets usually reduce the carrying capacity of the road, making it "objectively worse", in your parlance, in the service of other goals. Diverters accomplish a similar function.
nradov 7y ago
It turns out than bans on through traffic aren't legally enforceable. The signs are merely advisory.
- valiant-comma 7y ago
  Yep, that seems to be supported by this article[1]. https://padailypost.com/2017/11/17/traffic-complaints-to-result-in-no-through-traffic-signs-in-willows/ https://padailypost.com/2017/11/17/traffic-complaints-to-res...
- notatoad 7y ago
  A "no thru traffic" sign may not be legally enforceable, and it's certainly difficult to enforce just from a practical perspective. But physically making the street not be a through street is possible. Just plop down a couple of Jersey walls and you're done. Check out how Vancouver made semlin, grant, and gravely forcibly "no thru traffic" here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/DFVJNDF2DftbFzpv9 https://maps.app.goo.gl/DFVJNDF2DftbFzpv9
  - ec109685 7y ago
    Aren't you then trapping the residents who live on that street in?
  - wlesieutre 7y ago
    My hometown did this in the late 90's, added three barriers across intersections to cut a neighborhood in half. Here's someone recently suggesting removing them to alleviate traffic on the main north/south road (under construction for the last two years or so), but I doubt anything would happen to them: https://www.centredaily.com/news/local/community/state-college/article210701259.html https://www.centredaily.com/news/local/community/state-colle... Traffic bound for North Atherton (bottom left of map) has to go down to the intersection with Park instead of taking Allen. Easy enough to take a bike through them, I used to ride that way regularly in to campus. But I think it's worked well to not have cars shortcutting through the neighborhood at high speeds.
  - gambiting 7y ago
BooneJS 7y ago
Menlo Park has a few streets labeled local traffic only as well.
- gibolt 7y ago
  Palo Alto has quite a few as well. Some are just marked with signs, many have physical barriers allowing only bikes and large trash collection vehicles to easily pass.
  - DrScump 7y ago
    A fair stretch of Bryant St. is bike-limited, with narrow barriers every few blocks. I used it in my bike commute from Sunnyvale to Menlo (which also used pedestrian/bike bridges that cross the creeks that define the Mtn View / Palo Alto and Palo / Menlo borders).
  - stordoff 7y ago
    Is there an example of these? I'm having a hard time picturing how a barrier can allow bikes and large traffic to pass whilst blocking other traffic.
    - michaelt 7y ago
      There are barriers that restrict traffic based on dimensions - such as the 'bus trap' [1] that only allows wide vehicles, and the 'sump buster' [2] that only allows high-ground-clearance vehicles through. Of course, these have the disadvantage that (a) they damage the cars of confused motorists [6] (b) cars stuck in traps obstruct busses anyway[5], and (c) large SUVs and pick-up trucks can drive over them anyway [4]. Another option is a powered rising bollard [3] or barrier together with some mechanism (tag, ANPR, keypad) for recognising authorised vehicles. Which avoids a lot of those weaknesses - at the cost of power and maintenance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_trap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_trap [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sump_buster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sump_buster [3] https://goo.gl/maps/epSrQ2641m6ccf6cA https://goo.gl/maps/epSrQ2641m6ccf6cA [4] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-22352392 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-22352... [5] https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/car-gets-stuck-new-leigh-11299541 https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manches... [6] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-22/car-blocks-o-bahn-for-second-time-in-month/10150778 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-22/car-blocks-o-bahn-for...
HillaryBriss 7y ago
It can be controversial. It can pit the wealthy against the working class: a well-off hillside neighborhood may demand that its streets be off-limits to through traffic. But this would mean that another, poorer neighborhood's residents are denied an important route to work. And the question comes up: aren't these public streets? Don't the streets belong to everyone?

duxup 7y ago

In LA are these shortcuts worth it? I was surprised to find with Google maps more often than not it suggests to just take that busy highway that is crawling alone because ... it really is faster. I've tried to defy google maps ... rarely do I win. Granted google maps is wrong at times. During snowstorms it loves to send me down off streets that haven't yet been plowed or ... worse random county roads you do not want to be on during a storm. I think it inadvertently interprets "hey nobody is on this road so it must be faster" when nobody is there because that road is terrible with snow and you're far better crawling along the highway where plows will be or may have been ... or other vehicles have made tracks.

bestnameever 7y ago
they can be minimally quicker once Waze catches on. One of my current shortcuts that I've taken for over 10 years dropped off the Waze radar during the summer when traffic is less. With school back in session, I am now saving 15 minutes on my commute. However, once Waze catches on and starts sending folks down my shortcut, I'll be lucky to save just a few minutes. It is for this reason I don't let any apps track my commute to work.
- duxup 7y ago
  When i'm on a detour of sorts I often look around and wonder... "Are we all just following google?"
  - bestnameever 7y ago
    I'd wager that over 90% are. It literally go's from me driving the route all by myself to me driving in an endless caravan of car's once Waze starts recommending the route. For this route, it's not even just Waze. Apple recommends the route as well.
- esoterica 7y ago
  > It is for this reason I don't let any apps track my commute to work. That doesn't seem like it would do you any good. Either other people on the road are reporting their speed and location to Waze (in which case your resistance is futile), or no one is, in which case Waze will presumably assume that there is no traffic on the road and send more people down it.

someguydave 7y ago

If the government wants to be the big daddy of traffic control then it should also build sufficient lanes to keep the roads moving.

intopieces 7y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
- devit 7y ago
  Am I the only one that finds that using that theory to justify not adding capacity is utterly idiotic? If you add capacity and it ends up being all used up, it just means you didn't add enough and should add even more if possible! Kind of like saying that in a famine it's useless to provide more food because it's going to be eaten all up anyway since some people are no longer dying of famine...
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    There's definitely a balance to be struck (you can't just build lane after lane after lane and expect linear improvement) but yeah, not adding capacity because the capacity will be used is just asinine. It's just something about personally owned vehicles that makes people dumb. Most of those same people wouldn't complain about people using the new capacity if the discussion was about extending bus routes or making subways run more frequently.
  - someguydave 7y ago
    No, this canard gets raised in every traffic thread. The real reason why “induced demand” exists is because roads in urban areas are usually so under built that any reasonably good road is crushed by extra users once it is built. If governments actually kept sufficient roads available then there would not be induced demand. Alternatively, the government should charge all road users a sufficiently high toll to keep the roads moving.
  - someguydave 7y ago

parsimo2010 7y ago

The comedian Pete Holmes has a bit about Waze that is extremely relevant to this article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuDCxQdsbmc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuDCxQdsbmc

s_Hogg 7y ago
"It maybe works in Arkansas..." great line to fade out on
chillwaves 7y ago
Not often you see Conan upstaged. Great bit, appreciate the sentiment of enjoyment over efficiency. I have been seeing that reflection more and more lately.

lemmox 7y ago

I had no idea Waze was powered by anon crowd sourced map editors. If anybody here is doing it, what's the motivation? Personally I'd never disclose my shortcuts or free parking spots.

Synaesthesia 7y ago
Google maps and Apple maps traffic is cross sourced anonymously too
- lemmox 7y ago
  Interesting, so you're suggesting that the Google and Apple navigation apps are also crowd-sourced social networks like Waze? If that's true I wonder why Waze is singled out for these types of articles.
  - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
    AFAIK, this is not really accurate; Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Waze often pick different routes between the same two points at the same time of day in my (admittedly informal) experiments. Google and Apple pretty consistently favored major roads unless there were serious traffic backups on them, while during anything remotely resembling commuting hour, Waze was frequently acting like your crazy uncle who swears taking 28 residential roads, two of which are unpaved and the last of which is an alleyway that ends in an unprotected left turn across three lanes of dense traffic, is clearly the best route. (And while that's an exaggeration, Waze has consistently been far more likely to send me down unpaved roads, ridiculously steep hills, and, yes, unprotected left turns onto busy highways, presumably because the residential road I was on was lower traffic than the parallel road one block away with traffic lights.)
    - lemmox 7y ago
      That was similar to my experience but I haven't used it in several years, shortly after the Google acquisition my account broke. Waze seemed to want to route me through school zones all the time. Google Navigate didn't seem to suffer from this quirk. It never occurred to me that those quirky routes could be due to competition in an anon social network ranking contest.

s_Hogg 7y ago

LA is a very strange place to me - I read about all this havoc, but whenever I fly in there and do stuff it seems fairly quiet and almost somnabulent.

saagarjha 7y ago
Have you ever been on the 405?!
donatj 7y ago
This was my impression when I visited. I was entirely taken by how genuinely drivable the place was. The traffic was all quite tolerable, far better than what I regularly encounter in Minneapolis.
bsder 7y ago
LA is quite fine if you don't have to go very far and can stay on local streets. However, if you have to switch enclaves by crossing one of the choke points, you will get hammered by traffic.
TimTheTinker 7y ago
Try commuting into the greater LA area during rush hour. It’s really something else. Once I was taking my then-fiancé to LAX for an 11:30am flight. About 2-3 hours into the drive, we were on the 105 in completely stopped traffic. A man in a convertible next to us began to absolutely lose it, smacking the steering wheel with loud, desperate yelling “ARRGH!!” again and again. We decided he must have been late to a mandatory child custody hearing and would lose the right to see his kids—or something equally life-shattering. There’s nothing like LA gridlock to give you a sense of utter powerlessness.
- HillaryBriss 7y ago
  +100
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I have never tried to drive into NYC, but when I think back on being there, there were a lot of cars...I guess. So someone drives there, and lots of them. I don't want to, but I wonder what it's like, and just how the people in the parking spaces managed to obtain them.

sosodev 7y ago

It seems to me that Waze isn't the problem. I've seen very similar problems where I live. When the freeway gets backed up, as it inevitably does, traffic spills out into awfully designed city streets. I once got stuck in small neighborhood for 2 hours while the freeway was backed up and that was before Waze existed. In Southern California we have massive urban sprawl most of which is filled with cul-de-sacs within cul-de-sacs. Waze isn't the problem it's just exacerbating it.

knolax 7y ago
In this light Elon Musk's Boring Company seems more reasonable.
apexalpha 7y ago
But usually people don't go into neighborhoods they don't know. Locals might cut through a city but others won't. Now, with Waze and Google, literally everyone can cut through a city even though they've never been there. This is the problem: these roads weren't build for it and the neighbors are left with busy streets, noise pollution and an increase in traffic.
- codedokode 7y ago
  But aren't those public roads, made for everyone to use?
  - falsedan 7y ago
    "Have access to" and "drive down at 35" are different things. Parks are public but you may not be able to enter one if there's some event and its massively over capacity.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > But usually people don't go into neighborhoods they don't know. Locals might cut through a city but others won't. But they do, if the jam is big enough. Traffic signs literally exist to allow it - their job is to tell you how to navigate roads you don't know. All it takes to detour through a neighbourhood you don't know is paying attention and having a little patience.

paggle 7y ago

Can't this just be banned? "It is illegal for any individual or corporation to offer a driving route that uses streets designated as "Local" when the travel distance using streets marked as "Express" is shorter. Violators will be assessed a fine of $1000 per route offered."

taurath 7y ago

Not talked about here - that the upper (and middle) class intentionally built their communities to be minimally accessible to keep the riffraff out. That of course making the traffic hell that people are trying to get away from. Nobody can live near where they work because they can’t afford it. Traffic is as much a housing and economic problem as it is an engineering one.

Rebelgecko 7y ago
Or because the communities were built before car culture totally took over the area. I think it's more dependent on geography/geology. Some of these gnarly streets are in places like the Hollywood Hills, where people try and get around the chokepoint that is created by the Sepulveda pass. But plenty of them are in working class neighborhoods like Echo Park, like this very steep street: https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-echo-park-traffic-20180404-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-echo-pa...

geofft 7y ago

I feel like I must be missing something because the following potential solutions seem obvious to me: - Mark a street as "No thru traffic," or charge tolls (via video camera) to vehicles not registered in the neighborhood and not stopping on the street. - Suspend the driver's license of anyone using Waze, and use that as negotiating leverage with Waze to give edit access to city planners. What's preventing local/state government from doing so?

deleted 7y ago
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zeckalpha 7y ago
It will increase load on the bottleneck.
Aloha 7y ago
Large annoying Speed bumps are a better solution for the first one, the app will route people even if it's marked as not thru. The second one is unethical at best, and would certainly require changes to state law - in addition to being somewhat unenforceable.
ec109685 7y ago
Suspend the driver license of someone using an app?? That hardly seems legal.
- geofft 7y ago
  Why? It's legal to suspend the license of someone using a cell phone at all, is it not? Saying "You can use cell phones, but only if ___" seems at least as legal.
closeparen 7y ago
Gated communities are not novel. Usually a private organization needs to buy out the streets from the municipality, though.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago

pkaye 7y ago

This happens in Fremont in the bay area. Its right between 880 and 680 so when one freeway backs up people flood onto the streets to save a few minutes. Also there is a section of Mission blvd that runs parallel to 680 that people started taking as a shortcut. Many of these streets are not designed for that level of traffic. The city resorted to strategically adding some stop signs and "no right turn" signs from what I heard.

RichardCA 7y ago

I did a quick search on the relationship between traffic systems and Nash's Equilibrium and ran across this. A good read. https://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/networks-book-ch08.pdf https://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/netwo...

bparsons 7y ago

This is a function of living in an unlivable city -- not technology. It is physically impossible for there to be enough roads to move 14 million SUVs to and from home each day.

deleted 7y ago
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baq 7y ago
more like a function of driving in a place that physically can't accommodate the sheer number of cars. the city could be very livable if public transport was the better option than a private car.

simplesleeper 7y ago

Transport for London Tech Lead here. In London, we have been collaborating with google waze - we provide them with information at the local level. Streets that waze should not use for route finding (e.g. roads with schools) can be blocked for use by Waze. Both local councils and TfL can provide this data. The main difference between Waze and Google Maps is that Waze uses real time traffic data. There are multiple map providers that do this in London. There is a plan to provide different data to different TfL data consumers in the future to try and get map providers to seperate traffic across roads (at the cost of surrendering absolute truth). London is also host to discussions of taxing roads - this is unsurprising when the roads are mostly paid for by the cost of the London Underground (LU makes the majority of public transport money, but 80% of revenue goes into road, traffic and bus management). The London Assembly (who supposedly keep the London mayor accountable) have written a paper "London Stalling" to suggest road taxing related to mileage across London. This, they no doubt expect, will cut down the traffic. However, from my understanding of embellished models of Braess' paradox, this will only result in similar traffic (on maybe slightly different roads) with an optimum equilibrium between how good a route is and what the cost of it is - meaning people may just take longer to commute and pay more tax.

L_226 7y ago
> The main difference between Waze and Google Maps is that Waze uses real time traffic data. Do you mean that Waze uses real time data provided by 3rd parties? Because I have always had the understanding that Gmaps uses location and telemetry data from (the Google maps) mobile apps to determine traffic conditions in near real time.
- simplesleeper 7y ago
  I don't know what happens under their hood, but I know for sure they source some data from third parties. Makes sense to, considering TfL provides a lot of data - e.g. live bus times etc
- roelschroeven 7y ago
  Waze uses, at the very least, data from people who use Waze. But I suppose Waze also uses the location data Google gets from Android phones. And vice-versa.

blablabla123 7y ago

Since years I'm surprised that Google maps suggests routes through small roads. This makes no sense, maybe I see a minute but it's so much more stressful to navigate. Big roads are actually built for traffic, there is no point to use small roads for transit traffic. Also it is much more likely to compete with bicycle drivers and pedestrians for road space.

ishi 7y ago

The article tries to paint Waze as an "evil" corporation, but to me it sounds like they haven't perfected their algorithms yet. If Waze reroutes 1,000 cars to a shortcut that can only handle 100, that's idiotic and does not provide a good service to users. But if their algorithms took the road's capacity into account, everyone would benefit since there would be no "synthetic" traffic jams. In my experience traffic apps are imperfect and even dangerous: - Waze sent me once to a shortcut via a very shady neighborhood - Google drove me through an alley so narrow that I had to fold the side mirrors in order to pass - Google twice tried to put me on a toll-road ramp that could only be used by electronic pass holders. As a tourist, I didn't have one. That said, these apps provide huge value by telling you about road conditions (e.g. accidents) and routing you around them, estimating your ETA, and telling you how to get to your destination even if you miss a turn. I would not want to go back to the old way of navigating using paper maps and just hoping for the best...

kevingadd 7y ago
At this point it seems meaningful to describe behavior as "evil" if it's relatively easy to identify that your algorithm is working badly or producing bad/dangerous outcomes but still leave it running as-is. Do small scale tests until it's fixed instead. Driving cars is dangerous as-is, it's not going to be great to send thousands of people down residential roads that might be less safe than arterial roads AND make them drive worse by frustrating them with bad traffic. I share your experiences with Google Maps and Waze giving me bad or actively dangerous directions. I learned to distrust those apps as a result.
Dylan16807 7y ago
> But if their algorithms took the road's capacity into account, everyone would benefit The people getting extra non-resident traffic on residential streets don't benefit. But let's ignore them and look only at current drivers. It's quite possible for routing even one car through shortcut neighborhoods to be a net negative, because they have to spend time leaving and merging back with the main traffic flow.
- ovi256 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

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apexalpha 7y ago

Yes, the same thing happens in Belgium and the Netherlands. Waze, Google Maps et al. will route traffic through any road they can find if it saves times. But neighborhoods are left with all the negatives. Is it really worth it to route hundreds of vehicles through a small street with a school just to save drivers 1 minute of their time?

msluyter 7y ago

I try to minimize not total driving time, but something I call "agony" (term borrowed from Hipmunk). So, I'll take meandering side streets over a stop-and-go highway if it means I'm moving most of the time, even if the total wallclock time is greater. Or I'll take 3 right turns to avoid a harrowing left hand turn. Anything that keeps my blood pressure down. AKA, "long cuts." Assuming there are at least some out there who feel the same, it occurred to me once to try to publish/monetize these agony free routes but I realized it'd pretty much instantly lead to the Waze problem.

marble-drink 7y ago
I don't participate in "stop and go" by positioning my car far back from the car in front and selecting an appropriate gear such that my car will keep rolling with just the engine idle. It means you don't waste any fuel or clutch actuations and it's just much easier.
- sdfasdfsafasf 7y ago
  until some genius decides to switch to your lane to get further ahead in life a whole 3 yards.
  - marble-drink 7y ago
    Don't worry about it. It's easier to just stay in gear than try to compete with everyone else trying to get a car length ahead. If you have to go through such an ordeal every day then reducing stress should be your main priority.
waylandsmithers 7y ago
Yes! Something here in Boston that Google and Waze never take into account is that there are some left turns that at rush hour that can really only be accomplished by the most aggressive drivers. Sorry, I'm not doing that.
- perl4ever 7y ago

Hitton 7y ago

You can blame traffic apps, but in reality it's just a democratization of knowledge. Locals already knew the best way to evade a traffic, now outsiders know it too.

orthoxerox 7y ago

> These thousands of homeowners and renters have arguably been injured by Waze’s and Google’s successful privatization of formerly public streets. That's a... very creative interpetation of what public and private mean. If you don't want your side street to be driven on at 30 mph, then you can't drive on it at 30 mph either. Traffic calming measures are a thing. Make it even more winding, add road bumps, bottlenecks. Turn it into a 12mph street, and no one will use it as a shortcut anymore.

nkrisc 7y ago
They don't even have snow. Add the speed bumps. Lots of them.
kenned3 7y ago
These "NIMBY" people always make me laught. if you dont want to have a ton of traffic dont buy a house on a major road. There is a street on the subdivision i live in with the same issue. it is the main entry point to the subdivision. people bought houses there, then fought the city for years over traffic? they put up stop signs, speed bumps, etc. they wanted the lower house prices associated with living on main roads, but then tried to redirect traffic elsewhere?
- human20190310 7y ago
  The issue is that traffic apps turned non-main roads into main roads, not that people bought on main roads then tried to block them. NIMBYism can be a problem, but it's still important to characterize the issues at hand accurately.
  - XaspR8d 7y ago
    Well the issue behind that issue IMO is that so many US streets can be used as main roads. They were built overly-spaciously with only the interests of car drivers in mind.
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  >they wanted the lower house prices associated with living on main roads, but then tried to redirect traffic elsewhere? If it works, why not? Buy a lower priced house due to traffic. Get politicians to change traffic. Sell house at higher value now that traffic conditions or better (or otherwise enjoy the now higher valued house). Are we to suggest that it is wrong to encourage politicians to act in a way that benefits an individual?

floatingatoll 7y ago

It’s disappointing to see LADOT neglecting to use a road management tool already at their disposal to stop Waze’s abuse of their residential zones: No Thru Traffic. Posting NTT signs at entry points into residential neighborhoods and specifying even as little as a $5 fine would make entry for thru routing unlawful, stopping Waze. Whether or not the city enforces these signs would be irrelevant, as long as the traffic laws were in place permitting enforcement. Their simple presence would require Waze editors to accurately identify all such entry points and force Waze to prefer the surrounding arterials. They are, I believe, requires to denote such signage to their maps so that Waze does not compel unlawful driving behaviors, even if some percentage of drivers might otherwise make the entry illegally. As an additional possible bonus, by marking zones as NTT, the Waze algorithms would not only exclude those zones but likely also reject periphery roads near those zones, as their value as a shortcut would diminish further versus the arterials they circumvent.

SkyBelow 7y ago
What if Waze labeled these as possibly $5 toll roads? If the penalty to the driver is $5 that is never enforced, what is the penalty to Waze if they just inform users there may be a penalty (and maybe even add the ability for people to record if it is being enforced or not)?
- floatingatoll 7y ago
  If Waze labels a traffic violation as a toll, they will lose the moral high ground (“it’s legal, what is the problem?” negated) and expose both Waze and its contributors to significant liability - and risk being ordered by a court to take actions (such as “disable all routing within Los Angeles” or “provide a real-time data feed of all routings to LADOT for analysis and enforcement”).
- jacques_chester 7y ago
  > What if Waze labeled these as possibly $5 toll roads? As a general rule of thumb, the law looks dimly on naked attempts to subvert it.
7y ago

ilamont 7y ago

A Waze spokesman, oblivious to the irony, reflexively sneered that “a group of neighbors can’t game the system.” [Ryu] told constituents that Waze would designate a liaison to work with the city, and then the company stopped returning calls. Krekorian’s office reached out to Waze and the operators of similar apps and got “a complete stonewall,” he says. Why the pseudonyms? “They all fear legal liability in case of a bigger accident or traffic situation,” suggested one Level 1 editor, who tried to obtain the email and contact information of a higher-level editor to no avail. The time for "partnering" with arrogant/dismissive/evasive app companies is over. Municipalities and state governments have been dealing with this problem for 5+ years. Why is it taking so long to legislate?

devit 7y ago

The obvious solutions seem to be either: 1. Add enough speedbumps, unsynchronized traffic lights or even unnecessary timed barriers to make the route slow enough that it's no longer optimal 2. Add cameras that fine anyone who doesn't have a permit to pass, which would be given to residents for free and anyone who pays a sufficiently high price

pie420 7y ago
that would make sense if those were private roads. public roads belong to the public. I have the right to use the road in your neighborhood just as much as you do.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  As is well known to any homeowner, typically anyone who owns property has certain responsibilities to care for the public property adjoining it. For instance, you have to clear snow off in a timely manner where I live. Isn't it logical that if you have responsibilities for public property next to where you live, that you may also have some rights as well? I think you are assuming a naive dichotomy between public and private that doesn't reflect the way things actually work.

Nasrudith 7y ago

I'm not sure if it is a cultural thing or different problem scales but the whole complaint strikes me as massive narcissistic self-entitlement to public resources. In my northeastern experience everyone uses neighborhoods as shortcuts when the normally faster roads are congested enough that it is faster in spite of the lower speed limit and increased stops.

HillaryBriss 7y ago

If the city's failure to prevent gridlock at major intersections across the city is any guide, LA will never get a handle on this problem. It will never have enough DPT and police to enforce any proposed solution.

i_am_proteus 7y ago

I'm always surprised when people blame L.A. traffic on Waze rather than a lack of transportation infrastructure in the city. After all, maps existed before Waze and people could have used these shortcuts the entire time.

k3oni 7y ago

As a side note just want to point out that I had Google Maps route us thru side streets marked with "No Thru Traffic" in a newer neighborhood last week in Myrtle Beach SC area to save 1 min. This was the first time i encountered this case.

iamtheworstdev 7y ago

It's interesting to see you post that because I feel like I've read articles where cities in the US have tried the same approach with Google and they generically responded with "Formally change the rules/laws/speeds/whatever and we will follow that but we don't make random, single changes for the whims of the city" (my rephrasing of what they said). I'm having trouble finding the source but I believe I saw the link here on HN and it was to an article about a city asking for Google's cooperation in regards to a sharp/blind downhill turn or something? Hope that jogs someone else's memory.

nickfromseattle 7y ago

Can confirm. When I compare LA traffic to Seattle traffic, I describe the comparison as they are both bad - but LA is much more active driving. You can always get somewhere quicker by zigging left, then zagging right (usually through a neighborhood) because it's built on a grid, where Seattle is more passive traffic because there are choke points everywhere due to water / bridges / non-grid roads, which means zig zagging is not likely to save much time, or possible at all.

thehappypm 7y ago

I often wonder if we ought to try to double the US's highway capacity. It's pretty obvious that the American appetite for public transportation is pretty low, and that car ownership in our continent is here to stay. Why not lean into that, focus on the roads, build bus lanes for public transit?

perl4ever 7y ago
I remember a long time ago reading an article about the bus system in Curitiba, Brazil, which supposedly was innovative and worked particularly well at a much lower cost than subways, but more efficiently than most buses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rede_Integrada_de_Transporte https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rede_Integrada_de_Transporte

auslander 7y ago

GPS jammers?

sheepybloke 7y ago

This is an issue on country roads as well. I was driving down to Cinci and Google had me cut from one freeway to the next via some county side roads. We got flicked off by some guy at his house, and from the traffic, it seemed like he was frustrated how many cars were now going down his once quiet road.

lucas_membrane 7y ago

L.A. has been a shortcut city for a very long time. It is almost 50 years since I resided there; back then good shortcuts got mentioned in the gossip columns, and magazine articles were written about great shortcuts. The difference now is that the solutions are newer, high-tech, and more expensive, but the problem is much worse.

Simulacra 7y ago

This is not the fault of Waze. This is the fault of city planners and the people who live in those houses who have opposed mass transit expansion, and highway expansion. If all else fails we will just go back to making our own routes through neighborhoods and side streets.

asdfadfadsf 7y ago

The one solution that no one will fucking mention is to increase road capacity to zoning ratios. The city planners are allowing congestion by allowing density that is too high, then everyone has to fucking drive with 1 million other people in the same space. Also, it doesn't have to be JUST road capacity. Putting in some actual subway capacity would allow the higher densities, but you have special interest groups fighting that shit NON stop. No one WANTS to take a side street over a freeway. You do it because the freeway is jammed. This means the city planning has FAILED. The money has been misused. I read somewhere that homeless in LA are having housing built for them. Sounds great, right? The cost per unit of housing is something like $450,000 .

ThrustVectoring 7y ago
Capacity and congestion is the wrong way to think about traffic planning. The natural response to capacity increases is to accept a longer-distance commute in exchange for lower housing costs. Instead, it's better to think in terms of accessibility - people need to go to work, buy groceries, etc, and the system must be able to accommodate those goals within reasonable amounts of time. Crucially, this means that it's just as valid to ensure that people live within a fifteen minute walk to a grocery store as it is to ensure that traffic can allow people to drive five miles to the grocery store within fifteen minutes. Density itself can help traffic, so long as it is properly located with respect to jobs and various amenities.

madisfun 7y ago

Living in Europe, I have yet to see a smart navigation app, which would allow to take into account: - tolls and fuel consumption (Via Michelin is great at offering 2-3 routes with different and realistic costs, but the app is an ad-nest and their navigator is bad; Here can avoid tolls but the UI is bad; Google Maps is useless if you want to optimize the costs). - altitude changes (a marginally shorter road which has to climb and descent 1000 m / 3000 ft is not the same as doing extra distance on the flat ground). - the shape of the road, prefer wider and more direct roads (there are many narrow and extremely curvy roads that can't be driven fast, and some may be very stressful to drive). - the realistic median speed as an estimator (not the speed limit; sometimes it is set unrealistically high; also do not assume that all tarmac roads are equivalent). - local and temporary traffic restrictions (respect car-free hours in some areas and restrictions on a particular kind of vehicle or engine). - eventual stops during long trips Google Maps is far from an ideal navigation app at this point. The only reason it is used, IMO, is the abysmall UI experience in built-in car navigators. (Anecdotal evidence: I rented a car last week, it took me five minutes to enter destination, and then I couldn't figure out how to interrupt navigation. Eventually just used the phone to drive around). Tl;dr: Dear Google, Waze, etc., distance is not everything.