6 ms·

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 Tra

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.
ascagnel_ 7y ago
Posting signs would also mean dedicating police resources to enforcement, which tends to be a pretty unpopular use of public services. The proper option would be for Waze to work with LA/LADOT to mark roads, but it seems like they are either unable or actively hostile to resolving the core issue of overloading streets.
- usefulcat 7y ago
  > Posting signs would also mean dedicating police resources to enforcement How would it /necessarily/ require dedication of additional police resources? Are you implying that there is some actual or legal requirement for the city to do so? If not, I don't see how posting a few more NTT signs is significantly different from the status quo, namely that there are already not enough police to enforce all traffic laws in all locations at all times.
  - HillaryBriss 7y ago
    The police would not be required to add resources to enforce these laws. But without enforcement the signs would make very little difference to LA drivers.
    - wffurr 7y ago
      They do make a big difference to the routing algorithms in Waze. How many LA drivers are just following GPS directions now?
    - soneil 7y ago
      The whole premise of the article is that it only needs to coerce Waze’ routing. If the glut of traffic is just following the blue line, the minority that route themselves shouldn’t be enough to cause problems - or at least, they apparently weren’t pre-waze.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
hammock 7y ago
Not sure that reducing thruway and adding tolls is the solution to traffic..in fact it sounds counterproductive.
nix0n 7y ago
In Boston, Waze and Google Maps will often suggest routes that are illegal, whether it's an NTT zone, a completely closed road, or no-left-turn violations.
- floatingatoll 7y ago
  I encourage you to sign up as a Waze route editor and submit an annotation to the segments of your routes that are illegal/invalid with photo evidence, both to improve the quality of their directions and to ensure that the Waze editors are not corrupting the dataset in order to get faster travel directions. If you find your edits overturned, write letters@lamag.com & btd@boston.gov — they will both very much want to know that Waze editors discouraged reporting of illegal routing! For Google Maps, here are the directions for reporting illegal/invalid routing directions with photo evidence: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6194894 https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6194894
matt-attack 7y ago
And to what end? I’m of the firm belief that the good done by Waze far outweighs the cost to the NIMBYs. In LA we have a traffic crisis. Sorry but your government built and tax funded residential street is just as much mine to use as it is yours. I won’t speed through it but I sure as hell have a right to use it as much as the local home owners. The city should not be doing what your suggesting until they’ve solved the traffic crisis and provided actual solutions. The freeways are parking lots. Housing costs in the city are insane. So workers are forced to have longer and longer commutes. And the city’s infrastructure crawls to a halt at rush hours. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.
- mc32 7y ago
  Residential streets are not designed for heavy through traffic. It comes back to “why we can’t have nice things”. Abuse. Many systems work when they are not abused but break down when they are abused.
  - matt-attack 7y ago
    Well that's not really what I hear the NIMBYs complaining about. "Hey our streets are forming ruts and potholes from the excess traffic! We need better reinforcing under our street to prevent this!"
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      Good! You can continue ignoring the NIMBYs then! You can both spite them and focus on the actual problem.
  - Udik 7y ago
    > Residential streets are not designed for heavy through traffic. One could argue that every street is designed for the amount of traffic that it is able to support- that is, the one that keeps the vehicles circulating at normal speed on that road. If the main road is congested, then it means that that road is not designed for that level of traffic. The Waze algorithm is fine until it moves the congestion to a narrower road. In theory, a well designed algorithm should direct to secondary and residential roads only the amount of traffic that doesn't congest them, not one car more.

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.

ascagnel_ 7y ago

Posting signs would also mean dedicating police resources to enforcement, which tends to be a pretty unpopular use of public services. The proper option would be for Waze to work with LA/LADOT to mark roads, but it seems like they are either unable or actively hostile to resolving the core issue of overloading streets.

usefulcat 7y ago
> Posting signs would also mean dedicating police resources to enforcement How would it /necessarily/ require dedication of additional police resources? Are you implying that there is some actual or legal requirement for the city to do so? If not, I don't see how posting a few more NTT signs is significantly different from the status quo, namely that there are already not enough police to enforce all traffic laws in all locations at all times.
- HillaryBriss 7y ago
  The police would not be required to add resources to enforce these laws. But without enforcement the signs would make very little difference to LA drivers.
  - wffurr 7y ago
    They do make a big difference to the routing algorithms in Waze. How many LA drivers are just following GPS directions now?
  - soneil 7y ago
    The whole premise of the article is that it only needs to coerce Waze’ routing. If the glut of traffic is just following the blue line, the minority that route themselves shouldn’t be enough to cause problems - or at least, they apparently weren’t pre-waze.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]

hammock 7y ago

Not sure that reducing thruway and adding tolls is the solution to traffic..in fact it sounds counterproductive.

nix0n 7y ago

In Boston, Waze and Google Maps will often suggest routes that are illegal, whether it's an NTT zone, a completely closed road, or no-left-turn violations.

floatingatoll 7y ago
I encourage you to sign up as a Waze route editor and submit an annotation to the segments of your routes that are illegal/invalid with photo evidence, both to improve the quality of their directions and to ensure that the Waze editors are not corrupting the dataset in order to get faster travel directions. If you find your edits overturned, write letters@lamag.com & btd@boston.gov — they will both very much want to know that Waze editors discouraged reporting of illegal routing! For Google Maps, here are the directions for reporting illegal/invalid routing directions with photo evidence: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6194894 https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6194894

matt-attack 7y ago

And to what end? I’m of the firm belief that the good done by Waze far outweighs the cost to the NIMBYs. In LA we have a traffic crisis. Sorry but your government built and tax funded residential street is just as much mine to use as it is yours. I won’t speed through it but I sure as hell have a right to use it as much as the local home owners. The city should not be doing what your suggesting until they’ve solved the traffic crisis and provided actual solutions. The freeways are parking lots. Housing costs in the city are insane. So workers are forced to have longer and longer commutes. And the city’s infrastructure crawls to a halt at rush hours. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.

mc32 7y ago
Residential streets are not designed for heavy through traffic. It comes back to “why we can’t have nice things”. Abuse. Many systems work when they are not abused but break down when they are abused.
- matt-attack 7y ago
  Well that's not really what I hear the NIMBYs complaining about. "Hey our streets are forming ruts and potholes from the excess traffic! We need better reinforcing under our street to prevent this!"
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    Good! You can continue ignoring the NIMBYs then! You can both spite them and focus on the actual problem.
- Udik 7y ago
  > Residential streets are not designed for heavy through traffic. One could argue that every street is designed for the amount of traffic that it is able to support- that is, the one that keeps the vehicles circulating at normal speed on that road. If the main road is congested, then it means that that road is not designed for that level of traffic. The Waze algorithm is fine until it moves the congestion to a narrower road. In theory, a well designed algorithm should direct to secondary and residential roads only the amount of traffic that doesn't congest them, not one car more.