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> No street, certainly not your residential 25-mph variety, is safe from being Wazed into a makeshift freeway or thoroughfare. ... These thousands of homeowne

> No street, certainly not your residential 25-mph variety, is safe from being Wazed into a makeshift freeway or thoroughfare. ... These thousands of homeowners and renters have arguably been injured by Waze’s and Google’s successful privatization of formerly public streets. This is exactly backwards. The streets were effectively privatized before, via obscurity. It is Waze that has made formerly private streets public.

wcarron 7y ago
That's complete BS. The roads have always been there, fulfilling their designated purpose; which is to handle the small amount of traffic the neighborhood residents generate in a safe manner. They were never meant to handle massive amounts of traffic, which actually does damage property values when potential buyers are scared off by unsafe streets.
- cma 7y ago
  All of that can be true and it can still have made them public. Isn't that the whole problem?
- scarejunba 7y ago
  Your property value isn't my problem. I have a right to that street that is no less than yours.
  - Doxin 7y ago
    Sure, But people have a right to not unexpectedly live next to a highway as well. There's a balance here that needs to be struck and that balance is not doing whatever you like with disregard of if that bothers anyone else.
    - prepend 7y ago
      Not if they live next to a public road. As long as folks follow the speed limit there’s nothing you should do. I mapped out the roads around my house before buying. If you live on a shortcut public road you’ll get lots of traffic.
      - Doxin 7y ago
        > As long as folks follow the speed limit Right but isn't that the entire point? People following these shortcuts don't follow the speed limit. They don't drive carefully, and even if they did the increase in exhaust fumes will cause premature deaths of the people living in these streets. Just because the infrastructure is built poorly to the point where driving through someones neighbourhood is faster than using the appointed thoroughfares doesn't mean the solution here is to just saddle those people with the problem. The solution is improving infrastructure to where people don't feel the need to follow shortcuts, or at the very least to make sure there are no shortcuts that disadvantage some random part of the population. To me at least it doesn't seem fair that waze et al individually get to decide to make some streets unlivable. That's not freedom, that's a tyranny of those with power over those without.
        prepend 7y ago
        Then the issue is the speeders. Problem solved. Ticket them. The complaint in my neighborhood that I hear is that the speed limit is 25 and 35 and it’s followed. They just don’t like the traffic.
        Doxin 7y ago
        The issue is speeders. And noise pollution. And air pollution. And risk of getting hit. Driving a car on a street has externalities that need accounting for.
        prepend 7y ago
        Only speeding is against the law, all the others are part of living on a public street. Risk of getting hit goes up with speed but isn’t eliminated in lawful speed followers.
jacques_chester 7y ago
> It is Waze that has made formerly private streets public. They'll be more than "effectively" private if it keeps up, which reduces utility for everyone.

wcarron 7y ago

That's complete BS. The roads have always been there, fulfilling their designated purpose; which is to handle the small amount of traffic the neighborhood residents generate in a safe manner. They were never meant to handle massive amounts of traffic, which actually does damage property values when potential buyers are scared off by unsafe streets.

cma 7y ago
All of that can be true and it can still have made them public. Isn't that the whole problem?
scarejunba 7y ago
Your property value isn't my problem. I have a right to that street that is no less than yours.
- Doxin 7y ago
  Sure, But people have a right to not unexpectedly live next to a highway as well. There's a balance here that needs to be struck and that balance is not doing whatever you like with disregard of if that bothers anyone else.
  - prepend 7y ago
    Not if they live next to a public road. As long as folks follow the speed limit there’s nothing you should do. I mapped out the roads around my house before buying. If you live on a shortcut public road you’ll get lots of traffic.
    - Doxin 7y ago
      > As long as folks follow the speed limit Right but isn't that the entire point? People following these shortcuts don't follow the speed limit. They don't drive carefully, and even if they did the increase in exhaust fumes will cause premature deaths of the people living in these streets. Just because the infrastructure is built poorly to the point where driving through someones neighbourhood is faster than using the appointed thoroughfares doesn't mean the solution here is to just saddle those people with the problem. The solution is improving infrastructure to where people don't feel the need to follow shortcuts, or at the very least to make sure there are no shortcuts that disadvantage some random part of the population. To me at least it doesn't seem fair that waze et al individually get to decide to make some streets unlivable. That's not freedom, that's a tyranny of those with power over those without.
      - prepend 7y ago
        Then the issue is the speeders. Problem solved. Ticket them. The complaint in my neighborhood that I hear is that the speed limit is 25 and 35 and it’s followed. They just don’t like the traffic.
        Doxin 7y ago
        The issue is speeders. And noise pollution. And air pollution. And risk of getting hit. Driving a car on a street has externalities that need accounting for.
        prepend 7y ago
        Only speeding is against the law, all the others are part of living on a public street. Risk of getting hit goes up with speed but isn’t eliminated in lawful speed followers.

jacques_chester 7y ago

> It is Waze that has made formerly private streets public. They'll be more than "effectively" private if it keeps up, which reduces utility for everyone.