LA Councilman Asks City Attorney To 'Review Possible Legal Action' Against Waze (arstechnica.com) 214
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Yet another Los Angeles city councilman has taken Waze to task for creating "dangerous conditions" in his district, and the politician is now "asking the City to review possible legal action." "Waze has upended our City's traffic plans, residential neighborhoods, and public safety for far too long," LA City Councilman David Ryu said in a statement released Wednesday. "Their responses have been inadequate and their solutions, non-existent. They say the crises of congestion they cause is the price for innovation -- I say that's a false choice." In a new letter sent to the City Attorney's Office, Ryu formally asked Los Angeles' top attorney to examine Waze's behavior. While Ryu said he supported "advances in technology," he decried Waze and its parent company, Google, for refusing "any responsibility for the traffic problems their app creates or the concerns of residents and City officials."
Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic" (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution is really simple. Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic" since that's essentially what he wants. Waze and others will update their maps accordingly. In OpenStreetMap it's just a matter of adding an "access=destination" attribute and I'm sure Waze, Google, Apple and others have similarly simple ways of representing this. They will then stop routing people through that street. The city does no even need to enforce the street sign since all they want to avoid is the excess traffic driven by the apps. Problem solved.
But only the city (or maybe some county/state department) has the authority to make that decision so he should work on it instead of making an ass of himself and wasting everyone else's time.
Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic" (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution is really simple. Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic" since that's essentially what he wants. Waze and others will update their maps accordingly. In OpenStreetMap it's just a matter of adding an "access=destination" attribute and I'm sure Waze, Google, Apple and others have similarly simple ways of representing this. They will then stop routing people through that street. The city does no even need to enforce the street sign since all they want to avoid is the excess traffic driven by the apps. Problem solved.
But only the city (or maybe some county/state department) has the authority to make that decision so he should work on it instead of making an ass of himself and wasting everyone else's time.
That doesn't let the councilman grandstand.
Re: (Score:2)
It also doesn't let him and his buddies (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
you assume he and his buddies will pay attention to the sign. Maybe, maybe not, but I wouldn't put money on it.
Re: Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic" (Score:5, Interesting)
Our city has signed my street with âoethrough traffic prohibitedâ and sent a letter to Waze of the change. Nothing has happened. Phone staring zombies still speeding through the neighborhood. Los Altos Hills has had some success but then Alphabet big wigs live there.
Re: (Score:3)
Our city has signed my street with âoethrough traffic prohibitedâ and sent a letter to Waze of the change. Nothing has happened. Phone staring zombies still speeding through the neighborhood. Los Altos Hills has had some success but then Alphabet big wigs live there.
If you don't want people speeding through your street, put speed bumps there.
Oh no, but that would slow down you too.
Re: (Score:2)
If you don't want people speeding through your street, put speed bumps there.
Oh no, but that would slow down you too.
Meh. I much prefer deputizing the locals to record and send in tickets of speeders There are apps for that yaknow.
Re: (Score:2)
They "sent a letter" to the company that lets the community edit the map? Gee, I wonder why that didn't work. Maybe try logging in and changing the road yourself. If you don't have high enough access, leave a message on the board.
Re: (Score:2)
This kind of thing happens all the time. You appeal to someone with a higher lock level than yourself to resolve the dispute. In a lot of cases, a sign like this has no legal status (like in PA) and the Waze community knows this and will ignore it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because they wanted it to fail and blame waze. "We sent it to the PO BOX address we found somewhere on their app or online and they haven't fixed it!"
Re: (Score:2)
Why send a letter? You can mark it as "private road" in the editor at https://www.waze.com/editor [waze.com]
So anyhow this lame ass solution would be a great thing for mapping apps, as large sections of developments and towns become terra incongnita, where no one is allowed to map to people that live along the "private road".
Re: (Score:2)
Government doesn't have to adapt. They just mandate and woe be to you if you don't listen.
Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic" (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck that. Streets are paid for by all taxpayers, and "rights of way" are long established. What Waze does falls under free speech. You don't want people taking a shortcut through your neighborhood, then stop with the "Waze has upended our City's traffic plans" bullshit and make it so the major roads work better than the side roads. It really is that simple.
Or, just build out an efficient, useful, and desirable mass transit system.
Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic" (Score:5, Interesting)
Problem is if everyone acts selfishly it just makes the traffic worse all round. Yes, it might take you an extra 5 minutes to do the long way around that the city wants you to take, but if everyone takes the shortcut it ends up taking everyone 30 minutes more. There can be down-stream issues too, like excessive numbers of people trying to merge back onto the main route causing that to slow down too, excessive wear on local roads that are not able to handle the load, disruption to other local road users etc.
It's the classic tragedy of the commons that government is supposed to solve.
In this case there is a safety issue too. The road in question is extremely steep and a lot of vehicles have trouble with it, either lacking the power to go up at a reasonable speed or struggling to resist gravity on the way down.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Said by someone who's obviously unclear about the concept. Waze dynamically routes using the fastest path. Diverting some traffic away from a path does not make that path flow slower.
Re: (Score:2)
If it made sense to do that then it would make sense for the city to promote it. But it doesn't make sense, because what happens is that Waze keeps sending people there until a jam forms because the road and the intersections aren't designed for that volume of traffic. And because it's an urban area the number of injuries and accidents goes up too.
The main road might get a little faster, but at the same time the city now has less money to spend on maintaining and improving it because it has to handle all th
Re: (Score:2)
"but if everyone takes the shortcut it ends up taking everyone 30 minutes more. " Said by someone who's obviously unclear about the concept. Waze dynamically routes using the fastest path. Diverting some traffic away from a path does not make that path flow slower.
It absolutely does make some routes slower. Consider a route that departs from a highway and then re-enters the highway later. The additional mergings on the onramp can cause more congestion than if everyone had simply stayed on the highway. I have seen this firsthand in Houston with some of our feeder road ramps, where it is obvious. I am sure it happens elsewhere in less obvious ways.
Not to mention that Waze does not seem to do per-lane or even per-route data collection. This means if I am taking X
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
but if everyone takes the shortcut it ends up taking everyone 30 minutes more.
That doesn't even make any sense. If the shortcut actually resulted in everyone taking 30 minutes more, then the traffic app wouldn't keep routing so many through it. It gets its best data from itself, obviously.
It optimizes for fastest route unless you tell it otherwise.
Re: (Score:2)
If everyone was taking the shortcut, which made that route take 30 minutes longer, Waze will tell me to stay on the main route.
There are days why I wonder why Waze isn't directing me to an alternate route, but then I get a glimpse of that route off the highway, and I see why it didn't send me that way.
Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic" (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck that. Streets are paid for by all taxpayers, and "rights of way" are long established. What Waze does falls under free speech. You don't want people taking a shortcut through your neighborhood, then stop with the "Waze has upended our City's traffic plans" bullshit and make it so the major roads work better than the side roads. It really is that simple.
Dang straight. If the major roads aren't faster than the side roads then the problem is the government handling of the roads, not from some app.
Re: (Score:2)
Or, just build out an efficient, useful, and desirable mass transit system.
Clearly the place to start with that dream is a high speed rail to nowhere rather than fixing metrolink. California thinking at it's finest.
Re: (Score:2)
Only if you never need to drive outside your neighbourhood.
Re:Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic" (Score:4, Insightful)
Face it, companies like google arent going to bow down to your pithy little laws. Silicon valley is all about disruption and rule breaking. Breaking society is part of the programme for tech these days (or maybe it always had that ethos by some: "Who else is going to change the world, Marty? Greenpeace?")
Waze, airbnb, uber, etc are all about gaming regulatory systems that are set up to protect the people mostly. Having a multi room vacation housing without proper sprinklers, for instance. There are no "good" for-profit companies. You can't "do no evil" and "always make profit" at the same time. Companies side with their financial masters when push comes to shove. Tech may even be more susceptible to this than most other for-profits that, you know, actually and reliably turn an actual profit.
For profit corporations are evil. pure and simple.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The solution is really simple. Mark the street as "No Thru Traffic" since that's essentially what he wants. Waze and others will update their maps accordingly.
So the solution is to put up signs at every intersection and implement bogus "Not a through street" zones. Which by the way, will result in demand to force the waze users right back onto the streets they were trying to get away from.
As well it sets up a positive feedback loop, as along the side routes used now will add the designation, and the program will route it to other side streets, so they will too. eventually your simple solution will simply break the app, as there will be no options.
Which in tu
Re: (Score:2)
So the solution is to put up signs at every intersection and implement bogus "Not a through street" zones.
The signs are not bogus if they are put up by the official traffic department. And the traffic department has no more reason to put them at every intersection than for any other sign.
Re: (Score:2)
So the solution is to put up signs at every intersection and implement bogus "Not a through street" zones.
The signs are not bogus if they are put up by the official traffic department. And the traffic department has no more reason to put them at every intersection than for any other sign.
So your point is that in order to keep these speeders off my street, I have to break the law to leave my house. If every street in my neighborhood was illegal to use as a street to get somewhere else, we'd all be trapped.
Seriously, I'm more about hitting them in the wallet. We've had people driving at least 55 on the 25 mph road in front of my house. I would dearly love to use every legal means at my disposal to punish them as much as possible. Including - if we can put up this bogus no through traffic
Re: (Score:2)
So your point is that in order to keep these speeders off my street, I have to break the law to leave my house. If every street in my neighborhood was illegal to use as a street to get somewhere else, we'd all be trapped.
Through traffic is, by definition, traffic that enters and exits a specified area (typically not a single street unless the street constitutes the entirety of the area, usually a housing development or small residential neighborhood) without having a destination inside that area. If your house simultaneously exists inside and outside your neighborhood, you are already breaking the laws of physics. I would be more concerned about that.
One way in, one way out, no deviation allowed. The solution is worse than the problem.
Re: (Score:2)
If your start or destination is in the neighborhood then you're not "through traffic" and you can be routed there.
Re: (Score:2)
What? There's got to be over ten thousand [laalmanac.com] miles of local streets that Waze is helping drivers abuse. You can't just make them all "no thru traffic"!
Fortunately there's no reason to stop people using Waze from taking most of those streets.
Re: (Score:2)
That's already been tried. Waze didn't respond.
LADOT has tried mitigation strategies such as new traffic signage, but this congestion starts and ends with wayfinding technology.
Source? Neither the article nor any of the pages it points to mentions any traffic signage change. How long did they give Waze to update their map? 24 hours?
Re: (Score:2)
It's in the PDF of the lawsuit
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfr... [cloudfront.net]
Link is not to a lawsuit. (Score:2)
That's not a PDF of a lawsuit, just a letter complaining to the City Attorney by the councilman. The content is just whining in general no specifics. There's mention of "a street designated for local use", but doesn't name the street.
If the complaints to Waze were as vague as this letter, I wouldn't be surprised that nothing changed.
It's a public road... (Score:5, Insightful)
... if you don't like people driving on a public road, then... well, it's a public road.
By definition, the public can go on a public road.
Are people speeding? Give them tickets.
Are people not stopping at lights/stop signs? Give them tickets.
Otherwise STFU.
Re: It's a public road... (Score:2)
Waze is causing accidents by ignoring the grade and routing the unwary (generally speeding) http://www.thedrive.com/news/1... [thedrive.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Waze is causing accidents by ignoring the grade and routing the unwary (generally speeding) http://www.thedrive.com/news/1... [thedrive.com]
Um, no. Bad drivers are causing accidents. If they're speeding that's the driver's fault, not Waze. If they can't handle a steep grade, they can turn around. Do you do everything Waze tells you to? If so, you should throw away your license.
Idiot politicians. (Score:2)
Los Angeles is a city that had a major that kept failing the bar exam. They took away lanes on Wilshire Blvd. and assigned it for buses to "improve traffic flow." They cut down lanes of roads because having two lanes of traffic is not safe for people to j-walk at night.
Re:It's a public road... (Score:5, Insightful)
... if you don't like people driving on a public road, then... well, it's a public road.
By definition, the public can go on a public road.
Are people speeding? Give them tickets.
Are people not stopping at lights/stop signs? Give them tickets.
Otherwise STFU.
I would agree with you if people weren't selfish assholes in general. Waze routes people through my neighborhood and then they end up not realizing that the way they want to go only has one lane of access from a two lane thoroughfare. So they block traffic and make people stop unnecessarily so that they can avoid going to the next light to make their turn, or make a u-turn. So what happens? It takes me 15 minutes to drive a distance that the slowest, most geriatric person you know could walk in about 5 minutes and it's absolutely infuriating. I don't really care if they drive through my neighborhood but for the love of god, know where you are going or just accept that you can't end up where you want to be and let everyone else go by accepting the consequences of your actions.
Re: (Score:2)
Park closer to the on-ramp. Walk 5 minutes.
Re: (Score:2)
Park closer to the on-ramp. Walk 5 minutes.
I’d actually have to park in a neighborhood. It’s no where near an off-ramp or on-ramp to the interstate. By no where near, I mean that it is over 1.5 miles to the nearest one. Because of nearby amenities the parking in that neighborhood is generally permit only. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind the people at all. It’s a great urban location near to a huge park, musuems, concert halls, etc. I think the people that come in to take advantage of those amenities make the
Re: (Score:2)
Waze doesn't do any of that in my town but it still takes 15 minutes for me to drive across the street because of people using my town as a throughway to the metro area. Who can I sue?
I am not proposing that anyone be sued whatsoever. I am merely pointing out that just because we can do something, doesn't mean we OUGHT to do it. I am not certain that Waze actually makes traffic better or safer.
Re: (Score:3)
"for the love of god, know where you are going or just accept that you can't end up where you want to be and let everyone else go by accepting the consequences of your actions."
You mean like the action of buying a house on a through street that was virtually guaranteed to wind up carrying more traffic with or without Waze?
I'm not on a through street, though. Not at all. Not remotely. In fact, due to the number of special events that occur on the spring and summer weekends in my neighborhood, my street is designed to discourage traffic and encourage pedestrian, bicycle, and transit traffic. I know my neighborhood can be loud and busy on the weekends and that there can be unusual traffic during those times. These people are actually going out of their way, leaving a through street, to go to a street that literally ends to
Re: (Score:2)
These people are actually going out of their way, leaving a through street, to go to a street that literally ends to prevent them from going where they are trying to go. So they just drive through the neighborhoods to get back onto the thoroughfare they got off of a few miles earlier.
Sounds like another problem which could be solved by adequate signage... or adequate transportation networks.
Well, people who live off of my street do legitimately need to take the route that these people are taking. It is busy because of that. But I live in a metro area and most of the traffic is designed to be early morning commute traffic to office buildings or weekend traffic to a large urban park in the area. There is way higher traffic flow in the mornings but it is a lot more organized. The commuters all know what is up and are very considerate and polite. It’s the evening traffic that gets snarl
Re: It's a public road... (Score:3, Insightful)
Traffic engineers and planners design roads based on a number of factors including vehicle types, design speeds, traffic rates, services on those roads, etc. The result are roads designed to handle a certain types and rates of traffic, and classified by their function (major and minor arterials and collectors, local roads). From this the road pavement construction is often specified based on use. Same goes for road maintenance. Minor or local roads are low on the totum pole of maintenance programs as compar
Another grandstanding politician (Score:5, Insightful)
The city could have pushed through a road reclassification. Had they done so the routing would be updated and problem solved. But this lets someone stand up to Big Bad Google, rather than actually fixing the problem.
I'm with Waze/Google on this one. They route based on accurate and legal road information. Once they start tweaking it things will break. The city can change the road signage to match what they want for traffic and map routing ( not just Waze, but any app based on the actual road network ) will change to match.
Re: (Score:2)
Is there some classification that states something like "local through traffic only"? I don't know how you handle road classifications in the states, or if Waze can deal with non-standard signage etc.
I think you have the right idea, I'm just wondering if there is some practical reason why it can't be implemented.
Re: (Score:3)
How do you define local?
Do you have to live in that zipcode, that neighborhood, or just in the city? If the city, I don't think many cities would be helped (some sure - like New York/New Jersey).
If you need to live in the zip code or neighborhood then how does waze enforce it? Do they need to require proof of residence to use their app or to be able to use certain routes?
Re: (Score:2)
Well, quite. I don't think it's that easy to solve.
Re: (Score:2)
remember, there's a difference between "through" and "into/out of" and it's not honestly that difficult to tell whether your destination is on the "no through traffic" road or not.
Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
Its because the traffic planning is so bad that they use these apps. I know quite a few bottle necks that if they fixed in LA would clean up a lot of traffic.
Re: (Score:2)
Yup. Typical government knee-jerk reaction.
Blame the symptom instead of fixing the problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Its because the traffic planning is so bad that they use these apps.
Traffic planning may be bad, but that's not why in general people use these apps. They serve many purposes including getting to somewhere you don't know, informing you of unforeseen problems along your route and routing around them, redirecting you if you need to take a detour etc.
Why not make the most of it? (Score:2)
If Waze is sending traffic down a residential street, have that street rezoned to commercial. It would raise the value of the land, bring in more tax revenue, bring in jobs, and bring people closer to places they need to go.
Traffic isn't good for residential areas but businesses love it!
Tried it. (Score:2)
Maybe a knee jerk reaction deserves one in return (Score:3)
48 Hours without Google Maps or Waze for the LA Metro area....
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's what I was thinking as well. The traffic is bad and rather than working on that problem, let's go after an app that takes maximum advantage of the infrastructure already built out? It's a classic diversionary tactic.
algorithms (Score:2)
These types of absurd lawsuits need to be shot down immediately. Companies should not be liable for results of calculations, no matter what that calculation is or how offensive it may be.
Re: (Score:2)
except when they directly cause harm or injury, like flying into terrain? [wikipedia.org]
or maybe when they run over someone? [theguardian.com]
meh (Score:2)
If the main routes are so dang slow, that's your fault, city, not an app's fault.
Don't want to put speed bumps in the fancy neighborhoods? Then build more or wider main roads.
Re: (Score:2)
I grew up in LA area and it's gotten worse since the 80's.
60s.. #FTFY
Re: (Score:2)
Possible legal action??? (Score:2)
I'm curious.
Just what part of the CA legal code could Waze POSSIBLY have broken? Surely it's not illegal to tell someone "take an alternate route because there's a wreck on the freeway"???
Any different than Garmin or TomTom or ??? (Score:2)
Just the facts, ma'am (Score:2)
Re:Tech bros never heard of tragedy of the commons (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
There is nothing that compels you to follow the directions that waze gives you. If you don't want to drive through a residential street, don't. Waze will happily recalculate the route for you. If you aren't interested in getting to your destination in a timely fashion, why are you using a navigation app that does just that?
Re: (Score:2)
Whether it can recalculate your route really depends on whether your mobile internet is spotty where you're driving. I wouldn't risk it a lot of places with t-mobile.
There is (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Same. It must be possible for cities or people to get this done because Waze has stopped reporting some of the shortcuts that it taught me for longer and more congested main roads.
Almost as annoying as when I tell it to avoid freeways and it routes me to the access road (frontage road) for the bulk of my way home.
Re:Simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything that Waze is doing is legal. There just isn't any room for argument from municipalities as there might be with AirBNB and Uber.
Re: Simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, those roads were funded by the public, which includes federal dollars, state dollars, county dollars, and special taxes on fuel. They weren't funded by the council or this ass-hat. He doesn't get to tell the public they can't use the roads they funded, and he doesn't get to tell Waze (or google) they can't help those who want to use them coordinate.
LA has a traffic problem, and to help distribute the load, Waze has come up with a pretty ingenious idea. Where was the councilman then? Not giving a rats ass about anyone or anything except his little district.
Always trying to legislate or litigate away people's freedom, these ass hats.
Re: (Score:2)
"Something must be done!!. This is Something!!! THEREFORE IT MUST BE DONE!!!!!"
Nobody stops long enough to ask the councilcritter why he thinks they have the authority to limit information.
Re: (Score:2)
yeah but that's like saying the sidewalks were paid for by the public too, so you should be allowed to drive on them to eh
No . it's like saying the sidewalks are paid for the public so they should be able to walk on them.
The city needs to adapt it's roads based on current traffic trends not whatever existed back when the roads where first built.
Re: (Score:2)
that if everyone went exactly the speed limit, many traffic jams would never happen
That applies to everyone not going exactly the speed limit - so people going 1 under would also fuck the flow up. "Exactly the speed limit" is an impossible ideal, and in any case there aren't any speeders when a road is congested.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Simple solution (Score:5, Informative)
No, the whole discussion is about an app routing via the faster route (because the main route is congested). Not the couple of people who decide to drive that way on their own.
The app doesn't need a police officer to enforce the routing, it just needs to be marked as "no through":
The whole discussion appears to be that Waze believes they are in the business of distributing information about roads, not in the business of lying about roads, so if the city doesn't want the app to route people via that road, they need to put up the signs.
Re: (Score:2)
No, the whole discussion is about an app routing via the faster route (because the main route is congested).
Why not work on expanding the congested routes or building alternate routes?
Re: (Score:2)
Because those are only ever temporary fixes. Everywhere that's tried to solve traffic problems with more roads just ended up with more traffic problems. LA and Houston are excellent examples of this.
The only solution is mass transit, but in most of the US we're allergic to it for some reason.
Re: (Score:3)
It's because we see ourselves as individuals rather than groups. It's a good thing but does have some repercussions.
Re: (Score:2)
Because those are only ever temporary fixes. Everywhere that's tried to solve traffic problems with more roads just ended up with more traffic problems. LA and Houston are excellent examples of this.
The only solution is mass transit, but in most of the US we're allergic to it for some reason.
Good thing those in tech don't share your world view or we'd all be on dial up still at public libraries. I can see you working for an infrastructure company - "jeez, all we do is give them more bandwidth but it's just a temporary fix. Oh well, dial up and library computers for all I guess."
Re: (Score:2)
So you've ignored the point, produced a failed analogy, and you've been an asshole all at the same time. Probably should head home now, because there's not much else to accomplish today. Cheers!
Re: (Score:2)
No, the whole discussion is about an app routing via the faster route (because the main route is congested).
Why not work on expanding the congested routes or building alternate routes?
Because this is LA. They would rather harangue people about what not to do while doing it themselves. LA is the poster child for NIMBY.
Re: (Score:2)
Braess's paradox [wikipedia.org]
Braess's paradox is a proposed explanation for the situation where an alteration to a road network to improve traffic flow actually has the reverse effect and impedes traffic through it. The paradox was postulated in 1968 by German mathematician Dietrich Braess, who noticed that adding a road to a congested road traffic network could increase overall journey time, and it has been used to explain instances of improved traffic flow when existing major roads are closed.
Re: (Score:2)
So, are you going to have cops sitting at the entrance and exit of this neighborhood, recording everyone that enters, relaying that information to the exit cop, and then having them try to match any cars that drove through?
I imagine this could be enforced with license plate readers
Re: (Score:2)
Or add "NO THROUGH TRAFFIC" signs on the roads that they desire no through traffic to be on. This is exactly why signage and traffic laws exist. Everything that Waze is doing is legal. There just isn't any room for argument from municipalities as there might be with AirBNB and Uber.
So - you figure that we're going to need to have police on every corner to insure that the fine citizens who are using our streets as through streets don't? A more simple cure is enabling citizens to issue speeding tickets with the authority of the municipality. The rationale is simple. The same people who feel the need to use neighborhood roads to keep off the main roads are going to violate the speed limits. That's what people in a hurry do.
So deputize all of the locals, let them use the apps that wil
Re: (Score:2)
Or a maze of one-way streets.
Around here they just block the street halfway down with no turning circle so you'd have to back out. But it means that locals that have to go down the block have to take the long way around.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What are you talking about? Except for the Skyway, I don't think there's a single toll booth inside the Chicago city limits.
Re: (Score:2)
There were right outside Chicago. The result was sometimes multi-hour traffic jams caused by the tollbooths and everyone being forced to stop and pay. Automated tolling helped, but they're still a starting point for traffic jams.
Re: (Score:2)
So don't blame Chicago for something the state tollway authority does.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Pretty much this.
Google's "refusal to fix" the issue is a subtle way of saying: "Fix your goddamn roads so our software wouldn't have to direct people through terrible routes that are still faster than the main ones."
Politicians just can't wrap their heads around cause and effect.
Re: (Score:2)
Politicians just can't wrap their heads around cause and effect.
No, actually, they understand it very well.
They pander and grandstand, do 'favors' for their contributors/lobbyists/cronies, tell blatant lies to the public, exempt themselves from laws we must obey while enriching themselves, and the effect is that the idiots keep reelecting them again and again.
Because otherwise the wrong lizard might get in.
Strat
Re: (Score:3)
If those cars weren't taking the side streets the other roads would get more traffic and would probably need to be two or three times as many lanes anyways. If anything Waze or any map application is reducing congestion.
In Texas, the state has been trying to force San Antonio to build toll roads and has deliberately allowed traffic to get worse in main areas (281/1604 comes to mind) since we keep voting against those toll roads every time it comes up.
I love waze/google maps. I use it even on routes I know. It's like having a scout in front of me checking for accidents and making sure all is open for me
Re: (Score:2)
You haven't been here long.
In California, your tax dollars are used to fund social programs, not update infrastructure.