In L.A., One Way to Beat Traffic Runs into Backlash

This is the same thing the pedestrian, transit, and bicycle fans that make up the majority in Berkeley think about your choice to drive a car at all in their city. And they're right.

The point is that the non-arterial road can't handle the load, so the barrier returns it to its original purpose — the residents of and visitors to that street.

The intention is that the people who were using this route either - use the main road (slightly increasing the traffic there) - use public transport or a bicycle instead - stop making the journey altogether

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permeability_(spatial_and_tran...

I don't see what's "selfish" about this. Different roads serve different purposes--these sorts of neighborhood streets are meant to be quiet streets shared by a variety of modes of transportation heading in various directions, freeways like the 405 are designed to accommodate large numbers of motor vehicles heading in a single direction. They are designed for these distinct purposes--they differ in their construction materials, in the number of intersections, in their safety features, and in their proximity to homes.

To me, the idea that we should just declare the two equivalent when traffic is sufficiently bad sounds a bit like saying that it's selfish of pedestrians to not allow drivers to use the sidewalk at rush hour.

  Taking the side streets to avoid the main road is called "rat-running" in Britain.

Waze has actually created a lot of angst in some previously-quieter areas, like Los Gatos CA being inundated with Waze users seeking ways around beach-bound traffic.

For mass transit to work best make it /fast/ above all else make it fast. If it takes longer to take the transit than it does to drive it's not a viable option.

Another possibility for alleviating congestion is to provide parking silos at the edge of the city network and well connected local transit from them.

However the best thing that can be done to end gridlock? Self driving cars save us please!

Sure you do. All you need is to make up a majority of the local voters. Won't work in LA; might work in, say, Long Beach.

Residents pass traffic ordinances screwing over drivers for practically no gain to themselves all the time. You're only allowed to vote on policies for where you live, not where you drive.

Can we drop the racism and focus on making constructive comments? This is HN not some generic forum.

But in Silicon Valley (for example), the problem is that the routes were largely drawn for political motives, not to meet actual needs.

Take, for example, the VTA light rail routes. The trains are so empty that farebox returns barely make a dent in operating costs, let alone debt service, worker benefits, etc. I have to wait at crossings for the Mountain View / Tasman line often, and I rarely see more than 2-3 people per car. It seems to have been designed to serve the Lockheed complex first and foremost, except that Lockheed now has a fraction of the employees that it did when the line was drawn. Head of the House Transportation Committee then? Norm Mineta. In 1995, Mineta quit his seat mid-term after losing his chairmanship (forcing a chain reaction of special elections that cost county taxpayers tens of millions of dollars... but that's another rant) to become an executive in the private sector. Guess where? Yup, Lockheed Martin.

Overall, the VTA bus/rail system has a farebox return of about 14%, last I checked. It would be cheaper to buy ridesharing-company rides at retail for every passenger at public expense than VTA costs taxpayers overall.

They even artificially boost ridership stats by allowing homeless to just ride and sleep on buses, end to end for the whole route, all night.

Meanwhile, Caltrain is so crowded that most trains need standing room for at least part of the route... because Caltrain actually goes where people need to go and is comparatively well-run.

It's not elitism, for the most part; it's functionality.

In the past it was often assumed that most people would stay on major roads because only locals memorized chains of streets and even the people who planned routes (Thomas Brothers maps were a hallmark of the SoCal commuter, after all) would chain a few routes together but generally still kept it to what a human could remember since you couldn't safely read a map while driving.

Now that that has completely changed, it's probably true to say that the majority of local roads and traffic flows need to be reconsidered to see whether the signage or structure should change to enforce the way it was previously assumed they'd be used.