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Comment by matt-attack | Hacker News Reader

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.

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Minor neighborhood roads are necessary so that residents can get home, but they were never intended for mass through traffic. Traffic near humans increases risk to life by way of accidents as well as localized air pollution (living within a short distance of a major roadway is extremely unhealthy in the long term, independently of the issue of regional air pollution that covers all of socal). Using roads for a purpose they were never engineered to serve is not the way out of LA's traffic crisis. But sure, saving two minutes on your commute is worth the cost of running over a dog or child now and then.

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.

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!"

Good! You can continue ignoring the NIMBYs then! You can both spite them and focus on the actual problem.

> 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.

Isn't that what Waze does? It recommends uncongested streets.

And designed for isn't just about width and capacity. Its about robustness. There are many ways to build a road. Residential streets are built with less underlayment, cheaper surfaces. Because they will last for decades with low traffic. Burden them, and they'll collapse under the load.

The 405 is what 6 lanes in each direction now? How much extra value do you get by ruining nearby neighborhoods? I'm not saying people shouldn't deal with the change, just that it should be looked at before writing off people that have been living there for decades.

> I won’t speed through it but I sure as hell have a right to use it as much as the local home owners.

That's the point of No Through Traffic. It removes your "right" to impose your externality on the residents adjacent to previously-quiet street. You are not physically prevented from getting to your destination and are reduced to the path you already took.

> The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

You are the few in this case.

That attitude is similar to a rationale for public vandalism. It's my street! Why shouldn't I turn over the trash cans and spraypaint on the street signs if I want to!

It does actual damage to the infrastructure, to misuse it in the ways being discussed. Its not just a matter of "I prefer a quiet neighborhood".

You apparently didn't read the article. Traffic got worse after Waze, not better. Now the highways are jammed and the side streets which has made traffic worse overall and drive times slower. Waze created a worse problem. The solution is to create better public transportation and can more cars. There's a solution, I'm just sure you won't like it.

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