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Comment by BelleOfTheBall | Hacker News Reader

While I'm not overly optimistic about his goal of getting solutions from the game to be enacted in real life Seattle, it's a really admirable idea and an impressive execution to boot.

I'm wondering if, with a big enough budget and a team of skilled devs like Dustin here, the local government could create more refined simulations to tackle these planning issues. Or would that inevitably run into the problem mentioned in his Project Mission: 'People are local experts on the small slice of the city they interact with daily -- the one left turn lane that always backs up or a certain set of poorly timed walk signals'?

Perhaps, with a large enough data pool, even these small quirks could be worked out via simulation?

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> Project Mission: 'People are local experts on the small slice of the city they interact with daily -- the one left turn lane that always backs up or a certain set of poorly timed walk signals'

100% of the intersections I see that get backed up are backed up because someone blocks the box. Can we get more enforcement for that? They don't even need a patrol car. Just have an officer stand at the corner of Mercer and Westlake from 4pm to 7pm, and each time the light changes, walk out into the intersection and ticket the guy who's blocking it. You could write $1000 in tickets an hour, every night of the week.

Many intersections have threatening signs to this effect, but they don't do any good. I've never seen or heard of anyone getting ticketed for that.

I would be supportive of this as long as it is done with some degree of discretion. On every traffic light cycle each side must release at least one car for the system to work out (traffic light timing must accommodate this). Sometimes that first car has to get into the intersection. I don’t really fault that driver for doing so.

Seconded!

I would also like to see some pedestrian bridges or tunnels that would allow walking commuters like me to cross our major streets (Mercer, Denny, Westlake, and Dexters) at any time. This, I strongly believe, could reduce traffic, make residential neighborhoods effectively closer to commercial areas (due to reduced walking time), and improve both vehicle and pedestrian safety. Bridges should be far less expensive than roads, and could be built very quickly.

I would love this too. https://lidi5.org is the only proposal I know of right now to do some of this

> $1000 in tickets an hour

In SF, that would be 2 tickets. A red light ticket, or carpool lane ticket, is $490.

Does Seattle have similar fines?

This happens a lot in SF too. So frustrating.

Cars that block a lane tend to get honked at, and that seems like it should be enough to not to do it again. I made that mistake once and ever since have been vigilant about there being at least a car space available on the other side.

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