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Comment by cmsmith | Hacker News Reader

I'll be the first to say here that if this effect is actually supported by data, and not just anecdotes, then the councilman has a good point. It's rude and dangerous to cut through residential neighborhoods to save one or two minutes off of your car trip, and mapping apps shouldn't be so quick to direct you to do so.

Pedestrians and cyclists have already lost access to major roads (see invention of jaywalking, etc), but it was OK since we could still take walks in our neighborhood. If every road is open to its full traffic capacity, the only safe place to be is in a car.

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> Its rude and dangerous to cut through residential neighborhoods to save one or two minutes off of your car trip, and mapping apps shouldn't be so quick to direct you to do so.

No, its not rude to use public roads to get between points connected by those roads, nor is it dangerous provided you are driving in a safe manner (and, if you are driving in an unsafe manner, that's a problem no matter why you are on those roads -- just as much if you are doing it to get to or from your home that is on the road as if you are using it to get between two points that the road happens to connect.)

>just as much if you are doing it to get to or from your home that is on the road as if you are using it to get between two points that the road happens to connect

This is exactly the point and where the problem lies.

If I live on the road, and am one minute from home, and know that my neighbor's kid likes to ride his bike there - then I'm going to be very careful while driving down it.

If I'm still 30 minutes from home, and using the road to get from one 50mph main road to a different 50mph main road, I'm going to be in a hurry and not respect the residential speed limit as much.

It's human nature, and we can fight it by [1] having police speed traps in every neighborhood (expensive), [2] having speed bumps everywhere (annoying), or [3] adjusting the dials on Waze's optimization function.

There are more options than your three, such as [4] fix the road system so that routes through residential neighborhoods stop being the fastest.

You seem to present [3] as being the obvious and easy choice, but it's the only one that involves suppressing information i.e. censorship. That's a moral problem as well as a practical one: Waze provides a useful service, and if you shut it down or neuter it, you'll just get a dozen imitators popping up to take its place. (Never mind that a ton of apps besides Waze already provide the same sort of info.)

I agree with grandparent. It's rude to cut through residential streets just to bypass traffic. Residential streets are there to support the activity of those residents, which includes getting to and from their homes, walking across the street to talk to a neighbor, leading normal healthy lives including allowing children to use the street to play or ride bikes.

There are other streets designed to carry traffic. If there is a lot of traffic, you need to wait in line like everyone else. If you need to get somewhere on time, leave early to avoid traffic.

Then stop rudely insisting that people outside of your neighborhood help pay for the upkeep of your streets.

...if you are driving in an unsafe manner, that's a problem no matter why you are on those roads

So, then, let's assume that apps like Waze do cause a larger number of unsafe drivers to cut through residential areas. How do we fix that problem?

> So, then, let's assume that apps like Waze do cause a larger number of unsafe drivers to cut through residential areas. How do we fix that problem?

Among the solutions:

(1) Increase traffic patrols in places where the number of unsafe drivers is high, and ticket the unsafe drivers (this should be part of the response to too-high levels of unsafe drivers in an identifiable location regardless of the cause);

(2) Identify and resolve the problems with the intended through-traffic thoroughfares which is causing secondary roads to be more efficient routes for through traffic;

(3) If roads are intended to be used for ingress/egress of local residents and pedestrian/bicycle traffic, but not for through auto traffic, then do appropriate redesign (which often just means auto barriers in a few strategic locations) that makes them usable for the intended purpose but not for the unintended one.

Sure it's rude. It's also okay for opinions on the matter to differ.

If we don't want things utilized to their full capacity then we shouldn't build such capacity.

If my ISP wants to sell me a 50 mbps, my usage shouldn't be restricted when I try to actually use 50 mbps.

If a road is built in my town then my usage shouldn't be restricted when I try to actually drive on it.

The gov't needs to build more roads or provide better mass transit. If main thoroughfares were doing their jobs then we wouldn't have this problem.

It's not "rude," but it may be dangerous for the residents of that neighborhood. "Rude" would be using a private community's private road to avoid traffic. "Rude" would be cutting through a gas station on a corner intersection to avoid waiting at a red light. If a road is a public road, built to a certain specification (design speed, width, height clearances), then it is wasteful to not use it to it's slated capacity. There might be miscommunication between the Engineering Bureau and Urban Planning Bureau as to the road's/neighborhood's purpose , but that's a policy issue, not an obligation for private citizens to uphold.

The answer here isn't to tell private citizens "don't go here", or for private developers to add carve-outs into their apps for these roads, but to put pressure on politicians and budgetmakers so that they build better transportation infrastructure for all people.

(Personally, I think that private communities in the USA are a ridiculous idea, and are vestiges of codified segregation and redlining practice. Just using it here as an example.)

Driving around a red light like that can be a traffic violation (which goes beyond rude, in the sense that a cop won't write you a ticket for most things that get called rude).

It's an interesting discussion where the frequent answer is to make the roads less functional for the residents (which is what redesigns that prevent through traffic do), because anything less and the road is being wasted.

I might not have given my thoughts full justice above: I think road functionality is a broad concept. I think that it should incorporate a wide array of interests, and not be a Robert Moses-esque, car focused philosophy. That being said, I think that things like neckdowns, pedestrian islands, re-striping and re-directioning of streets are "hard" measures that can be taken to improve functionality for cars, pedestrians (residents), and cyclists, all at the same time. Putting up "no thru traffic" signs is a token gesture, I would wager that these signs are only enforced in high income areas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curb_extension

1 - 2 minutes, sure. But what about 20-30 mins? Would it be OK then?

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