Tim Connor stands by a sign his neighbor purchased to thwart commuters from cutting through their quiet residential street in Takoma Park, Md. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)
Posted on 06/06/2016 4:17:05 PM PDT by dennisw
“It used to be that only locals knew all the cut-through routes, but Google Maps and Waze are letting everyone know,”
When population growth began to overwhelm a set of major intersections in his district, there was an increase of 45,000 cars a day on some residential streets, as app-armed commuters fought their way to nearby Interstate 85. In response, the city is posting signs to restrict left or right turns at key intersections.
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When the traffic on Timothy Connor’s quiet Maryland street suddenly jumped by several hundred cars an hour, he knew who was partly to blame: the disembodied female voice he could hear through the occasional open window saying, “Continue on Elm Avenue . . . .”
The marked detour around a months-long road repair was several blocks away. But plenty of drivers were finding a shortcut past Connor’s Takoma Park house, slaloming around dog walkers and curbside basketball hoops, thanks to Waze and other navigation apps.
“I could see them looking down at their phones,” said Connor, a water engineer at a federal agency. “We had traffic jams, people were honking. It was pretty harrowing.”
So Connor borrowed a tactic he read about from the car wars of Southern California and other traffic-weary regions: He became a Waze impostor. Every rush hour, he went on the Google-owned social-media app and posted false reports of a wreck, speed trap or other blockage on his street, hoping to deflect the flow.
He continued his guerrilla counterattack for two weeks before the app booted him off, apparently detecting a saboteur in its ranks. That made Connor a casualty in the social-media skirmishes erupting across the country as neighborhoods try to contend with suddenly savvy drivers finding their way on routes that were once all but secret.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Uh, isn’t putting up unauthorized traffic signs illegal?
Waze rocks. It’s a public street, not yours. Also its fun to rat out speed traps. Now we are the hunters!!!
How dare the public use the street they paid for...
This is a major battle in my town, but I think it’s not just Waze.
They’re public roads paid for with fuel and registration taxes.
If they’ve been driving through for months, they’ll merely laugh at his sign. Or the city will arrest him for putting up an illegal sign.
Smarmy Liberal gets his ...
On the one hand, it’s a public road, paid for with taxpayer dollars, and the public has every right to use it. On the other hand, small neighborhood streets are designed for light traffic by the residents - they aren’t big enough to become busy thoroughfares.
Maybe he should try the “slow children playing” sign trick. Severe penalties for hitting one of those “slow children” playing in the street!
I don't even question it any more, if it tells me to go a certain way, I take it.
The traffic will slow down within a year or two. Bankers are lending less to oil companies and requiring them to show more cash. Production is headed towards demand and will cross before long. On the downside for NIMBYs, with consequent government debts piling up faster before long, government funding for their salaries and pensions will be cut, not to mention skyrocketing prices for products.
It will all come out in the wash.
Damn right.
I always ignore ‘no thru traffic’ anyway. It’s a road with intersections at either end paid for, as the other poster notes, with public funds including my own.
Given that this area abuts the District of Columbia, I’m going to go out on a very thick limb here and assume these people believe in global warming and think guns are icky. I’m also going to have a right old laugh at their presumption that they could live in the area without experiencing crushing traffic volumes the same as every other place in the New Rome of the DC area.
Yes, but what about those that are designed and maintained as residential streets? Every city’s general plan has a circulation element. Traffic planners identify arterial routes which are widened striped and signalized for handling high volumes of traffic.
Side streets are built and maintained primarily for the use of the residents.
It ‘s not just a matter of congestion. There is also the issue of safety.
Government worker attempting to rule the world shocker!
Exactly what water is the federal government constitutionally authorized to engineer?
Or is this supercilious wannabe hacker the one telling people that puddles are 'wetlands?'
I wouldn’t be happy myself, if my formerly quiet residential side street suddenly turned into a major thoroughfare.
I love Waze and use it all the time.
I thing that bugs me is that it/Waze goes way to far to avoid traffic. Like having you zig zag along city streets when taking a more direct route would make more sense.
It has shown me a few really cool shortcuts, but over all, I have found Waze to be annoying.
It’s cartoon like interface and inability to show multiple turning lanes or identify cross streets prior to a GPS assertation makes the app annoying.
I do like the Speed Camera alerts.
In Waze We Trust
a month’s long road repair is the issue. That stuff shouldn’t take so long. Tim, take it to your local govt.
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