Waze likes to take you through there and after I did it once and sat there for like 15 minutes in rush hour I never did again.

Ha, good!

It won’t anymore!

[removed]

Just currious, but how?
A sign won't stop me. I can't read

We suggest not trying to drive through the concrete barriers.

If they're serious they could put a physical roadblock halfway down the street. So residents can get in and out either end, but you have to exit the same side you enter.

Are you the same team that ran the health department reddit?

Sir, this is the Department of Transportation.

u/BmoreCityDOT ... this is the type of sas we need. Not the sas we desrve.

Btw ,side note. I noticed a shit tone of cars today on the promanade near little italy and peir 5. Do you know what is up with that?

You’re running a social media account, I don’t think it’s a dumbass question. Irrelevant and not important, sure, but you didn’t need to meme him for it.

As someone who lives pretty much exactly halfway down List, a physical roadblock halfway down the street would be a truly terrible idea. A speed bump would be welcome!

I really doubt they will install anything like that, but that's the way to stop drivers for real. We all know paint on the road or signs on posts do absolutely nothing to slow down a determined asshole.

This is good news for that area. Thank you. How can we get this kind of help in our neighborhood? I drive by multiple car crashes every day by Caton Avenue and Benson Avenue in the southwestern part of the city. I have three pt patients from car crashes on my roster. The local leaders are gung ho about trucks trucks trucks yet do nothing to help pedestrians and car drivers. I believe there should be wider intersections and more traffic monitoring if there will be more trucks in the neighborhood from the new truck companies. I don’t feel comfortable walking around the hospital because of the numerous truck accidents, and incidents where trucks drive onto the sidewalks.

Is there a form I can complete to request a traffic study? I tried the 311 request that was denied because I didn’t have the support of the local group.

Ok Karen

oh no my internet clout how will i recover.

Small minds can only think of small worlds.

Thank you for prioritizing people over cars!

What's the process to have your street closed to thru traffic? GPS constantly tries to route semi trucks down our narrow street with tight corners, which has caused several trucks to hit resident vehicles or get stuck and have to reverse back down the street and risk more damage. People also think it's a shortcut and fly down the road like they're drag racing. One of my neighbors' kids is going to get run over if we don't get some traffic calming or completely close it.

Thats just a candy cane…

Oh, oh! I have a question for you regarding Waze specifically: Do you guys communicate with Waze or any of the local volunteer editors? Aggressive routing like this can sometimes be mitigated by updating metadata of intersections on the map. Obviously it often makes sense to close through traffic like in this case, but perhaps sometimes there are map tweaks that can be made to help alleviate smaller routing problems.

I wanna frostie

Were any other improvements made in the area regarding stop lights? Often times city stop lights and intersections do not align and it backs up traffic tremendously throughout, so I can understand when people cut along side streets.

wholesome

I love that now that now that millenials and zoomers run the world, everything is responded to with jokes/memes. Like, if we're all going to be destitute, underpaid and overcharged for everything in life, with the world on the brink of total collapse, we might as well make dumb jokes from official accounts cause fuck it.

Have you emailed or sent a message to your local representative? They might be able to assist you.

You’re welcome! That is part of our complete streets program.

This is the correct answer. Talk to your councilperson.

But also, we deserve it.

Merry Christmas to the residents of List Avenue.

When is the leading pedestrian interval pilot starting? I was promised one at 29th and Huntingdon a few months ago.

Well, this isn’t just a Waze update. Concrete barriers are being placed.

But yes; we work very closely with Waze reps and traffic professionals. We have a partnership with them, and any and all closures (temporary and permanent) you see us announcing are getting uploaded to Waze so you can use it to navigate around them.

We’re out of McNuggets.

Stoplights timing is something we work on perpetually, yes.

/r/wholesometransportation

At least we’ll have quiet, pedestrian-friendly roads. Net gain?

> Well, this isn’t just a Waze update. Concrete barriers are being placed.

Yep, I totally got that (The "try not to drive through the concrete barrier" comment is the best thing to come out of official City communication channels in the history of forever). But more clarification never hurt anyone, so thanks for communicating that!

> But yes; we work very closely with Waze reps and traffic professionals. We have a partnership with them, and any and all closures (temporary and permanent) you see us announcing are getting uploaded to Waze so you can use it to navigate around them.

That's cool to hear. One note: Your answer specifically mentions road closures, but my question was more about mitigation of aggressive routing in cases where road closures are not done. Is that something you also work on with Waze reps?

Nope. We are only working with road closures at this time. Waze is constantly updating the map itself, so we’re providing them with the most up-to-date data of whatever we’re physically doing on the ground so they can do what they’re best at.

You mean when we're all dead? Sure.

But we both know the better gain would be more/better public transit so that the roads were quiet because people weren't on them but still alive.

Any word on the red line coming back with Wes Moore?

When your councilperson yells at DOT as consistently as Dorsey does to get this stuff installed. That's the only reason this is happening.

Okidoke, will do. Thank you.

How long ago was the request denied? Do you still have the reference number?

Interesting!

> Waze is constantly updating the map itself

I'm a part of that. For the past few years, I've been pretty active as a volunteer map editor for the city. I've added thousands of updates and additions, especially in East Bmore. One challenge is the fact that unfortunate routing problems are somewhat obfuscated from us. But if we were able to have broader insight into where we should mitigate these kinds of issues, it'd be great for Waze users and hopefully for city traffic in general!!

Oversimplified explanation: we have several different metadata we can apply to intersections and road segments which can impact how aggressive the routing algorithm will be with them. If we know about where there are likely problems with routing, we can work to improve them!

I don't necessarily want to add to your (likely considerable) burden, but I wonder if it'd be okay to suggest something like this: Would you guys consider sharing information regarding traffic patterns with the volunteers or reps?

We’re so serious that we put a barrier at the beginning of the street. 😊

I love it!

List avenue has become a giant bendy straw and can only be used for giant milkshakes now.

We are so grateful for your work!

What we’d like to be able to do is share that data directly with Waze themselves so that they can make appropriate changes. The progressional relationship is rather new, but we’re planning on doing even more with them.

That's great! I'll stop bugging you after this, I promise, but I had one more thought.

What about publishing on https://data.baltimorecity.gov/? That would be amazing.

Waze rep here, the “aggressive routing” is due to the No Turn On Red restriction at the light at Cold Spring/Harford. You could lift that restriction, at the peril of pedestrians (hint: don’t do this) and solve the problem. You could also (and should) make List Ave one way eastbound and put a No Left Turn restriction at the east end, effectively negating the usefulness of the cut through. The barrier option could have unintended consequences like impacts to emergency vehicles (and it looks low budget.)

We do not like being yelled at. Please don’t encourage more people to yell us, it doesn’t help.

The police department could start issuing traffic violations again. Then over time people would learn you can't just ignore the laws.

Maybe we should put more of those benches that say, “the city that reads”, at the intersection.

This is interesting! I have heard folks in my neighborhood say that Google and Waze route people through Medfield via Grandview Ave when 83 is slow. Is that the sort of thing you’re looking for?

If that’s what you’re looking for, and you haven’t already, perhaps reach out to community associations. Those groups will likely know if GPS routing is an ongoing issue in their area.

I have the 311 references numbers, multiple reference numbers, in my desk at home. I will send them to you, thank you for the help. Like I said the local leaders love the new big trucks, my guess is those companies make campaign donations. The pedestrians, cyclists and car users suffer. Even the infrastructure suffers, street signs knocked down, areas of Caton Avenue disintegrated from the heavy trucks. I have a file of the reference numbers I can share. Thank you.

Yes; send them to us and we can at least look them up.

Unrelated to the specific post, but I appreciate you guys communicating thru here. There have been a couple posts that have been helpful/useful info.

We’re working hard at being more responsive; as well as talking about all the good stuff we do.

We do a TON. But we don’t always talk about it enough. We’re working on getting better at that.

I don't think anyone wants to yell but the only time we've ever had any long DOT promised installation ever occur in my community it was because we threatened to sue or complained loudly enough someone finally listened.

Trying to work collaboratively? Yeah. My community is doing that right now and is about to lose a $50k grant DOT wrote a letter of support for because DOT is over a year late on even answering emails when they were supposed to install their part of the grant already.

So, it's going to have to come down to being loud and mad again.

Btw, do orange stickers means something is getting towed? There’s been a heroin brothel trailer in a no stopping zone on Buena Vista Ave in Hampden for two weeks that I noticed finally has an orange sticker.

Oh yeah, that's a great example!

For reaching out to community associations, that's definitely something we do to some degree. Neighborhood facebook groups are another good resource.

Unfortunately, adding different individuals and groups makes a complex web of communication. The idea of getting some level of communication or data directly from the city DOT, which can quantify, collate, and highlight trends is so exciting because it lets us get more meaningful data, that's higher quality, with some expectation of consistency, without needing to navigate a network of complaints and hearsay gathered from a network of different sources.

Cool post! Thanks for the update and communication, DOT.

You're very welcome, o00A00o,

So your closing a public street to traffic ,You know the thing that the roadway is intended for ? So lets just put up barriers at every enterance to the city so people have to walk and that will reduce accidents .

I feel like Harford has been closed for construction at that spot for like 3 years now. Wouldn’t opening that road back up also remove the List Ave. problem? Or am I missing key info here

Can I get a uuuhhhhhhh gordita crunch

More tertiary streets should have this implemented.

Awesome!

Roads are for feet, bikes, and buses, not cars. You're right, it's a public street, so limit it to public transit.

The upshot is- Because some people can't follow the rules or be nice - all must suffer the consequences.

Thank you. I send the reference number through the messages several days ago. Did you receive it?