‘We’ve got a-Waze to Go’
Paul Krekorian Seeks to Expand City’s Partnership with Mobile App Waze to Reduce Cut-Through Traffic
LOS ANGELES– Today, City Councilmember Paul Krekorian introduced a City Council motion to expand the city’s partnership with mobile app Waze. He wants to get Waze—which reroutes drivers from high-traffic routes to more open ones—to take steps to reduce the volume of cut-through traffic on residential streets that results from the app’s use. Last week, Mayor Garcetti announced a partnership between the City of Los Angeles and Waze to share up-to-the-minute city traffic data. But concerns about Waze increasing congestion in residential neighborhoods was absent from the discussion.
“Residents in my district and throughout the city have experienced a major uptick in cut-through traffic over the past few years,” said Krekorian. “Many blame Waze and other mobile apps because they divert drivers from major avenues onto small residential streets that aren’t designed to accommodate them, resulting in far greater congestion and traffic for residential neighborhoods. The city’s unprecedented partnership with Waze is a good step forward. We should use it to try to resolve residents’ concerns about Waze and traffic congestion in our neighborhoods.”
Krekorian’s motion says, in part:
The goal of Waze, Google Maps and other internet mapping tools is to maximize the efficiency of public street infrastructure by utilizing unused streets during periods of high traffic congestion. The problem with this approach is that the public street infrastructure is comprised of major avenues and boulevards with high capacity and safety implements for pedestrians like signal lights and crosswalks, but also smaller residential streets that were never designed to accommodate the volume, speed and often carelessness of cut-through traffic.
Krekorian seeks to leverage the city’s new partnership with Waze to reduce the impact of cut-through traffic that results from use of Waze and similar traffic apps.
The motion is attached to this email.
The City Council’s Transportation Committee will discuss the motion in the coming weeks.
Read more about common neighborhood complaints about Waze in this Los Angeles Times article: http://lat.ms/1IkSQcW
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Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Krekorian, member of the Transportation Committee and Metro Board of Directors, represents Council District 2, which includes North Hollywood, Studio City, Valley Village and other communities in the east San Fernando Valley. His website is cd2.lacity.org, where you can sign up for news updates. Visit him on Twitter (@PaulKrekorian) or Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/krekorian
