For motorists, GPS navigators have become essential. Thanks to Waze, TomTom, Google Maps or Apple Maps you avoid traffic jams and are informed in real time about traffic conditions. In case of heavy traffic on a highway, national highway or highway, this software suggests taking small roads.
For the residents of the area, these boaters have transformed their quiet daily lives into a real nightmare during rush hours, long weekends and vacation periods. The lanes, previously little used, are invaded by an avalanche of vehicles. These roads are not suitable for this type of crowding, which causes inconvenience and insecurity.
Anti-GPS chains and barriers
In Valence, on the Lautagne plateau, in Drôme, the neighbors can’t take it anymore. Two years ago, during the Ascension weekend, a count showed that the flow of vehicles had increased by 375%, recalls the Dauphiné. This road was not suitable for this type of traffic, especially because part of it is dirt.
For this reason, last year, the mayor of Valence, Nicolas Daragon, issued a radical decree. To discourage people from taking this shortcut, he installed chain-tied barriers at the entrance to these routes at the busiest times of the day.
These barriers were lowered this Tuesday starting at 7 p.m. and will be lowered until Sunday night, the end of this long weekend of May 8 and 9. Only local residents and employees working in this area can access it by making a short detour.
“This decision makes it possible to limit the use of inappropriate roads during important exits on the A7 and A49,” explains the Valence city council.
If the measure is drastic, it has the advantage of being as firm as the one adopted in Lieusaint, in Seine-et-Marne. The mayor of this town has installed six traffic lights to “discourage” motorists diverted by Waze.
Cheat the algorithm
In other regions, residents go to great lengths to discourage motorists from taking shortcuts that pass near their homes. Exasperated, some residents even go so far as to try to trick the apps’ algorithm. They indicate police checkpoints or imaginary traffic jams. Sometimes the rope is too big and this technique doesn’t work for long.
Sometimes app shortcuts become a nightmare for those who follow them. In 2022, in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, the route proposed by Waze took cars and trucks through a small street under construction causing traffic jams in the city center.
The same situation in Cornebarrieu (Haute Garonne), on the Chemin d’Uliet, a small road created in the 19th century to allow farmers to access their fields, as La Dépêche reported in an article published in 2018. This agricultural step is It became an alternative to National 224 where heavy vehicles got stuck. Among the solutions proposed at the time, is to transform this road into a dead end. Apparently, this idea was not finally accepted.
The problem is not limited to France. In the United States, the town of Leonia, New Jersey, has decided to limit traffic on certain streets to residents in the morning, from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., and at the end of the day, from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. An alternative route that many motorists working in New York used to take.
Source: BFM TV
