You may remember Leonia. A borough in Bergen County with a population just over 9,000, it made headlines at the end of 2017 when local officials here did something that no other town in America had done before: It shut off 60 of its public roads during rush hour to non-local drivers. Navigation apps like Google Maps and Waze had made traffic unbearable, said Leonia’s mayor, Judah Zeigler: An estimated 2,000 city-bound motorists were now being rerouted each day through its side streets as a turnpike shortcut. “We have had days when people can’t get out of their driveways,” Leonia’s police chief, Tom Rowe, told The New York Times in December.
Just days after Leonia police began issuing $200 fines to non-local drivers, the nearby town of Weehawken followed its lead, albeit slightly, enacting rush-hour restrictions on a specific right turn in an effort to ease traffic to and from the Lincoln Tunnel. And many other small towns across the country have floated similar complaints about diverted drivers taking over local streets—a growing backlash against the so-called ‘Waze Craze.’ [...]
The biggest issue I heard was about the ban’s effect on local business. In February, several shop owners marched on the mayor’s office to protest the road laws. Some small businesses cited revenue drops as high as 40 percent since December. One employee told me that Leonia was a “ghost town” in the first few weeks after the traffic ordinance was signed. [...]
This might serve as a rare reminder that navigation apps also offer potential economic positives to those communities that find themselves targeted by rerouted drivers, who might come upon eateries or businesses they wouldn’t have found otherwise by using the apps. Gladys Calero, who has owned Rumba Cafe for 15 years, told me that “people from all over” North Jersey come to eat at her cozy Colombian restaurant. But since the restrictions, she has seen a “big decline in foot traffic,” and that every local business she knows has been affected. “There are just less cars here now,” she said. The banner, she said, “was one of the solutions they think will help,” but she’s not holding her breath. “Let’s see when the seasons change,” she told me around lunchtime. “Maybe things will get better.”
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