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Does the introduction of paid fast lane as replacement of the carpool lane increase or decrease the traffic speed? was closed because:

the same issue will face anyone (citizen, expat, traveler) on the road.

What is our stance on questions about roads/driving that anyone will face anyone (citizen, expat, traveler)? On-topic or off topic?

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  • I went with the reason already stated but in my opinion is the change of speed when the rules change not a travel question. So two reasons and for me the reason I put here is stronger than the other one.
    – Willeke Mod
    Feb 11, 2021 at 20:17
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    I’m sorry, @Willeke, I don’t understand your comment.
    – DavidSupportsMonica
    Feb 11, 2021 at 20:28

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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It feels to me like it's more a road rules / statistics question, rather than a problem faced by the OP related to travelling.

While we do have a traffic tag, it's for questions faced by travellers IN traffic, eg how to cross a busy street as a pedestrian (something that I personally faced in Iran and Egypt when there were 7 lanes and no obvious place to cross - but then you follow the locals and just walk confidently).

We don't always have a definitive stance, a lot just form from the community, and judging by the voting, the community has given their stance.

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  • "Judging by the voting, the community has given their stance." -> was closed by a mod.
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Feb 11, 2021 at 20:46
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    @FranckDernoncourt Not the close votes, I meant the "up/down" votes.
    – Mark Mayo
    Feb 11, 2021 at 23:57
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    (checks) and there were two other close votes before the mod got to it.
    – Mark Mayo
    Feb 11, 2021 at 23:58
  • The mod did wait till the community had given their stance before voting to close, said mod did not think the question fits TSE from the first time she saw it.
    – Willeke Mod
    Feb 12, 2021 at 15:44
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    @Willeke why not wait till the community closes it? I see 2 close votes from the committee and 2 reopen votes from the committee. And there are fewer people allowed to reopen questions than people allowed to close questions.
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Feb 13, 2021 at 6:29
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    Mods have the duty to keep the site within the SE rules and keep the questions on topic. Your follow-up question on this one, the number of people per car one, is also not clearly on topic and got already on the close list with just 20 views. Clear sign to me, given you time to adjust.
    – Willeke Mod
    Feb 13, 2021 at 9:43
  • @Willeke the other question is on topic since i is useful for the traveler to know whether they have to make any kind of declaration regarding the vehicle occupancy.
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Feb 13, 2021 at 15:53
  • They only need to know how to report the number of people in the car (or whether it is not needed, your question is about how the technical side is, without asking how to report the number of people in the car.
    – Willeke Mod
    Feb 13, 2021 at 19:07
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    @Willeke The rules are defined by the community and revealed through the votes. Moderation means dealing with spam, gibberish, hate speech, etc. Moderators are not there to force their views on the community or act as editor-in-chief. I know you are clearly having some difficulties with it but if you need some guidance, ask yourself this: is the closure going to be consensual? If a question (is likely to) gathers any “keep open” vote or is asked by an experienced user, it's not a mod's place to close it (and I say this without fundamentally disagreeing with the outcome in this case).
    – Relaxed
    Mar 13, 2021 at 18:04
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    See also travel.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6450/…
    – Relaxed
    Mar 13, 2021 at 18:08
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Practical questions about traffic that any one will face ought to be fine, it's still a form a travel. The main problem with this one is that it is mostly about policy, it could probably have been asked on politics.SE instead. The fact that it got a great answer further shows that it wasn't inherently a bad question.

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  • I partly disagree with this. IMHO a question on Travel.se should be an explicit situation that I as a traveler will face within the context of a trip, and that has a definite, practical answer. In the context of the this particular question, it is not about travel per se, but about a situation that only a resident would typically be concerned about. Thus I think that closing it is the correct response, in the same way that Travel.se also closes/migrates questions related to immigration. However I do agree that the provided answer was of a high quality.
    – Peter M
    Mar 17, 2021 at 19:58
  • @PeterM I happen to think we are way too agressive in migrating questions from people who reside abroad but as I wrote, I agree this one could have been migrated (to politics). I am not sure I see your point about residents, though. What's a traveler in your view? If I am a resident but I go for a week-end to a part of the country I am not familiar with, is that OK? If it's only for a day trip? What about a genuine problem faced by a bona fide tourists that could be of interest to residents (there are many of those)?
    – Relaxed
    Mar 18, 2021 at 13:27
  • My point is that traveling in your own country is still travel, residence is neither here nor there and we don't need to create complex rules to sort out which questions are acceptable. The only reason to close this particular question is that it's a policy question, it's not a practical question faced by anyone. On the other hand, being about domestric travel/travel around your home should not be a reason to close questions, especially good questions (it's not like we are risking litering the site with poor questions).
    – Relaxed
    Mar 18, 2021 at 13:31
  • I was trying to make a distinction between travel and tourism related activities vs everything else. This is not location constrained, as it is valid for me to ask a question about a museum in my home town. OTOH I don't think that asking about changes in commute times in general is valid travel/tourism question. But asking about travel times between two concrete locations related to travel/tourism is a valid question (EG how long to get from down town to the airport - this also meets your interest to residents criteria).
    – Peter M
    Mar 18, 2021 at 14:40
  • @PeterM We definitely cover business travel as well. I tend to agree that commuting is stretching the definition, maybe a question about commuter rail cards would be off topic. But that's not the main problem with the question at hand (and, realistically, it's been downvoted because people are annoyed at the OP, which I am too at times but that's not a good reason to change the site's rules).
    – Relaxed
    Mar 18, 2021 at 15:08
  • I agree about business travel (that slipped past me), but my daily commute isn't business travel). Although buying/finding the cheapest travel pass would be. That's why I favor simple, practical and definitively answerable questions above all. Once past that gate whether the topic is suitable for Travel.se should be obvious. As for annoyance, I try to keep out of that realm if only for the sake of my own mental health. But while I'm not trying to change the rules, I have my ideas of what makes a suitable question - but then again the other quadrillion users have their own ideas
    – Peter M
    Mar 18, 2021 at 15:22
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    Questions about commuting have historically been on topic here. That said, I agree, and I say this as the person who answered it, that this question isn't really about travel or commuting; it's fundamentally about the reasons behind policy and highway engineering and not an actual problem travelers face. This is different from a question about how to use express lanes, which is a practical question about how to operate a system used by travelers and commuters.
    – Zach Lipton
    Mar 21, 2021 at 9:02
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    That said, I can't really find a good reason to distinguish this question from the popular and well-received Why is the subway in Seoul so cheap? besides, as Relaxed notes, the reaction to the OP.
    – Zach Lipton
    Mar 21, 2021 at 9:06
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I think we should judge the questions for the questions, not for the answers.

The answer might apply to both travellers and locals but the question is specific to the travellers.

Road questions are the typical example of it. While 'how to safely cross the street in country X' applies both to locals and travellers, no local would ask such a question in internet. Because it's something you learn as a kid. And if you still have no idea, just any of your friends and you get the answer. But a traveller neither was tought that things like a child nor knows anyone who has.

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