Monrovia resident Rich Fricke recently pounded the pavement to collect dozens of signatures from his neighbors for a petition to ask the city to help slow down street traffic by installing speed bumps.

Fricke and his wife Jennifer hand-picked their Monrovia home years ago because they wanted their kids to grow up on a quiet street. Yet, in recent years, they say their street has become much louder than when they first moved in.

The Fricke family lives steps away from a commuter corner where drivers turn to avoid congested roads. Most drivers are using navigation apps like WAZE, which routes drivers through neighborhoods and creates more traffic on residential streets. 

“Someone has to start somewhere and I figured why not be me,” Fricke said.

In a statement, WAZE said the app was “designed to thoughtfully and carefully reduce traffic by directing drivers away from places that are already congested – not to send everyone down the same route, which would make traffic worse. Our routing algorithm is a combination of machine learning and human refinement - we take into account all the data we have and try to find the most efficient route, taking into account roads, historic and real-time speeds, incidents, road types, map quality, and multiple other inputs. The goal of the algorithm is to find the best balance between speed and safety.”

The statement also pointed to ways its worked with other communities to curb neighborhood congestion.

Luckily for Fricke,  traffic will soon be slowing down in his neighborhood because city official recently told him that speed bumps will be installed by late January.