I have been a user of Waze for a long time, and work on the L7009 that brings you past Crossabeg parish. In the last 6 months, the road has become increasingly busy with a constant stream of cars and trucks, as well as a number of accidents at the junction putting you out from the L7009 to the N11.
It came to my attention that recently when using Waze to travel from Castlebridge to Enniscorthy, that Waze is guiding me to use the L7009 to the N11 instead of the L3005 like it usually would. My theory is that because on paper, it may be a faster route (even if negligible) however in reality, it’s a much more risky route especially for those with trucks/lorrys etc. The L7009 is a small road going tight in parts, very busy during school hours, very bumpy and rough, and the junction from the L7009 onto the N11 is blind and has resulted in a number of accidents recently, some of which were fatal. Originally, Waze would keep you on the L3005 right up until the N11, to which you arrive at a much safer junction with very wide open visibility - as well as a much smoother and straighter drive as opposed to the caution needed on the L7009.
I was wondering if anyone could map it so that Waze is keener to keep you on the L3005 if you’re heading for the N11 instead of diverting you through the L7009. Almost everyone I know who owns a car uses Waze these days, so I’m curious to see if it makes an impact to the traffic we’ve been experiencing here lately.
As it turns out, the L3005 already has a higher routing priority than the L7009, although if you’re going from Castlebridge to Enniscorthy you can see why it might be marginally faster, because it is about 600m shorter.
I just looked at the L7009 in Street View and it actually doesn’t look too bad to me. The L3305 is certainly a bit better, but I do notice that the L7009 has a white line down the middle for most of its length and it’s wide enough for two cars to pass without having to slow down significantly.
Unfortunately, Waze usually favours the faster route, so as long as the L7009 is faster, even if only marginally, it’ll favour that. If most traffic took longer along there, then Waze would stop favouring so much.
If the L7009 was narrow enough that meeting another car required pulling into a ditch or reversing to let is pass, then there’d be some scope for downgrading it, but it doesn’t meet that test. Before we downgrade a road like that, it would have to me VERY narrow. If I did downgrade it, then somebody else would probably come along and undo my change.