L5 to L1 - Winterstoke Rd. (Weston-Super-Mare)

My current level - 1

Section level - 5

Looking to sort some of the minor car parking roads out that run off of this road. Parts of the road are set to level 1 which I am able to connect to but other parts have been locked to L5 meaning I cannot connect the roads required.

https://www.waze.com/en-GB/editor/?env=row&lon=-2.96050&lat=51.34029&s=390069719&zoom=6

Further to this. I have added a number of locations/places to the Weston-Super-Mare area that need to be approved by someone L2 or above. This is my home town and these are some key places that would help people find their way to. Especially places like Weston Woods car park which I have added as a point. As currently it tries to guide you to a dead end residential road when you search for Weston Woods on Waze.

https://www.waze.com/en-GB/editor/?env=row&lon=-2.93576&lat=51.35452&s=390069719&zoom=2

Thanks.

Winterstoke Rd relocked at Auto(1). It was locked high when Marchfields Way was first opened as the aerials and the map said different things. That was some time ago and I’ve been remiss in not visiting and fixing these things.

I’ve approved all PURs that I could see, including all those residential places with lousy photos. I think it’s better to have the places on the map with lousy photos than not have them on the map.

Car parks should NOT be mapped as points. Waze wants to offer car parks as destinations and determine when you’ve passed into them. Hence, car parks should always be area places with a parking road taking the user into the area. If you don’t change it, a Map Problem report will be generated. Should there be a road continuing west into Weston Woods? Even if it’s a private drive to the house, it’s still worth mapping so users going to that house aren’t left at the end of Leewood Rd as currently (it’s the nearest segment!).

For large area places like Weston Woods, it’s worth setting the destination point where you want Waze to take people. Here’s how to set that if you weren’t sure - click on the place area and, just below the Description box, there’s an option to Add an Entry/Exit point. Click on that and you’ll see the destination point show up in the middle of the wood as a blue spot. Drag it to the road you want Waze to make people use, then save it.

These next comments are not directed specifically at you, but rather things to look out for when editing generally, as I think you’re the person on the spot and can keep W-S-M up to date. I suspect you’ll have spotted them in the past, but left them alone.

There seemed to be quite a few u-turns enabled - I’ve removed those I spotted. As a policy, we don’t enable u-turns, because many users are too literal and take their sat-nav’s guidance as the thing to do even when their eyes, looking through the windscreen, tell them not to. Also, there aren’t many roads on which you can u-turn. We’ve asked Waze many times to change it to “turn round where safe to do so”, but they won’t. See this thread for a heated discussion on the matter.

Junction of Lyefield Rd with Queensway/Lower Norton Ln - the turn arrows were red for turning onto Lyefield Ln meaning that Waze would not have been able to route anything that way. I enabled all turns at the Queensway/Lower Norton Ln end, but left those at the Newton’s Rd end for you to change. If any vehicles are allowed to use a road, turns should not be prohibited.

Lyefield Ln is restricted for use only by motorbikes and private cars. Waze allows a user to set their vehicle to taxi. Not permitting them means that taxis wouldn’t be routed along there as restrictions are absolute. I haven’t checked Streetview and, as you’re local, you’ll know best, but there may be restrictions from driving certain vehicle types into Lyefield Rd - eg no vehicles over 7.5T, no buses, etc. Better to prohibit vehicle types that can’t use a road than allow types that can.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the detailed response!

I thought that was the case with car parks. WME seems to have a bit of an issue not always showing labelled “areas” unless i’m at a certain zoom/angle to to it. (Bunnings Warehouse just off Queensway next to Argos is not showing up for me now either on WME.) Of which it hadn’t actually shown the original car park area I tried to draw in. Plus it kept bringing up some form of error when trying to map over the Weston woods area due to it being locked to a higher level for some unbeknown reason. I can see the car park area now. Thanks.
In regards to the area in the middle of the woods. It’s not a house but an old utility area with a water tower and phone mast but with a dirt track running to it through the woods via the car-park. It’s used more as a walkway now rather than an access road hence why I have left it for the time being. But may look to plan it in as a private road if at some point there is a UR about it or you deem necessary.

I have been making sure to make use of the entrance/exit points on areas such as this but yet again couldn’t due to the wood originally being set to a higher level.

Plan would be to become a nice localised AM for Somerset at some point. Even it means just dealing with Weston & Clevedon to begin with as there seems to be a lot of small things locally I try sorting out that I know need to be changed but cannot do so due it being locked above my level 1 unfortunately.

Places are, sometimes, a pain, as they seem to disappear once they’ve been edited and you have to zoom out and in, possibly even restart WME to get them to show up.

I hope everything is now locked at their auto lock levels, generally 1, except for the A370 as that is a major highway so our policy is to lock them at L4 to ensure the strategic road network is kept safe. Also the railway, which I’ve downlocked to level 3, again in line with policy on locking.

If you never see vehicles driving down to the water tower and phone mast (I’d have expected there to be some traffic!), then there’s no need to map the track if you have the Weston Woods destination point at the car park. I don’t deem it necessary at all (after all, Waze is targeted at car, not van, drivers), so am happy to leave it totally to your judgement.

Regards