From all outward signs visible at the level I can see from (which as an R4 is not that much), development has apparently fully ceased moving forward on the parking project.
We have gobs of PLAs all over the map that don’t seem to functionally provide any value. Of the PLA’s mapped, very few of them are truly “public” lots, the vast majority we have mapped are in practice restricted or private. Yet in the app, large numbers of those private and restricted lots are incorrectly set as public lots by well-intentioned editors, which is misleading, and more often than not also confusing…
…such as when you’re navigating to a standalone private residence and the app tries to helpfully suggest the nearest parking lot, which happens to be a for a fast food joint or other random unrelated carpet cleaning business located several blocks away whose lot is incorrectly set as a Public type, or…
…when you are navigating to a business that actually does have an associated mapped PLA that is appropriately set to restricted to keep everyone else from parking there, but since it is not a public lot, it is not suggested as a parking option in the app.
To your average app user, these two constant scenarios make Waze look seriously clueless.
And then of course there are all the Wazers trying to helpfully add place photos, but who end up finding a parking lot to navigate to instead of the place itself (the PLA often comes out on top in search results), and who then submit pictures of a business or building that gets attached to the PLA instead. Not helpful.
Does anyone “in the know” have any insight as to whether this project is ever going to be revived and seen through? Because if it is going to instead remain dead in the water in its half-baked state, I’d really like to see guidance updated to reflect how we’re going to use them going forward.
color=#BF0000 My proposal? Only map PLAs that are either:
(1) Truly general purpose lots open to anyone for any reason, whether they are free or pay-to-park. These are the lots that are helpful when they appear blue in the app near your destination when you really need one of them.
(2) Specifically named or otherwise identified lots that are part of a larger complex, where a Wazer would plausibly need to find that specific lot and would search for it by its name. Examples: “Smith College Green Lot”, “HealthPlus Parking Lot 4”, etc.
If it doesn’t meet either of those criteria, they bring (in my opinion) virtually zero value to the map and are essentially nothing more than clutter. (/EDITED)[/color]
I freely acknowledge living in my sheltered little world and that I probably don’t have all the facts and that there are other uses for them that people like, so let’s hear them.
Aaaaaaand… discuss… while I run for cover.