I’m new to the advances in parking logs, and I have some questions about editing parking lots.
My first question is about private vs restricted.
For example – I am seeing some parking lots which encompass business complexes, religious centers, etc, marked Private, meaning only “authorized persons” are allowed to park there.
By those rules, if someone is voting at the Trinity Assembly of God Church, signing up their toddler for preschool at the Kesher Israel congregation, or patronizing a business in an office complex, they will not be offered parking in the very lot where they are intended to park.
I think that we’re avoiding mapping lots like those as private for now.
My understanding is a lot marked ‘private’ won’t be suggested and will only come up in searches.
Confidence is just the feeling you have before fully understanding the situation.
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From what I’ve heard from the upper levels (and it is also mentioned in that PL wiki), neither private nor restricted lots will appear in any searches, no matter what you search for. They are intended for future functionality that is still in progress. But we are still supposed to configure lots appropriately, if that means private or restricted, so we don’t have to go back afterwards and fix them all. So, for example, a Burger King parking lot that is for that store only would be Restricted, knowing that this lot will not be suggested for now. A large mall parking lot would be Public. Private would be a resident’s only parking, or an employees only lot at a business, or something like that. Your religious center example to me is analogous to the Burger King lot, Restricted.
I’ve had to reread that wiki page a few times, and I have now gone back and fixed a few lots I had set to “restricted” to “public”, even though I know they’ll have to be fixed to “restricted” at some time in the future (SOON!).
Presumably, some business complexes with a large number of offices sharing the same parking lot, should get the same guidance as shopping malls. They are kind of “business malls”. And what is now marked “private” could be marked “public”. Or, in some cases, “restricted”.
Right now, it seems like the parking suggestions are of limited utility. If I am headed for a shopping mall, I understand that it’s OK to park there, whether Waze suggests the parking garage, surface lot, or nothing.
It’s really for small businesses in city business districts that it is most useful to know whether there is going to be free parking lot behind the place, or if I should start looking for on-street parking a couple of blocks before I reach the destination.
The parking lot project is a bit of a joke right now, IMO. It was released mid-development and a “rush” was put on adding parking lot with little actual functionality. What we do know has mostly been figured out through experimentation.
Marking all lots as public at this point is a bit overkill, especially in a “one-lot, one destination” type scenario. I know where to park if I’m going to Burger King.
Public lots are anything that anyone can park at for any reason. Mostly these are municipal lots (free or pay), private paid parking lots (think garages and lots in urban areas) and the temporary exception due to lack of feature development that includes large frequent destinations where you would want a recommendation to park (think large shopping malls, Philly stadium complex, etc).
Restrict lots are where you’d need to meet some condition, such as customer parking only, like at fast food joint, hotel, etc. I can’t park at the Holiday Inn, walk across the street to McDonald’s for breakfast, and catch a bus to New York, leaving my car.
Private lots would require some form of pre-arranged approval (think gated physician’s only lot at a hospital).
The feature itself is mostly useless in one lot, one destination scenarios but I suspect Waze has bigger plans. Maybe we’ll see those to fruition in 4 years. (I’ve been hearing about state route signs since 3 years ago when I started editing…not holding my breath.) The feature set currently is clearly set up for paid lots or centralized parking, not parking dedicated to a specific location. We’re really trying to force a square peg through a round hole here.
I agree on the square peg comment. And since we don’t have any idea when the feature is going to be finished, and parking lot area places are here to stay, the question is – is there any possible way to use this feature, as it is currently implemented in a way that helps us and other Wazers?
I have seen fast food restaurants with no parking lot in large cities. So it could potentially be a benefit to wazers to let them know, before they start their drive, that they can plan to park on site rather than at the lot in the next block. Until the day comes when we can link restricted parking to the destination place, it might be more useful to make it public whenever possible. The app won’t actually say “you can park here, go watch a movie next door at the cinema with no parking lot, and not worry about your car getting towed”, so i don’t think it will mislead Wazers. Of course, when the restricted feature is actually implemented, seeking out public lots that now need to be marked restricted will creates extra work. But it should not be an emergency. And didn’t most of us start out with a lot of enthusiasm for working on parking lots anyway?
This is not nearly the same priority as getting destination pins or name or address search info correct, of course.
The problem with setting everything as public…is you roll up to a McDonald’s and the screen is littered with a ton of parking lot options that probably 90% are not actually available for you to park at. Offering the Taco Bell across the 6 lane highway as an option isn’t very useful of an option to me because that’s one of the “public” lots in Waze.
If it’s clear where I’m to park when I arrive (such as one destination, one lot scenarios), I’m setting the lot as restricted. If I’m arriving at somewhere large with a variety of parking options, like a mall, stadium complex, or hospital, I’m setting them as public so a driver is offered parking options as they arrive and are assisted with parking.
Agreed, pretty much my guideline. Simple fact is that most PLAs should be restricted, not public. It is my belief that we have way to many public PLAs out there.
Sigh. There really is no good answer.
Public, and it will show as an option for the business across the street,
Restricted, and it will never be offered at all.