Hi there! I am a first time poster here in the forums. Every day I drive from Exit 9 or 10 on the turnpike up to Jersey City. Usually I get off at 14A or 14B, but occasionally if there is something bad going on I go to 15E. Waze would love to take me through Staten Island both on the way to work and on the way home. It can sometimes be shorter, but the tolls, as you probably know are waaaaaaay more than taking the turnpike. I wish there was a way to tell Waze to never take me through NY unless I choose it. Once in a blue moon there is a really bad accident on 78 or something and then in those cases I will go through SI just so I can get home at a reasonable hour.
What do you all think? Is there a way to fix this? I am not a map editor, so I dont think I can do anything myself. Would love to hear what you all have in mind.
Thanks!
Waze is set to take you either the fastest way or the shortest, depending on your settings.
There’s a setting to avoid tolls, but that would cause Waze to attempt to avoid all tolls including the Turnpike. That could be a very long drive.
In Waze we set the on-ramps to tolled roads and the main segment of a tolled bridge as “toll”, and Waze may select a route with fewer tolled segments if the route times are similar. We don’t know what the threshold for ‘similar’ is, and as you said it may be faster to take 440 across Staten Island and up thru Bayonne.
There’s currently no way for Waze to avoid crossing state lines.
I’d suggest you use the “routes” button and select a longer route that doesn’t cross the river if you want to avoid extra tolls via a longer commute.
Confidence is the feeling you have before you fully understand the situation.
(Sent via mobile.)
Thank you! I usually go with the faster route and I never choose the avoid all tolls option since that doesnt work for me either. Anyway, what you said is pretty much what I’ve been doing. Maybe one day Waze will give us an option to avoid travelling through different states. 
Yeah so unfortunately, avoid tolls doesn’t work very well in North NJ because it will often double your travel time, or more. Also, Waze treats all toll collection points as equal, meaning it does not consider costs. So there’s really no way to tell it to use the Turnpike but not the Staten Island crossings.