OK, here we go. Completely overhauled the article to incorporate the discussion to date.

Very challenging to compress the language to 8th-grade level, and I'm not sure I succeeded, but good practice for someone like me who gets wordy too easily.

*****

Walking Trails

Surprisingly, the Walking Trail road type is much less useful than it might seem, and should be avoided in most situations.

The WME lists the Walking Trail road type as non-drivable. However, as of May 2015, Walking Trails are fully routable and even support Waze House Numbers. Waze treats them in some ways like "Dirt road / 4X4 Trail" but displays them differently. Historically, editors have disconnected Walking Trails to make sure Waze doesn't route drivers over them. This doesn't always work as desired. If a disconnected Walking Trail comes closer to a destination than any other road, Waze may route drivers to a location nearer to the Walking Trail than to the destination. This problem can be severe for Walking Trails passing close to many destinations in a dense neighborhood. Connected or not, the Walking Trail type should never be used where effects on local routing are not desired.

The name "Walking Trail" suggests that Waze wants to support pedestrians and cyclists. However, as of April 2015, Waze focuses on drivers of motor vehicles and has no plans to encourage or support any other application. In fact, pedestrians and cyclists using the Waze app may damage Waze. By Wazing at speeds different from the traffic, they can create false traffic indications and even influence Waze's records of average road and turn speeds.

Because of this effect, editors should not map Walking Trails, or any other road type, for the sole purpose of encouraging non-driving Wazers. See the descriptions of other non-drivable road types for recommended applications of those types.

If the GPS Points layer shows clearly that pedestrians and cyclists already use Waze on a path or trail that lies parallel to a drivable road, then, as of May 2015, the path may be mapped with a Pedestrian Boardwalk. Doing so will limit the damage these Wazers would otherwise cause to the road's speed data. Such paths should only be mapped once it is clear Wazers regularly use them.

Applications

In rare cases, connected Walking Trails can bring drivers to destinations where otherwise Waze might fail to offer the best route. For example:

• A music pavilion in a large or urban park accessed by a pedestrian path from a distant parking lot.
• A train station reachable from either side of the tracks but with no drivable road across them.
• A destination addressed on a non-drivable footpath.

A connected Walking Trail may be used to route drivers to such destinations. If the Walking Trail goes through from one drivable road to another, ensure that outgoing turn restrictions are red, or that the roads on both sides are private or parking-lot roads, to disallow through routing via the Walking Trail. Lock the Walking Trail as this is uncommon usage that may puzzle other editors.

Orientation or destination applications involving foot or bicycle paths that do not require routing, such as marking where an obvious bicycle path crosses a road or where a trailhead is located, should not use the Walking Trail type. Use Pedestrian Boardwalks or Point Places as appropriate.

Naming

If destinations are addressed using House Numbers on a Walking Trail, it is essential that the Walking Trail's name and city fields be set accordingly so that routing to the addresses will work. For other routing situations, Walking Trails should be named to alert drivers that they must leave their car. For example, a Walking Trail connecting the two sides of a train station may be named "Station Access Path".

OK, how about this for the summary paragraph. I am really not used to writing this way...

Walking Trails are helpful only in rare cases. It sounds strange, but the Walking Trail road type should not be used to map ordinary walking trails and bike paths. In fact, most walking trails and bike paths should not be mapped with any road type, because pedestrians and cyclists using Waze can damage it. Walking Trails can have unexpected results. They should only be mapped with expert advice. Avoid using Walking Trails in most situations.

OK, I will incorporate this into the wiki in a few days if there are no further comments. Yay!

We should probably have a different thread for Pedestrian Boardwalks...? Or maybe a combined thread for both Pedestrian Boardwalk and Stairway.

As someone who rides on occasion, I can tell you I have no interest in using Waze while doing so. This horse is far too intelligent and the moment my attention is elsewhere he will pursue his own agenda! Kidding aside, I don't think the wiki needs to reference equestrian uses of Waze, unless it is a bit of hyperbole to hammer the point home.

The agreed-upon text, with very slight wordsmithing tweaks, is now in the wiki:

https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Road_types/U ... ing_Trails

Also, I have restored (and completely overhauled) the corresponding section in the Incorrect Edits article:

https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Incorrect_ed ... ing_Trails

The Road Types (USA) section still has the old photo. I have an idea for an alternate, I will scope it out this week. Of course if someone else has an ideal image in mind, great.

I believe we have pretty well determined now that, in the few cases where the Walking Trail type is to be used at all, it should be connected. A question to discuss in the (forthcoming?) Pedestrian Boardwalks and Stairways thread is whether those types should be connected or disconnected.

In any event I hope that, now that the text has reached the wiki, we can move forward with a perspective on Walking Trails that is consistent across different regions and clear to new and advanced editors alike. Yay! And, phew.

With the Walking Trail text in place, I realized that the "Non-Drivable Roads" preamble is no longer accurate. I'd like to make the following changes, in italics.

****

Non-drivable roads

Your car should not be here!

• As of April 2015 the Waze app is intended only for drivers of motor vehicles, and Waze has no plans ever to support any other application. Using Waze while walking or cycling near drivable roads can damage Waze's speed and traffic database. Editors should not map any road type for the sole purpose of encouraging non-driving Wazers.
• Driving Wazers may find some non-drivable roads displayed on the app useful as points of reference when navigating, such as seeing where a turn is in relation to a railroad crossing or to a major non-vehicle route such as a Rails-to-Trails right-of-way.
• If the GPS Points layer shows frequent improper Wazing on non-vehicle routes near drivable roads, marking these routes with a Pedestrian Boardwalk can be useful to prevent damage to Waze's speed and traffic database for the nearby roads.
• If a base map scan has non-drivable routes on it, it is important these be disconnected and marked with non-drivable road types to prevent traffic routing onto them.
• The Walking Trail road type, although listed as non-drivable, is fully routable and should only be used by experts in very limited cases.
• The non-drivable road types of Pedestrian Boardwalk, Stairway and Runway/Taxiway should not have any type of junction with a drivable road. Because of the way the routing engine uses a penalty system, Waze will route users to drive on these "Non-drivable" road types if they are connected to drivable roads. When crossing a drivable road, the non-drivable road should be bridged across without a junction between them and set at a different Elevation.

****

I'm not too sure about that last paragraph, whether it is still necessary not to junction Pedestrian Boardwalks and Stairways. But that's a separate topic from Walking Trails.

Look OK?

voludu2 wrote:Would it be OK to entirely remove the image from the section
https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Road_types/U ... ing_Trails

I feel it is confusing, as it presents the idea that things that look like a walking/biking trail are actually meant to have something to do with walking trails, which is very nearly the OPPOSITE of the idea we want to get across in this section.

I'm in complete agreement with you. How about commenting it out using the HTML <!-- and --> delimiters, makes it easy to put a new one in when the time comes.

The location I thought would make a good photo I've had second thoughts about, and other things have been on my mind. I don't believe we can put a Google SV image in owing to copyright restrictions. Hmmm.

But in the meantime I'm completely in favor of commenting out the current image.

SeZAKxing wrote:I would think mapping walking trails would prevent adjacent roads from getting false speed data.

Yes, except we mustn't use the Walking Trail type anywhere we don't want potential effects on routing. But, we can use PB for those cases. The fifth paragraph reads:

If the GPS Points layer shows clearly that pedestrians and cyclists already use Waze on a path or trail that lies parallel to a drivable road, then, as of May 2015, the path may be mapped with a Pedestrian Boardwalk. Doing so will limit the damage these Wazers would otherwise cause to the road's speed data. Such paths should only be mapped once it is clear Wazers regularly use them.

SeZAKxing wrote:And a properly placed place target would fix the routing issue.

On a case-by-case basis perhaps, but what is the tradeoff? What does a Walking Trail (or any non-drivable road type) that serves no routing, orientation, or destination function for drivers, but only encourages pedestrians and cyclists, buy us in exchange for all that work nudging Point Places and responding to URs resulting from as-yet un-nudged Point Places? Mostly what it buys us is Wazers thinking it's OK to run Waze while walking and biking, which it most definitely is not.

SeZAKxing wrote:If only there was a way to lock non-mapped walking trails so new editors wont map them.............
Can we get a "erase" tool to remove viable walking trails from the sat. layer?

I'll second that

It was behaving as diagrammed as recently as mid-April. My test location has been modified, however. I've adjusted it and will double-check as soon as the tile rebuild is in place.

The behavior I saw in mid-April resulted from use of a Google pin, not a Waze Place. I wonder if that has anything to do with it? We'll see once the tile rebuilds on my test area.

As it seems uncontroversial and there has been no objection, I've commented out the photograph associated with the Walking Trail road type.

Also, as these also seemed uncontroversial, I have updated the "Your car should not be here!" bullet points along the lines of my earlier suggestion, but with a fair bit of wordsmithing. The two major differences from my original suggestion are:

1. The reference to the base map has been removed altogether. The rules for applying road types are the same regardless of whether one is starting from a raw, untouched area or not.

2. The bullet point on not junctioning PB/Stairway/Runway has been qualified with an {{As of}} template and a note saying it is subject to change. I would recommend that, when the time comes to re-open that conversation, a new thread specific to those road types be opened rather than continuing under the Walking Trail title.

And, I have not touched the original bullet point regarding misrouting behavior due to non-drivable roads. It needs updating but I wanted to get these other changes out first.