USA/Great Lakes/Major roads View history

Locking Standard

The following defines a set of minimum locking standards proposed for all roads within the Great Lakes Region. Any road of a certain type or category must be locked at least to the level in the chart below. Roads may be locked higher for protection and special situations (tricky design, frequent mistakes, imaging inaccuracies, and the like), but should not be locked lower.

It is understood that more rural or inactive areas may not yet meet this standard: editors are encouraged to recruit and mentor additional editors to build coverage.

A great time to implement these locks is while bringing the road types of an area into compliance with the current US road type standards (FC and highway systems). Lock the roads based on type after they've been set to current US Road Type Standards.

Great Lakes Minimum Locking Rank Standard
Segment Type Two-way   One-way 
 Freeway  5
 Ramp  Highest lock of connected segment
 Major Highway  3
 Minor Highway  3
 Primary Street  2 3
 Street  1 2
 Private Road  1 2
 Parking Lot Road  1 1see note
 • • • • Ferry • • • •   5
 |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| Railroad |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|  2
 ⁃     ⁃        ⁃        ⁃        ⁃ Runway ⁃        ⁃        ⁃        ⁃        ⁃  5
Other named types 1 2
Construction (outdated imagery) 3
Waze Beacons installed 6

Note: One-way PLRs used outside of parking lots, such as alleys and streets through apartment complexes, should be locked at 2.

Additional Info

Expectations

We understand that higher locks mean there is less available to lower rank and beginning editors. We would like to emphasize that Waze Map Editing is a community activity and, within the US, it is not possible to increase to rank 3 or above without community involvement. It is the responsibility of all members of the editing community to actively reach out, recruit, and mentor new editors.

It is OK to temporarily lock segments below standards for more junior editors. Area Managers are encouraged to monitor their areas for non-standard locks and follow up with other editors on any discrepancies. As a courtesy, any down-locks made outside your area should be brought to the attention of the local area manager.

One-Way Streets

The +1 locks on one-way segments originated as guidance from GLR RC GizmoGuy411 based on trends found while performing Area Manager Reviews: He would encourage editors to +1-lock one-way street/PS in order to explicitly signal, "Yes, the legwork has been done in order to confirm this segment really is one-way, and it's not a soft-directional issue."