When an event occurs that causes a road to be closed, it is important to know that we have a closure system in place to properly close the road and return the road to normal when the closure is over. There is no need to take the closure into your own hands using restrictions.
Closure or Restictions?
There will be times we will use restrictions to a road being set for closure. If the road has a Scheduled Restriction that occurs like clockwork restricting access during certain times of the day or months of the year, it would be a restriction. You can also set Turn Restrictions for turns that need to be restricted certain times of the day. These are all restrictions because they are standard road limitations that occur on a regular basis.
On the flip side, if the road is being closed due to an event such as construction, a parade, or a natural disaster, we need to create a Closure. Keep reading to see if what you have needs to have a closure in place.
When is a closure required?
This is really dependent on a few simple requirements. First of all, does it require a direction of traffic to be impacted at all? This is important because an actual lane of traffic closed does not necessarily mean a closure is needed if traffic still goes the direction(s) it would normally travel; however, this still could be important if access from the side of the road that is closed is restricted (such as exit ramps and connecting streets). One thing to consider is that a divided highway, in most cases, needs no closures if it affects one of the sides of the highway and all traffic is moved to the other lane unless there is a significant split in the road. In a lot of cases, nothing will need to be altered to make this work.
Bottom line: if the closure will restrict access to a certain direction of the road, restrict access to the road completely, or has a limited connection to a closed road it will require a closure.
Tools
In Minnesota, there is not a single location to find all road closing; however, we have included a series of links to multiple city, county, and state resources. These Tools will help find any upcoming closures throughout Minnesota. Also, check our Current Closures to see if an anticipated closure is already being recognized.
Report a Closure
Is there an upcoming closure that is not listed, is Waze is trying to drive you through roads that should be closed, or do we have a closure set for a road that is now open? Let us know so we can add it to the system -- Report Closures
Update Requests
An Update Request (UR) is a Map Issue reported by a user from the Waze client app. It is also a layer in the Map Editor. See update requests for more information.
As of February 2018, Minnesota has adopted a 1/4/7 (a.k.a. 4/3) system for response to Update Requests. This standard is consistent with the rest of the Plains Region, along with a number of other states.
Day 1
We typically want to answer a report within 24 hours, but this should be at least attempted within the first 3 days.
The first thing to do is to look at the UR and try to figure out the issue that happened. It is imperative to look at everything before ultimately deciding that you don't get it. If you click on More Information you can look at the Waze provided route and what the user took to determine this issues. Check the area roads for any restrictions, incorrect elevation, incorrect street names, bad geometry, etc.
If you can figure out the issue, Fix it or submit an unlock request!
Example:
"Volunteer editor here… thanks for your report! I made a few edits here to improve future routing. It should be available in the app within about a week. Feel free to report any other issue you find along your travels. Thanks!"
If you don't have enough information to solve the issue, ask the reporter for more information.
Example
"Volunteer editor here - unfortunately Waze did not give us much information about your issue. Could you tell us more about what went wrong? What was your final destination? Thanks!"
Day 4
If the reporter has not responded 4 days after the initial comment, post a reminder like the one below. Sometimes a reporter simply misses the initial comment, and a reminder might come at just the right time to trigger a response with more detail.
Example
Just checking in - if there's still an issue we should look into, please reply using the app (Waze can't handle email responses). Otherwise, we'll assume all is well and close this out in a few days. Thanks!
Day 7
If there is not enough information to solve the issue, and the reporter has not responded within 7 days of initial editor comment (or day 3 after a reminder message), a message should be sent telling the reported that we were unable to fix the problem. The Update Request then needs to be closed as Not Identified.
Example
"Volunteers received no response and can’t find anything wrong with the current map. Please feel free to submit a new report if you encounter any issues in the future. Thanks!
Stale URs / Rural Areas
Sometimes URs turn up in areas of Minnesota with few active editors. In these cases, the 1/4/7 rule still applies, with "Day 1" being the first day an editor requests more info from the user. Messages like the example below have often succeeded in getting information from 6+ month-old reports.
Example:
Volunteer editor here - thanks for your patience as we've been extra busy with reports lately. Waze did not send much information about your issue. Can you by any chance remember what went wrong out here near [general location]? What was your final destination? Thanks!
Unlock Requests
Sometimes, you will come to an issue with a road, but you do not have a sufficient lock level to fix the situation. Click here if you need to setup an unlock request. Please pay attention to the top of this forum where it will give clear instructions on how to create an unlock request.
If you want to check to see if there are any Unlock Requests that you can handle, Click Here to check all open reports for Minnesota. Anything showing the green check mark means it has been completed.