October 2021

Dear Wazers, we look forward to your insightful feedback in successfully launching the new Road Width feature, which will greatly improve Waze's navigation. Road Width will work with Falcon, a mechanism which snaps users to the right road, to prevent users from being misdirected at forks and parallel segments. Stay tuned for news about special Map Raids with exclusive badges to go along with this feature’s implementation! For more info, check out September’s episode of Waze Communities Office Hours.

Sept 5 - Mini Regional Meetup: Colombia and Venezuela

This Mini Regional Meetup hosted around 40 community members from Colombia and Venezuela who shared 3 exciting community presentations, and created their own Meetup logo. We also remembered Waze Community member Jorge Barrios, who passed away earlier this year due to COVID. Jorge was honored by his wife, who joined the Meetup to remember Jorge and thank the community for being part of his life.

We’re pleased to announce that the following community suggestions have been implemented in the WME:

• Roadshields now allow easier search by letter in the Roadshields dropdown menu for streets.

• Roadshields also now have enabled enrich edit history on turns.

• Added a one-click-away button to the TBS footer element to access Snapshot mode.

• Unlinked the WME header image from waze.com to help avoid accidental redirects.

Do you have a suggestion that you think could improve the WME experience? Submit it here!

As extreme weather and natural disasters have become unfortunately more common, the Waze Community has mobilized to help keep their local communities safe. This month, we’d like to introduce you to two Waze Editors who stepped up to help communities affected by Hurricanes Ida and Henri, ensuring that the Waze Map was updated with closures and shelter locations in real time.

Spedracr, currently a US State Manager for Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, has been a Waze Editor since 2012, and a volunteer for VEOC (Virtual Emergency Operations Center) since 2015 during the South Carolina floods. He has been active with VEOC ever since, to make sure the affected regions have an easy way to track closures and make sure people can evacuate safely, while first responders can effectively navigate to people in need during a crisis event.

Elli21486, a Waze Editor from Massachusetts, has been active in the community since 2013. As someone whose hobby is weather, he is knowledgeable of the effect storms can have on an area. He started to volunteer for VEOC in 2018 during Hurricane Michael as a way to combine his interest in extreme weather events and Waze map editing. He is motivated by trying to assist the community before the event occurs.