Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Archive 21

Article for deletion

There is a discussion about the possible deletion of List of state highways in the United States shorter than one mile. Your discussion and comments would be greatly appreciated. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 17:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

@Morriswa: like all other articles for USRD, this was also listed on WP:USRD/AA, the Article Alerts page for the project. We encourage interested editors to watchlist that page. The bot lists the changes in its edit summary, so notices like the one above are unnecessary. Given the level of activity here of late, such notices will get lost in the shuffle. Imzadi 1979 → 20:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I'm at work, so I didn't see the change on that other page you mentioned. I will have to see if I have it on my watchlist. I was just trying to be friendly and helpful. No harm intended. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 20:40, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I found this notification very helpful. Not everyone follows Article Alerts religiously.  VC  00:14, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

VC, thanks for the encouragement. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 00:57, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

In unusual cases, it would be fine to post, but we shouldn't encourage every deletion discussion to be posted here. We are already pre-emptively archiving concluded threads here before the bot does so normally to keep the talk page manageable with increased activity. (Increased activity is a good thing though!) That is where my concern lies, keeping the talk page usable, and I would encourage people interested in deletion discussions involving USRD in general to follow the AA page. That AfD will conclude in 7 days, but unless someone archives this thread, it will remain here for twice as long before a bot shuffles it away. Imzadi 1979 → 01:09, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

If this talk page is becoming too long, someone could change the bot settings to archive threads after 7 days of no activity, right?  VC  17:37, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Right. A few weeks ago it was at 28 days, then 21, now 14. –Fredddie™ 17:58, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

No reason to scold Allen for notifying us of a deletion discussion. I'm one of the people who scolds those doing the opposite – not notifying affected editors/projects – so it'd be pretty hypocritical for me to not speak up when somebody tells another editor not to notify us of deletion discussions. TCN7JM 18:00, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, at least activity is picking up here at USRD... --Rschen7754 18:01, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't scolding him, at least that was not my intent. However, I was trying to remind people that the project has already elected to use a centralized and automated method for alerting the project of deletion discussions to minimize the number of notices on an already busy page. I would remind people that AfDs with implications to the project may involve articles tagged for WP:HWY, so those types of manual notices should be made here. For example, we link to Concurrency (road) frequently in USRD articles, but since that article is about a highway concept with a more global reach, it has been tagged for our parent project. In the recent case where the article was nominated at AfD, a courtesy notice here would have been required for notification. Otherwise, we have WP:USRD/AA and {{USRD Announcements}} to handle our notification purposes. Imzadi 1979 → 20:08, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

How should I refer to this route?

"Holmes Beach City 789" was formerly a county road, but now it has this nonstandard sign. --NE2 17:35, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Ugh... uh... "Holmes Beach City Route 789"? --AdmrBoltz 17:41, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Another sign: File:Junction 789 Holmes Beach.jpg

Normally Florida uses road rather than route (county road, state road). "City Road 789"? --NE2 17:45, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, so HBC Road 789. --AdmrBoltz 17:47, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't. Then again, I don't think we should talk about county roads as much as we do. –Fredddie™ 17:55, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

This is a former segment of SR 789, so whether or not we care about county roads in general has no bearing on this one. --NE2 18:18, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Nah, that's equivalent to MCR 789 for CR 789 in Manatee County. For now I'll just say "City Road". --NE2 18:18, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I would take whatever the equivalent naming scheme for the county is and change "county" to "city". So a theoretical article (which would be non-notable) would be "City Route 789 (Holmes Beach, Florida)" and referred to by City Route 789. (Substitute "Road" for "Route" if that is the correct way of referring to the county routes—I'm a bit pressed for time so I can't look that up right now.) Obviously, it would be best to avoid using the "CR" abbreviation, as that would just add confusion. It may be worthwhile to see if documents can be obtained from the city that shows how they internally refer to this route. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 19:56, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Florida State Road 64 shows how I'm handling it for now. --NE2 20:04, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Looks good. Maybe should get a shield added. Dough4872 20:15, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Maybe. If anyone wants to do it (I guess File:Junction 789 Holmes Beach.jpg is the sign to match) Template:Infobox road/FL/shield city needs to be modified to handle it. --NE2 23:18, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

When this gets done, it can be uploaded over File:Holmes Beach City Route 789.svg and/or File:Homes beach city 789 shield.svg. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (chinwag) @ 02:42, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

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Rand McNally as a source for an unsigned county road?

CR 1635 is not signed and is not recognized by FDOT. The county doesn't exactly have good data, but their property appraiser's GIS (which shows some county roads as state roads) doesn't have it. The only source for its existence is a Rand McNally state road atlas. Is this a suitable reference? Obviously DanTD thinks it is, but I disagree and think it's more likely to be a mapo, deliberate or otherwise. --NE2 02:43, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Rand McNally can have errors slip through in their cartography. The Wilmington, DE inset still labels PA 161 even though it was decommissioned in the 1950s. Dough4872 03:06, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Could also be a copyright trap. –Fredddie™ 03:15, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Florida seems to have pretty decent county route signage, especially for downgraded state routes. If this wasn't a former state highway, no online maps show it, county's data doesn't show it, and this RMcN map is the only proof of existence, I'm inclined to think it might be a copyright trap or other error. Only other thing I can think of is to see if it pops up in any GIS data, if available. -- LJ ↗ 03:52, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

There's no county GIS data available, but the FDOT GIS data (which isn't perfect for county roads) doesn't have it. As for signage, there is CR 256, which isn't signed but is inventoried by FDOT and used to be SR 256. --NE2 03:58, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Hey, I can understand the lack of reliability for Google Maps and other online maps, but despite Dough and Freddie's statements about errors in Rand McNally, they seem fairly reliable. When both sources have such a route, it makes it seem fairly credible to me. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 01:22, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Or it means they both got it from a common source (usually TIGER, which is full of errors). Not that the Goog even has this CR 1635... --NE2 01:37, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Really? Because they used to show it, especially on Street View. Incidentally, I just found out they upgraded their maps today, and that route is no longer recognized. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 02:05, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

County X.svg

{{jct}} uses File:CR 1 jct.svg. Infoboxes use File:Pinellas County 1.svg. The only non-hardcoded uses of File:County 1.svg and friends are in infoboxes without county name specified (because the route enters more than one county, e.g. Florida State Road 10A#Walton-Holmes Counties and County Route 501 (New Jersey)). Just an interesting note for those working with completion lists. --NE2 20:27, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Portal

Just the monthly reminder P:USRD needs selected article, selected picture, and DYK ideas for March. Dough4872 02:13, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Apparently the article alerts didn't pick up on this...

Resolved

Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 February 28#Florida State Road 176 --NE2 20:22, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

The bot will now]. Just a reminder, the pages have to be tagged for USRD for the bot to know to list them. Imzadi 1979 → 20:24, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission

It's English, but we could use the help. Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/B4101 road. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:42, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Jordan Lane and Patton Road. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 14:32, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

• The first would be better submitted at WT:UKRD or WT:HWY. Both look like acceptable new articles to me, but I'm not up to speed on UK road standards. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 19:34, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
  • @FoCuSandLeArN: I agree with Floydian, you might have better luck posting at WT:UKRD and WT:HWY. The article looks ok at first blush, but I would say it fails to meet notability since most B roads in the UK have been merged into their appropriate lists (like we've tended to do with county roads in the US). As for the second, that's a street-based article that might be better posted at WT:USST, but I'm inclined to deny the article on notability grounds. Imzadi 1979 → 19:41, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. Those Projects seem all but defunct. I'll give it a go. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:49, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

It appears that Jordan Lane and Patton Road is a combination of Alabama State Route 53 and non-notable city streets. In addition, different road names should not be lumped together. Therefore, I would say that article should not be created. Dough4872 01:20, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi folks. I'm the submitter. I am new to creating articles, so if there are problems with the submission, please point me in the right direction. However, in regards to notability, I claim that the route is notable because (1) being part of Alabama State Route 53 (and one of the few areas where SR-53 is not an unsigned shared route with U.S. 431), (2) the Redstone Arsenal access, and (3) the 1982 truck-train accident, which is still notable in Huntsville (e.g., see this recent Facebook group discussion). Also, many roads in Huntsville have different names for different segments of the road. Jordan Lane and Patton Road are the same road. As a precedent, we have an existing article on Sparkman Drive / Bob Wallace Avenue in Huntsville. Dave Cornutt (talk) 02:31, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

As I mentioned on your talk page, city streets, especially those in a mid-sized city such as Huntsville, are generally not notable enough for their own articles. As for the roads in Huntsville that are a part of numbered routes, the information can be covered in the article about the numbered route. Also, past accidents do not automatically make a road notable, in addition to the fact that accidents should generally not be covered in road articles unless it leads to a change in the design of a road. Dough4872 05:12, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

@Dave Cornutt: Take a look at Alabama State Route 13. For most of it's route, it's the unsigned partner of US-43, so I reworked the article to be just about the standalone part of SR-13. We should do that with SR-53 as well. –Fredddie™ 05:24, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

How is it that county routes in New Jersey are notable enough to have their own articles, but a main street in one of Alabama's larger cities isn't? Is it because of who the author is? Dave Cornutt (talk) 07:27, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree that we have way too many articles about county roads, but that's an entirely different discussion, also WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Anyway, WP:USRD/NT and WP:USST better explain the notability of roads and streets better than I can. –Fredddie™ 12:56, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

County Roads are a tricky notability issue. The 500-series in New Jersey is part of a statewide system, like the County-Designated Highways in Michigan. In the CDH case, only a handful of articles have been split out of the list, one of which is a FA (H-58). As for non-CDH CRs in Michigan, if a roadway is not a city street or a state trunkline, it is a CR. Only a few have separate articles at this time because a) they have specific histories that are well-documented and unique, b) they have some sort of special recognition, like National Scenic Byway or National Forest Scenic Byway status.

City streets need to approach the same level of sourcing and notability to "earn" an article around here, and if the claim to notability is just "it's a state highway", it will be merged into the appropriate state highway article in most cases. Imzadi 1979 → 18:31, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely nothing would be notable purely because of who wrote the article. No editor owns any article, per policy. TCN7JM 13:27, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Mississippi Highway 541. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 16:48, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

It floors me that almost 4 years after we cleaned up the infobox that we still find examples like this with the whole bucket of parameters. –Fredddie™ 17:37, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Presumably copied out of another article with them. --NE2 19:07, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

I've moved and cleaned up the article, tagging it for the project in the process. It is now at Mississippi Highway 541. Imzadi 1979 → 19:51, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Q on the talk page for I-5 that has wider implications

FYI, I have asked a question at Talk:Interstate 5#Finished date that would have implications on a handful of other USRD articles. I'm notifying the community in case someone who isn't watching that article has the answer. Dave (talk) 04:15, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Can we make jctint automatically populate Category:Routes needing mileposts?

Would it be possible to have a {{jctint}} row without a mile= parameter automatically put the article in Category:Routes needing mileposts? --NE2 10:38, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

It's not a bad idea, the only downside I see is pages being cat'ed when we have sandboxes in either our personal space or in the Draft namespace. --AdmrBoltz 12:48, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

This is or should be a hidden category anyhow, so namespaces aren't an issue. We would need to add in something that would turn off the category when you want a blank cell and/or don't need mileposts. |mile=none and other-state continuations come to mind. –Fredddie™ 12:59, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd say if you have |mile=none it doesn't cat it, but if you do |mile= it will. --AdmrBoltz 13:04, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd dispute that. This is a maintenance category, one that would ideally be empty, so anything that, by nature, doesn't need mileposts (drafts, etc.) shouldn't be in that category. It might be worth it to not include pages in non-article namespaces. -happy5214 14:41, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Since {{mileposts}} does the same, that would make sense. --NE2 14:46, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that there will be some points that can never be found... unless we resort to Google Maps of course. --Rschen7754 13:31, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

The Goog is usually accurate enough for 1/10 mi precision, so that shouldn't be a problem in those states that still have nothing we can use, as well as the occasional junction that's somehow not covered properly by official sources (I've done a couple of these in Florida).

Another possibility would be for certain state templates such as {{WVint}} to automatically send mile=none. --NE2 14:03, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Another idea: make it add a sortkey by state, so it's easy to see which routes in your state need them. (Article titles aren't always obvious, and sorting is currently affected by defaultsorts.) --NE2 09:23, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Bump? --NE2 00:42, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Sigh. Thanks, Lua! --NE2 21:39, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Bump. I might add this later this week. -happy5214 06:38, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Former routes in infobox browse

I was wondering how standard it is for former routes to be included in the browse sections at the bottom of infoboxes. Do we have standards, precedents, or previous discussions that address former routes?  VC  01:34, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

For Michigan, all articles are included in a chain that includes every designation from M-1 through I-696. M-55 (Michigan highway) points to M-56 (1919–1957 Michigan highway) as the next article in that chain. Imzadi 1979 → 01:40, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd say it should depend on the state and how common former routes are. Florida has at least as many former routes as current ones (for only unsuffixed routes, I count 408 current and over 400 former, not including numbers that have been reused), and most former ones (that aren't redlinks) redirect to list of former state roads in Florida, so it doesn't do the reader much good to include those. Other states such as Georgia have relatively few former routes and rarely reuse numbers, so it makes more sense to include former routes.

Agree with having state-by-state cases. Another idea would be to include it if a link to the former route's article goes to an article (a redirect to a subsection would be OK) and not if it redirects to a list. –Fredddie™ 02:37, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

But then you're getting into not including all current routes, since some of those redirect to lists too. It's also unmaintainable until all former routes are written about, since it's impossible to know whether a redlink will be an article or redirect. --NE2 04:20, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

NY has them along with NJ I believe. Mitch32^{(The man who renounces himself, comes to himself.)} 02:54, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I say that both current and former routes should be included in the article browse. Dough4872 02:59, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I brought this up because I saw one editor adjust a browse to eliminate former routes from the browse in a Maryland route article, then another editor added the former routes back while claiming the inclusion of former routes in the browse is standard. Maryland is similar to Florida as described above by NE2 in that there are several hundred former Maryland state highways (most of which have yet to be added). Most of the former highways redirect to a list of former highways; almost all of the remainder redirect to the article of a current route. In addition—I am not sure whether this also applies to Florida—there are many, many numbers that have been used two or three times, including for a current highway. It would look silly and confusing to have an infobox browse appear to have a link to itself; for instance, the Maryland Route 100 article could include in its infobox browse a link to the previous Maryland Route 100. Therefore, I recommend Maryland articles not include former state-numbered highways in the infobox browse. I am fine with including former Interstates and U.S. Highways because there is much less potential for confusion.  VC  01:55, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

VC, I see your point. If you want, we can exclude former state routes from the route browse in Maryland. It may be a good idea and take a look at whether other states should have former routes in their browses too. I know for sure Pennsylvania has a high number of former routes, and like Maryland, some numbers have been used two or three times and may be used for a current route. There is also a largely-incomplete former route list for Pennsylvania. However, all routes, current or former, should be included in the route lists for every state. I know for a fact the Maryland route lists are largely incomplete. Dough4872 02:08, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

What I've done with Nevada articles is include all routes established in or after the 1976 renumbering in the browse order, regardless of whether they are currently active or retired in the state highway system. All routes from the original numbering scheme prior to 1976 are removed from the browse (unless still active). -- LJ ↗ 03:28, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

New Jersey is somewhat similar in that regard in that numbered routes, whether current or former, established in or after the 1927 renumbering are included in the browse, excluding prefixed or suffixed routes. Routes that existed before 1927 are not in the browse. Dough4872 03:44, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to Participate in a User Study - Final Reminder

Would you be interested in participating in a user study of a new tool to support editor involvement in WikiProjects? We are a team at the University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within WikiProjects, and we are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visual exploration tool for Wikipedia. Given your interest in this Wikiproject, we would welcome your participation in our study. To participate, you will be given access to our new visualization tool and will interact with us via Google Hangout so that we can solicit your thoughts about the tool. To use Google Hangout, you will need a laptop/desktop, a web camera, and a speaker for video communication during the study. We will provide you with an Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 15:32, 11 March 2014 (UTC).

Spam? --NE2 01:28, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

A route that's completely either a county road or a carrier route for a U.S. Highway

I'd like some opinions about Florida State Road 249. Here's a map of the route on the Goog. From Branford north to Live Oak it's an unsigned designation that's signed only as US 129. From Live Oak to Jasper it's actually County Road 249 (as is true for 99% of Florida's county roads, it was a state road with the same number until about 1980).

Standard practices in Florida are:

• Unsigned carrier routes redirect to the U.S. Route, e.g. SR 369 and SR 600.
• County road extensions of current state roads are covered in the same article as the state road, e.g. SR 6 and SR 14.
• County roads usually don't get their own articles, unless they are more major than usual, e.g. CR 522. There have been numerous AFDs of county roads, though I don't know if any of them had a several-paragraph route description.

Getting specifically to SR 249:

• The "Branford into Live Oak" description is a direct copy of the relevant part of the US 129 description. I see no reason why, even if nothing else is changed, this shouldn't have a {{main}} link to US 129.
• The rest of the description is for a county road, one that is relatively long but not particularly major. A description like this (which is IMO too detailed, including "a grass road which forks off to the left" and "a straight north and south dirt path") could be written for any county road of decent length. I don't personally have an issue with such an article existing, but I know many here do and it would more likely than not be deleted at AFD.

The major issue is that the non-redundant parts of the article are about County Road 249, not State Road 249. But an article solely about County Road 249 would not have been written, and moving it to County Road 249 (Florida) is inviting deletion. Additionally, a redirect from SR 249 to US 129 would require an awkward mention of CR 249 in the US 129 history section, since CR 249 is former SR 249.

Other than the obvious {{main}}, I have no idea what to do about this, which may be a situation that only happens in Florida (and not only with SR 249; there's also SR 49, SR 375, SR 595, and perhaps others). --NE2 08:50, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Under Florida procedures, CR 249 would be covered in the US 129 article. However, I would suggest having the CRs redirect to the list instead of to sections in state route articles as most CRs should simply be relegated to coverage in lists. I would also suggest that the various CR lists get cleaned up. Only CRs that have proven notability (such as CR 522) should have their own articles, and the article should apply WP:COMMONNAME even if it not the CR number (such as Osceola Parkway for CR 522). The way it looks, the state is very inconsistent on its coverage of CRs. Dough4872 00:17, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

"Under Florida procedures, CR 249 would be covered in the US 129 article." Why do you say that? I can only find one case - SR 595 - where that's done, and that's a little different because all of SR 595 is US 19 Alt.

Are you aware that the vast majority of county roads in Florida are former state roads? Hence by project standards they do have some measure of notability, certainly at least as much as random Kentucky four-digit route. (Interestingly, CR 522 is a rare one that was never a state road, being built since 1980.) --NE2 01:28, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

CRs that are former state routes do not automatically have the notability get their own article. CRs that are former state routes can still be covered in the CR lists with the notes column having the history as a former state route. In addition, the history section of the state route articles can mention the CRs that replaced the former state routes. The current CR sections in the state route articles look very tacky. Dough4872 01:33, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

No tackier than Oklahoma State Highway 53#SH-53A. --NE2 02:27, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Not to mention that CR 249, and many other county roads, are in more than one county, so a redirect to a county road list doesn't work. An entry in list of former state roads in Florida might work, but someone's sure to quibble that SR 249 still exists, so it shouldn't be there. --NE2 08:53, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Interstate 75W

User:NE2 has claimed on the Interstate 75 in Florida article, and the Interstate 75W redirect, that I-75W never existed. Is that true? Whether or not, could the appropriate information be added to the I-75 in Florida page? Thanks. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 20:48, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Let me preface this with saying I don't know, nor do I have much interest in roads in states where the elevation never exceeds 3 digits. However, historically there have been many such examples where there was an E branch but no W, and N branch but no S, so it's entirely possible. Dave (talk) 22:48, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, there have been branches where only one such branch (rather than two) existed. According to AAroads (which is as historically good a RoadGeek site as there is), here they note that there was only ever an I-75E. When finished, I-75E became I-75, and what had been planned as I-75 became I-275. I can find no mention of any I-75W as having ever existed, either on paper or in reality. --Jayron32 23:01, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

NE2 was not claiming I-75W never existed; he was removing the claim that it did exist. By asking for someone to add the appropriate information—I am guessing Allen meant something like "I-75W has never existed"—Allen was asking an editor to claim or prove a negative. The former is not appropriate for an encyclopedia and the latter is almost impossible to do. If there is no evidence that suggests I-75W existed, then NE2 did the proper thing by removing references to it.  VC  00:22, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I didn't say that. Please read what I wrote. I said " I can find no mention of any I-75W as having ever existed" I did not say it never existed, I said I can find no evidence that suggests it existed. Those are different concepts. It may have existed. I've not claimed it hasn't. I claimed I could find no evidence of it, using the best sources I could find. --Jayron32 02:12, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

By "you," I was referring to Allen. I changed the pronouns to remove the ambiguity.  VC  03:26, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I've never seen anything indicating that I-75W existed. If someone had access to the AASHTO meeting records, they could prove a negative, but otherwise the fact that no source has been provided will have to do. (Here's a source for I-75 and I-75E coexisting: http://web.archive.org/web/20041030185127/http://www.bayciti.net/hrd/1970_75E.jpg) --NE2 04:57, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I apologize for the misunderstanding. I never meant to blame NE2 or say that he was vandalizing the article and redirect or cause any kind of controversy. I just wanted to make sure that what he did was accurate and correct. If I-75W never existed, fine. I think a brief mention about it (and why it was thought to have existed) in the page's History section could be good. Obviously, if it did exist, then the appropriate information should be added. By the way, @NE2, nice map! Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 09:21, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

@Morriswa: why would we say something about something that didn't exist? –Fredddie™ 16:32, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't know but apparently some people think it's important. Dave (talk) 23:02, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Template:infobox road small and no shield

State Road pooing is cool
Location	Tidy Bowl

County Road pooing is cool
Location	Charminville

This template handles state roads and county roads without shields differently, putting the latter into Category:Infobox road transclusions without route marker. Could someone with the permissions to edit the template fix this? --NE2 20:47, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Do not use the "type=" and "route=" parameters and use the "name=" parameter with the name of the SR of CR (i.e. "State Road x" or "County Road x"). See Ohio State Route 176 for an example. Dough4872 00:14, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Eh? The idea is that it should be in the category so the shield can be created. --NE2 01:17, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Hmm. I'll leave that for someone else to handle. Dough4872 01:29, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

The template will either display an image, or else put the page in the category. It looks like SRs without existing route markers are actually displaying the image File:No image.svg, and therefore not being categorised. The problem seems to be coming from {{Infobox road/shield/USA}}, specifically the line

 |#default={{#ifexist:Media:{{StateName|{{{state}}}}} {{{route}}}.svg|{{StateName|{{{state}}}}} {{{route}}}.svg|no image.svg}}

which defaults to the "no image" image instead of something that will give a non-existent image. But I don't know exactly what else uses that subtemplate, or why the "no image" image was used in the first place, so I'm not keen to change it myself. - Evad37 [talk] 01:52, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I went ahead and made the change Evad37 suggested. There may be some blowback in the no infobox shield category, but we'll see. –Fredddie™ 02:48, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

WT:HWY/ACR#ACR for lists

We are discussing how lists should be reviewed at our A-Class review before a featured list candidate nomination. Your input is welcome. --Rschen7754 06:00, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

How do I mark a map as incorrect?

The map on U.S. Route 371 shows the south end at I-49 exit 172 rather than exit 162. (There's also some sketchiness about whether it makes it to I-49, but as far as I know it is signed along LA 177, at least northbound.) --NE2 15:35, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

|attention-mtf=yes and say something on the talk page, or here. –Fredddie™ 18:46, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Broken locations

File:AlabamaInTibet.png

Exploring in Google Earth I've been fixing misplaced coordinates, in particular those meant to be in the USA but which are in Tibet because the coordinate uses West instead of East (or + instead of - in some cases). But I've come across a large number I can't fix of roads in Alabama. In particular around 32° N, 86° E in Google Earth, e.g. in a few hundred km around Gase, there are a large number of 'Alabama State Route XX' where XX is a number. Using those to navigate to the article none contain coordinates, but so many are wrong it's probably something central. I don't know what though as it's not obvious from the articles or their templates how it's generating coordinates.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:34, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Could you give us a list of five or so Alabama articles? That would give us a little more information. –Fredddie™ 18:50, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Alabama State Route 32, Alabama State Route 32, Alabama State Route 39, Alabama State Route 47, Alabama State Route 59, Alabama State Route 100. I just uploaded a screenshot to illustrate the problem. I tried looking at the route pages myself but could see nothing in the articles that might be causing it.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 20:05, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

@JohnBlackburne: it's not the English Wikipedia doing it, so blame the Spanish: es:Ruta Estatal de Alabama 32. Imzadi 1979 → 20:12, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Suddenly it almost makes sense. I noticed an 'es' in the Google Earth popup that also has the WP link, but did not realise what it implied, with an English title and link to the English WP. I guess it's not finding a coord on English articles so is using those from Spanish ones, but still showing me the English ones as it assumes I'm English (based on my OS settings probably). es:Ruta Estatal de Alabama 32 is even better: the longitude was just broken and defaulting to zero. I hate to think how many broken WP pages appear on the equator or the Greenwich meridian. I'll know when I spot them now to look at other languages if there's nothing on the English article.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 20:51, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

It appears that the longitudinal coordinate is "--86.00000" instead of "-86.00000". It's a simple fix. –Fredddie™ 22:34, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Why the different shield sizes?

Florida's Turnpike Extension / Florida's Turnpike

Template:Infobox road/FL/shield HEFT redirects to Template:Infobox road/FL/shield FLTP. --NE2 21:39, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

It's fixed. –Fredddie™ 22:30, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Would it be worth adding bridge length to jctbridge?

If {{jctbridge}} has mile= and mile2= filled in, the length of the bridge in feet/meters can be calculated. Would this be a useful addition? (One problem: the template is used for things that aren't bridges, and those may have mile2.) --NE2 01:50, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

We could add a "calculate_length=yes" flag that would only display the mileage when desired. Question is, where would we put the mileage? In the colspan cell? —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 02:06, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

If you mean in the cell with the bridge name, that sounds good:

19.654– 19.897	31.630– 32.021	Hollywood Boulevard Bridge over Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway 1,280 feet (390 m)

Another complication: .001 is 5 feet, so to not give misleading precision we need to round to the nearest 10 feet (100 for .01). I don't know how this affects the meters.

Now that I look at the NBI, it has better precision. So maybe this isn't such a good idea to calculate automatically. --NE2 02:40, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

My sandbox (Wrightsboro Road)

On my sandbox, I started an infobox for Wrightsboro Road, a major road here in the Augusta metropolitan area. Part of it is part of Georgia State Route 223 and part of it is part of Georgia State Route 388. How can that be annotated in the infobox? Also, how can the infobox be improved? Thanks for your help. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 06:56, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Also, if I get the article started, should it be assessed as part of USRD or USST? Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 23:34, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that's part of USRD, even if it's all SRs along its length. As for {{infobox street}}, certain people have been dinking with the template and it hasn't been a priority of ours since it is for city streets and we primarily deal with state highways and major county roads. Imzadi 1979 → 23:39, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. I assume that Wrightsboro Road, as well as Washington Road (also in the Augusta area, and I want to start that one, too) would be part of USST, right? I think Washington Road is all SRs along its length. Which infobox should be used for either article? The road or street one? These article ideas have been on my mind for a very long time. Thanks, again, for your help. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 23:54, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

In short, if it's about a roadway in its role as a city street, and the subject is located in the US, then it's USST and should use infobox street. If the article is about the role of a roadway as part of a state's highway system or a primary county road system*, then USRD/infobox road. (*not all CRs warrant articles, of course). Imzadi 1979 → 23:56, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Makes sense. I don't know if you guys would know, but could {{Infobox street}} have the allocation parameter added to it? I tried adding it to the infobox on my sandbox, but it didn't work. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 00:52, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Did that. You can use the parameter now. It's called "part_of". Philroc 14:31, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Just remember that if you add a new parameter to add it to the template's documentation. –Fredddie™ 14:52, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Did that too. :) Philroc 20:42, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Project participant lists

I would like to propose that we remove any and all participants lists under the USRD banner. We last did a roll call in 2012 shortly after all the subprojects were folded into the main project, and even now, I don't recognize a significant percentage of the names listed. It also seems redundant to the categories handled by the USRD userboxes. Ideally, I would like to see an automated tool that created a list of editors who edit articles under a WikiProject banner. –Fredddie™ 21:02, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with removing the project participant lists. Most other projects have lists of participants. Also, the categories are not the best way to show who's in the project because not all project members might have userboxes on their userpages. Also, we can do periodic roll calls to make sure the people on the list are still active in the project. Dough4872 03:15, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

FHWA site down

Just a friendly notification: the website for the Federal Highway Administration is not working right now. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 04:01, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Obama! --NE2 04:31, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, MoDOT took it down, since they decided it was redundant to the existing mile markers. From now on, the FHWA site will be signed only as US 50. --Kinu ^t/_c 06:29, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

The website is back up. Especially overnight, or on a weekend, I assume that corporate or government sites could be down for scheduled maintenance. Imzadi 1979 → 00:02, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Destination cities in junction lists where none are signed

As I've been working on Florida junction lists, I've created a list of control (and other) cities that appear on distance and directional signs. I'd like to get some input on whether it would be reasonable, where no cities are signed for an intersecting route, to take the next city in either direction from this list (as seems to be FDOT policy where they do post signs). This would not apply to exits from freeways, only to surface intersections (and entrances to freeways from surface roads, but the rules may be different there). --NE2 07:15, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Personally, this gets a little close to guessing what we think should be on the sign to me. It would also be difficult for someone else to double-check—a city could theoretically appear on one of any number of signs, and if someone decides they would like to check one where we used the list to assign a city ourselves and finds none there, they would then have to verify that it should be on the list by doing a scavenger hunt of places it might be signed to justify it being there. There is also the implications this might have for other states—it may well be that Florida is consistent enough in its signage practices for this to be workable, but other states are capricious enough in their choice of destinations that we don't even put destinations in the list for non-interchange junctions. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 07:49, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Speaking as an engineer with first-hand experience, sign makers are completely incompetent and in reality, it's not important that we follow signage on the road because it is subject to change on a regular basis and frequent mistakes (plus you don't wanna go all UKRD on that beast). Rather, I just look on a map and list the two closest towns of "significant" size (significant being in context to the other communities encountered along the route) that the route encounters or directly leads to. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 08:04, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

I would be careful with that—it might be considered original research by some. US practice is to generally use what's on the sign. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 08:10, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Not sure how since the only fact being stated is "Highway X – Foo", or Highway X, to Foo. The map backs this up. If anything, I'd be more worried about relying on the accuracy of on-site signs, especially since even the signs facing opposing directions of traffic can be different to one another in many instances, not to mention the trailblazer signs or advanced warning signs, or multiple signs at a complicated intersection. Far too many semantics to worry over. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 08:44, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

I suppose it goes depends on what you consider the purpose of a junction list to be. If the idea is to make a guide to junctions that might be of some use to a mobile user who is actually using the road in question, then it makes sense to have the list match the sign since that is what they will see when they reach the junction. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 09:29, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Or what they'll see in the rearview mirror when they pass the junction :) --NE2 09:35, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

It depends on how Florida typically do their signage on destination cities. I mostly do the Carolinas and they both do it differently: North Carolina uses the bigger city down the road, ignoring smaller towns more immediate, while South Carolina will list every crack house down the street. Yea, you are guessing, but its a guide to go with on most roads where it might be likely to be; exception being roads that simply go nowhere, then they are blank. --WashuOtaku (talk) 17:49, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

For destination cities I check Google Street View and use whatever the guide signs approaching the intersection say. If there are no destinations, I do not use any as we cannot just guess what city or place should be used. Dough4872 00:16, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

That's what I do, but what I'm saying here is that in Florida we can 'guess' because FDOT consistently chooses the next destination, and enough signs are posted (outside the Miami area) to be sure of what the next destination is. (It's not original research: we're not actually saying "this city is what should be on signs".) --NE2 00:26, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Well yea, that's what I do too. --WashuOtaku (talk) 03:34, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

As a partial proposal, would anyone object to the following (in Florida): if there is no directional guide sign at the intersection, but immediately after turning there is a distance sign, use the top line from that sign. --NE2 00:26, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

That sounds valid. --WashuOtaku (talk) 03:34, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

That can work for Florida and for other states as well. Dough4872 03:41, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

It would be best for someone familiar with signing practices in other states to decide there, since it may be the bottom line that's normally used. --NE2 08:34, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

While I agree with this idea in principle, maybe it could be rewritten in more general terms to account for whatever line the nearest community is listed. –Fredddie™ 12:08, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Another question that is somewhat related: Should routes marked as "to" at an intersection with a particular route be included in the junction list, whether it is marked on a BGS or on ground shields? Dough4872 03:56, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't see why not. If the state thinks it important to sign the route, there's probably a good reason. --NE2 04:41, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

too many sections

Florida State Road A1A has six sections, but {{infobox road}} will only display four. What to do? --NE2 08:32, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I would say just include everything as one section to show progression. An alternative that is used by some Maryland routes with multiple segments is not to include junctions in the infobox and have mini-infoboxes for each section, such as Maryland Route 648. Dough4872 04:30, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

The last time this came up was related to an Arkansas state highway that is in eight sections. (AHTD doesn't form concurrencies and divides a highway up into sections as a result.) The answer there was the same as Dough's second comment: use the main {{infobox road}} for the overall totals and use {{infobox road small}} for each section. In the future, there are some plans that might increase the section total, but for now we are limited. Imzadi 1979 → 04:44, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Redirect question

If a redirect for a road's local name is made (for example, "Horizon South Parkway" for Georgia State Route 388), does it get assessed for USRD or USST? Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 05:47, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

It's a redirect. Who cares? --NE2 05:57, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Two quick thoughts from me. I only bother to try to tag the redirects that could conceivably have separate articles someday. Let's say "Georgia State Route 388" is a redirect; if so, that's something that someone could turn into an article. "State Route 388 (Georgia)" wouldn't be an article (or shouldn't be), so I wouldn't bother tagging it. Alternate names like that, I don't normally bother. The second quick thought is that if nothing will be linking to the redirect, why bother making it? Imzadi 1979 → 07:47, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Because we don't have crystal balls to show that nothing will be linking to it (and nobody will be typing it into the search box)? --NE2 07:50, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I really do not see the point for redirects to be tagged for a project except if it was formerly an article. Dough4872 03:18, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

They don't serve any purpose other than for adding to a vanity list of pages "created". –Fredddie™ 03:25, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

@Fredddie, was that a shot in my direction? If so, that was cruel and unnecessary. If I made an article or even a redirect, I add it to my "vanity list". :-( Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 03:52, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

My vanity list is bigger than yours. When I tried to save mine, it crashed the servers. --NE2 03:59, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Confusion

I want to rewrite Georgia State Route 104, but I can't figure out what route it follows in downtown Augusta. Google Maps, Rand McNally, and GDOT show confliction and none are clear. Even Google Street View doesn't show it after the River Watch Parkway name ends. What do I do? Thanks. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 05:29, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

[1] (updated 2013) shows it ending on Jones/Reynolds at 13th (US 25 Bus. / SR 4). Note that other streets including Greene have 'county road numbers'. The Goog shows reassurance on Reynolds after 13th (and a trailblazer on 13th coming off the bridge). (Apparently US 25 Bus. on Broad is locally maintained, hence no state route number? First time I've seen a locally-maintained U.S. Route in Georgia.) --NE2 05:49, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Cool. I already saw that map, but it wasn't totally clear to me. Thanks for pointing it out. I will use this. I have wondered why no state route (except for parts of SR 4 and SR 28 are concurrent with US 25 Business. Thank you so much with this. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 06:00, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Honest opinion

I would like to get the honest opinion on how Georgia State Route 28 and Georgia State Route 104 look like after I reformatted them. I know that proper history sections need to be added. My laptop is too finicky to do this here.Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 01:06, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

My honest opinion is that you should be more confident in your work so you don't feel the need to seek validation. –Fredddie™ 01:10, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

To be totally honest, I was fairly confident. I know that the project has more exacting standards than I do, so I wanted the opinion of the members of the project. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 02:31, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

The giant paragraph for the southern section of SR 28's RD could probably be split. TCN7JM 02:33, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Some thoughts on SR 28:

• It's not really a good idea to repeat section headings. This can be avoided by merging the two RJL tables together with {{jctgap}} in between.
• Single-sentence subsections look bad. The NHS information could easily be moved to form part of a "mini-lead" for the RD. Look at Interstate 75 in Michigan and apply some of the ideas behind that mini-lead to this article. Granted, not everything mentioned in that paragraph could apply here, but it's a way to shift it. The other idea is to just merge that into the appropriate segment's subsection.
• The first and last lines of the southern segment's RJL table are not ideal
  • The river is mentioned, and linked, twice. The river name for the location is sufficient and doesn't need to be repeated again with the bridge name.
  • The highway marker graphics are not supposed to appear in the middle of text; they are supposed to be at the front of a line. These lines would look much better if you copied the formatting from the last line of the northern segment RJL, minus the redundant river link.
• Your references should be tweaked: #3 and #4 are maps and should be formatted as such. Also, the publisher should be FHWA, not USDOT. (It's not wrong, but it's better to use the more specific agency name, and in the realm of highways, FHWA is sufficiently well-known that it doesn't need to be qualified with its supervising department.)
• The second {{google maps}} should have |link=no added to suppress the wikilink to Google per WP:OVERLINK. There's no need to repeat a link in several footnotes.

I hope this helps. Imzadi 1979 → 02:55, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

As for SR 104:

• Ditch the "Bannered route" header. That's a very poor term to use, and for a single example of a single type, you could use "Connector route" as the header to avoid the neologism.
• Drop the boldface formatting around the link to Washington Road. You get bold or linked, but not both.
• Add |nolink1=yes to {{jct}} in the first line of SR 104 Conn's RJL. Since it's linking back to this article, the server renders the text in bold.
• SR 104's bridges should be using {{jctbridge}} in the RJL. If necessary, you can split the city to use the river/canal name. (See Interstate 280 (Ohio) for an example.)
• Check your spelling on the non-break space code. In a few places you have "nsbp", so the code is visible and not making a space. Imzadi 1979 → 03:13, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not being stupid or trying to be a pain in the butt. However, could you explain in simpler terms exactly what you meant? I want to make the pages better, but I don't understand what you were talking about. Thanks. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 03:40, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

• WITHOUT looking at the articles, I can tell by the type of comments that you are getting that the articles are looking good so far. Now, after writing that I will check them out and....
• For SR 28: Alright, no history, but what is there is still very nice...

• Lede has a sentence that isn't separated from the next by a space.
• It's confusing how you mention that the two sections are separated by the SC boundary, which implies some sort of "island" county of SC that is within Georgia. It took me a minute to realize that only the northern section has a terminus at the state line.
• RD -> "SR 28's northern segment" - in my humble opinion (IMHO), it's best not to anthropomorphize the highway and to reword so as not to use the possessive with the highway. In this case, one solution is "The northern segment of SR 28".
• "This highway" -> "The highway"
• "with Interstate 20 (I-20; Carl Sanders Highway). Then, it curves to the east-southeast." - I'd separate these two sentences with a semicolon. "Then" generally doesn't work as the first word in a sentence.
• "After that, SR curves" - SR 28?
• "the expressway ends and SR 28 takes on the Greene Street name." -> "the expressway ends and becomes Greene Street." - A better way to phrase this. "Takes on" vs "becomes"
• "...Laney Walker Boulevard Extension. Then, the road curves to the east..." - again with the then :P
• "turns right onto US 25 Business/SR&nsbp;104" - Obviously a typo; these get me constantly :) To combat it, I've recently started searching for "&ns" after inserting my &nbsp's.
• "All of SR 28, from the intersection with SR 104 Connector to the eastern terminus of the southern segment is" - there should be a comma before the "is" at the end of that piece. Simplify it as: "All of SR 28, from ying to yang, is..."
• It may be ideal to split this entire chunk into two paragraphs. The transition from highway to expressway seems like an ideal place.
• The remainder looks fine on quick scan.

• For SR 104: Again, more to add, but the RD is decent and the Future section is off to a start.

• "It is more commonly referred to as both River Watch Parkway and Washington Road in the Augusta metropolitan area." -> "In the Augusta metropolitan area, it is more commonly referred to as both River Watch Parkway and Washington Road."
• RD - "SR 104 begins at an intersection with US&nsbp;221, SR 47, and SR 150 in Pollards Corner. SR&nsbp;47 travels concurrently with US 221 south" - See? Happens all the time. That quick search when you're done can save many a typo :)
• "Northwest of this intersection, SR 47/SR 150 travel concurrently for one block, before SR 150 splits off to the west-southwest." - perhaps the second instance of "SR 150" would be better off as "the latter" or even "the second" (though the first is certainly preferable grammatically)
• "The highway crosses over Kiokee Creek on the Robert W. Pollard Bridge. Just over 1.5 miles (2.4 km) later, they cross over Little Kiokee Creek on the B. Edward Tankersley Memorial Bridge." - you switch from "the" to "they" here. Is there another unmentioned concurrency?
• The remainder of the RD looks good, except "the highway begins paralleling the Savannah River. It crosses over the Augusta Canal ", which, since you don't mention when or if it stops running parallel to the river, may be better as "the highway parallels the Savannah River before crossing over the Augusta Canal"

The Future section comes off a bit like a pamphlet released by the company building the extension.

• Now, all said here, don't take any of these as criticism as bad writing, but rather as constructive feedback on how to improve what I see as a very ideal and correct starting position. The articles are up to par, but there are minor grammatical and flow issues that separate a nice article from a Good Article, if you catch my drift :) These are the kinds of comments I'd leave on an A-Class review from most of our editors! Cheers, Floydian ^τ _¢ 05:29, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Okay. I think that I have gotten most of the suggestions above incorporated into both articles. I hope they look better than before. The problem is finding references for the history and future sections up to par. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 06:49, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Attention needed at Interstate 49

Some IPs are editing the article to state that I-49 in Missouri is planned to be extended north of I-435, and others are editing to revert this. To my knowledge there is no source to back up the extension, but I may have missed something. Either way, we could use eyes on the article. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 23:58, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Some recent edits that might bear this project's attention

An editor has recently added, in "free fields", highway listings to the settlement infobox on Gary, Indiana and Muncie, Indiana. The editor is highly experienced, so I wanted to get some other opinions prior to acting. John from Idegon (talk) 20:43, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

@John from Idegon and Rhatsa26X: I tweaked the entries, but I'll leave it to others if they should stay.

1. I used {{plainlist}} to make them lists, for accessibility reasons.
2. I used {{jct}} because we should not directly link the graphics as had been done before. There are a number of reasons, but using this template just works better.
3. Also, Indiana calls them state roads, not state routes.

I hope that helps. Imzadi 1979 → 20:56, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Imzadi1979. A little above my pay grade! John from Idegon (talk) 21:00, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of having a list of highways in the infobox for a city article. It makes sense when the subject of the article is a highway, but on other topics, IMO, it reaks of a MOS:ICON issue. (I.E. cute graphics put in the article just because they can be put in there, without adding any real value). But I don't have a dog in this fight and will defer to the opinion of others. Dave (talk) 21:26, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I also don't really have a dog in this fight, but agree completely with Moabdave. I feel the main utility in having an infobox is to provide a quick, consistent, place to look for info on any given subject. if we are going to put it in some settlement infoboxes, it should go in all settlement infoboxes where it applies. John from Idegon (talk) 21:34, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Info boxes are suppose to contain information of importance about their topic. I will need to do some digging, but this sounds like an editor who was adding airports to city articles using the same fields. That got shot down rather strongly. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:38, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I let the original editor know about this discussion. John from Idegon (talk) 22:08, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

And are you still adding the airports? Vegaswikian (talk) 23:13, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Regarding city articles, airports and roads are fine to be mentioned in the prose but not in the infoboxes. Dough4872 00:47, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Folks, this discussion is rapidly getting away from the project's scope. I suggest that any further discussion take place over at Template talk:Infobox settlement and not here. Other than the bit about formatting using {{jct}} and {{plainlist}}, this project really would have no interest in the topic, although some editors here might. Imzadi 1979 → 00:52, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Interstate 70

So, the Stan Musial Bridge and rerouting of I-70 in St. Louis have just opened, but Interstate 70 in Missouri and Interstate 70 in Illinois don't yet reflect the mileage and exits for the new bridge. Are you gonna update it or what? I can't find any good sources for the rerouted exits. UPDATE IT ALREADY!!!! Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 05:10, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Um, if the sources haven't been updated yet, we are limited in how we can update the articles. Btw, why haven't you helped to update as much as possible already? Imzadi 1979 → 05:13, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Because I don't know where any sources might be, which is what I'm asking YOU. Are there any good sources or not? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 13:19, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

They might be in the discussion from the previous time you complained. --NE2 13:39, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

I-70 (MO) has been updated. Illinois DOT's GIS page still shows 2012 has the latest data, and I-44 has not yet been updated. –Fredddie™ 15:31, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

The banner's name

I think that the banner {{U.S. Roads WikiProject}} should be renamed to "WikiProject U.S. Roads" for three different reasons.

1. AWB does not recognize this template as a WikiProject-banner, due to its name, (it does not have WikiProject in the beginning). So when it is cleaning up talk pages, grouping them inside a "banner-shell" etc. it does not include this template.
2. Every other WikiProject-banner is called "WikiProject xxx". Why should this template be held at different standards? The caterories it is in is called "Category:WikiProject U.S. Roads" and "WikiProject U.S. Roads templates".
3. The project connected to this template (this project) is located at Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads, why should categories, a template on the top of this page (Centralized discussion for WikiProject U.S. Roads), the project it self be under the format "WikiProject xxx", but not the template?
   • This got mysteriously changed by Imzadi1979. (t) Josve05a (c) 02:21, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
     • Nothing mysterious. It didn't match the other references, so it was fixed. Imzadi 1979 → 02:29, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

If you bring up "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and "there is a redirect in place", I have two arguments.

1. Please read 1. above.
2. If an article is created under the name "A. Einstein" and a redirect from "Albert Einstein", shouldn't they be moved?

I am sorry if my wording is not properly correct, but I am eating dinner and English is not my native language, so plaese asume that I have good faith, because I do. (t) Josve05a (c) 16:45, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Here's our main argument, as far as I can tell. The official name of this project is the "U.S. Roads WikiProject," not "WikiProject U.S. Roads." I'm not as familiar with AWB as I used to be. Does it automatically resolve redirects? -happy5214 17:20, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh definitely, are we "U.S. Roads Wikiproject" or "Wikiproject U.S. Roads". I can see the RFC's now. Shall I start a case at arbcom now? or wait until we're at our 3rd thread at WP:ANI? Because this is REALLY worth fighting about. =-) Dave (talk) 17:37, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

What's AWB supposed to be doing with project banners? It does nothing when I run it on User talk:NE2/temp. --NE2 17:53, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @NE2: It only works on article-talk pages (I think). See this diff. (t) Josve05a (c) 18:03, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Looks like you're making useless edits, in violation of rule 4. --NE2 18:07, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Do not make insignificant or inconsequential edits. An edit that has no noticeable effect on the rendered page is generally considered an insignificant edit. If in doubt, or if other editors object to edits on the basis of this rule, seek consensus at an appropriate venue before making further edits. (CC BY-SA 3.0) Huh?

1. Grouping them is not insignificant.
2. It did have a noticeable effect on the rendered page.

(t) Josve05a (c) 18:12, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

It does change the way the page looks, but it's an empty talk page, so nobody cares how it looks. --NE2 18:29, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Just because you don't care, doesn't mean that nobody cares. (t) Josve05a (c) 18:31, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

No true Scotsman cares. --NE2 18:52, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh, stupid thing doesn't fix it in user talk namespace, so I have to mess up an actual talk page. Testing going on at [2]. --NE2 17:59, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

I guess this demonstrates the supposed problem. Seems too anal even for us. --NE2 18:04, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

If you use this module in AWB, then it fixes redirects, but it does not see this template as a WikiProject. (t) Josve05a (c) 18:05, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

See this edit. It does not recognize this template. (t) Josve05a (c) 18:07, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

As I always say, better to be a banner than a bannee. --NE2 17:44, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Strong meh. The official title doesn't really make a difference to me, since I always write it as {{USRD}}. Can't imagine that most other people would care, either. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 18:13, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

If the templates name would be changed, then AWB could fix the redirect (when using the module above) from {{USRD}} to {{WikiProject U.S. Roads}} and group it with others, sort it according to WP:TPL etc. (t) Josve05a (c) 18:15, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm rather meh about this whole argument. The biggest problem I have is this tendency to collapse banners into the shells if there are two present. Since USRD's banner tracks a lot of cleanup things (|needs-map= |needs-jctint= |needs-kml=), I'd prefer that the banner stay fully visible on talk pages. Most of the talk pages for USRD articles are devoid of much content, and most do not have more than one or two other banners anyway. Imzadi 1979 → 01:31, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Mentioning error signs

Is there any reason we'd want to mention a bog-standard error, such as a duplicated banner/suffix? (County-installed signs say ALT 35; a few FDOT installations double-up the A because FDOT inventories it as 35A.) --NE2 13:57, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

In general I say that sign errors are trivial and not notable. I'm not sure where the line is drawn to make a sign error notable, but I'm leaning towards no on this specific case. Surely confusing signage that results in a fatal traffic accident would be notable, as it would be covered in the news. The literally hundreds of sign errors Caltrans makes missigning state routes as interstates and vice-versa are probably not, as they are so common most common motorists don't even realize they are in error. Dave (talk) 18:08, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Junction list requirements

Now that all of our articles have been tagged with |needs-jctint=, we should try to formalize which articles actually require junction lists. To this point, this has generally been a matter of personal interpretation. I think we need to formally define which articles need junction lists in the first place. -happy5214 09:04, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I'll start. Proposed roads: no, though if plans have been released then one should be added. Routes that completely overlap others: yes, but usually only listing the endpoints and the places where it switches between routes. --NE2 17:00, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Something I've been curious is roads that have junction lists that don't have any junctions other than the termini. Is one really required on those? Dave (talk) 17:02, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Not necessarily, but there's nowhere else to put the signed cities (if any). --NE2 18:25, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

How about making it optional on decommissioned routes? If you have old route logs or it's a recent decommission, including them is not burdensome, but for older routes, the following questions are raised: 1) which historical version of the route do we model the junction list after? (Thinking of US-66 in particular here, of course; the most recent alignment is mostly interstate concurrencies) 2) where do we get sources for the mileage? 3) how do we know that we are correctly following the route? (Historic maps are often not detailed enough to trace street-by-street.) 4) who is realistically going to use the junction list for a route that is not signed in the field? —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 18:50, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I think we should for consistency. Not everyone would be able to quickly infer that the lack of a junction table means that there are only the termini. Rather, they may mistake the article as being incomplete. Future routes with no confirmed exits should certainly not have a table, although when a list is released, leeway should be given to the lack of mileage likely available to the public (unless you can get your hands on the centreline alignment drawings and know how to read stationing). I'm also curious regarding Alt/Bus routes covered in their parent route article. Many don't have a junction list for them, including some GA/A/FAs.

Regarding what Scott just mentioned, I have an example up here, Ontario Highway 103, that is an old route renumbered to 69 in 1976, and now entirely realigned and upgraded as Highway 400. Although I have a table from 1969 indicating the mileage, today it impossible to trace the route as it existed in 1976; not only has the route itself been chopped into 50 sections, but all the crossroads are realigned to meet the freeway, which is either the highway twinned, or running a short distance parallel. Like I said, I happen to have been lucky and found the old junction tables, but I've also shown a way to handle this information: "The route is documented as it existed in 1968." As long as we specify where/what the context of the old information is, why not include one from 1930 and one from before US 66 was decommissioned? - Floydian ^τ _¢ 18:58, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

The issue I have is with highways where we don't have the sources. In Oklahoma, we don't have usable mileage logs for the current routes, much less things like the original SH-1 (1924–1933). We could make an approximation with Google, based on the current highways that roughly correspond to the old highway, but likely it has been realigned enough since 1933 that any figure we give there would be total fiction. It makes little sense to even include a table for such routes. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 22:19, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

My thoughts: all current state-level highways should have a table. If an interstate highway (either Interstate or US) has state-detail articles, those get the tables and the national-level article gets the non-table/list format from MOS:RJL. So all of the Ms in Michigan (state-level) and all of the "U.S. Route X in Michigan" / "Interstate X in Michigan" / "Interstate X (Michigan)" articles get them. US 8, US 131, US 141 and US 223 lack state-level articles, so they also get tables, but US 23, US 41, etc get the other style list.

As for proposed highways, if there is enough information to create a table or list, one should be added. For former highways, one should be added with the most complete information possible based on the last alignment that existed. (Assume that the article was written when the highway was still commissioned and updated when it was decommissioned.) In some cases, a different alignment might make sense, but a case-by-case discussion would be needed to determine that.

As for business routes merged into a parent route article, I've typically created a table for these in the past. The exception is where only the termini would be listed, but even then, I've added a table to avoid omitting one when all of the others were present. Imzadi 1979 → 21:27, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with requiring a junction list in all articles dedicated to a specific, current state-level highway, even if the junction list is just the two endpoints. Once we agree on the articles in which a junction list is required, we can construct a spectrum of situations of articles that should and should not have junction lists.  VC  02:38, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Junction lists should appear in all current state route articles along with Interstate or U.S. Routes that are either state-detail articles or national level articles without state-detail articles. National level articles with state-detail pages should have a list of junctions instead of a table. Former routes should have a table using the alignment of the route that existed before it was decommissioned. Proposed routes should have a junction list if there was a verifiable route. Also, routes covered in RCS articles should have junction lists too as the RCS articles should be treated more like articles instead of lists. Dough4872 03:54, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

A problem with former routes in Florida: until about 1980, many routes were taken over in a piecemeal fashion and had gaps or otherwise strange endpoints. For example, SR 652 was just a bridge (though I happen to know that it was defined in 1945 as the entire length of the road). I lack the information in most counties about exactly where these gaps were (and especially whether there was signage over the gaps). But since then they've mostly become county roads with no such gaps. So it makes more sense to use the extent of the current county road, with notes as to where state maintenance ended if available. --NE2 19:56, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I think we're all overthinking this, and by that, I mean we're thinking about it at all. If you can supply a junction list that meets WP:V, then yes it should be required. If you can't, it won't be required. Simple. –Fredddie™ 22:49, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Go back to the original question. Define the set of articles for which you agree that a status of needs-jctint=yes would be a problem that needs to be rectified.  VC  23:51, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

It's actually |needs-jctint=missing, but the intended point is the same regardless. -happy5214 04:49, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I think the first reply may have triggered an unintended reaction. In the end, every article should be tagged as such, subject to change to whatever the non-applicable setting is (assuming |needs-jctint=na), based on individual state or article needs. Just like every other facet of roads, I'm certain some exception exists that we could find. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 07:39, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm a little confused. To clarify: |needs-jctint=no means that the article has a junction list using the {{jctint}} series. |needs-jctint=yes means that the article has a hardcoded junction list that has to be converted to {{jctint}}. |needs-jctint=missing means the article does not have a junction list, but needs one. |needs-jctint=na means that no junction list is required. We're trying to establish if any articles currently tagged with |needs-jctint=missing should be tagged with |needs-jctint=na, and vice versa. If so, which ones?

At this point, the only clear-cut and easily definable list is Future class articles. Otherwise, it's editor discretion dependent on numerous circumstances. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 08:22, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for articulating better than I could. Use your judgment and if there is disagreement, we discuss them individually. –Fredddie™ 16:33, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Citing a map

We have an opportunity here to rethink and revise how maps are cited in articles. Since {{cite map}} was originally created to serve this project's needs, I'm going to toss out the general question here and invite the other roadway projects to join us.

At some point in the future, {{cite map}} will be transitioned over to use the Lua module that powers the other Citation Style 1 templates like {{cite book}}, {{cite journal}} and {{cite web}}, etc., but we should decide what we think a proper citation to a map needs. Here are APA/MLA and Chicago/Turabian citation guides for maps as a starting point. Below, start a section on a type of map to be cited, and let's hammer out some concepts. Imzadi 1979 → 15:23, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Sheet map

A map as an individual sheet; for our purposes this would be a DOT's fold up map or a USGS topographic quad. CS1 is closest to APA style, so that is something like:

• Metsker Maps. (1979). Metsker's map of Island county, Washington [map]. (ca. 1:70,000.) Tacoma, WA: Metsker Maps.

If the map were part of a series:

• Easterbrook, D. J. (1976). Geologic map of western Whatcom County, Washington [map]. 1:62,500. Miscellaneous investigations series, map 1-854-B. Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey.

The biggest change from what we have now is that the cartographer/author is moved up front, and the publisher is moved to the end with the publication location. In the series, they put the ID number after the series name, where CS1 templates put that at the end. CS1 also uses parentheses a little differently

Based on the series format, knowing we'd drop the items that didn't apply, I'd use something like:

• <cartographer(s)/author(s)>. (<date/year>). <title> (Map). <edition>. <scale>. <series>. <publication location>: <publisher>. <in-map location information, lest to most specific>. <IDs like ISBN OCLC, etc>. <archive info and accessdate, if online>.
• Metsker Maps. (1979). Metsker's Map of Island County, Washington (Map). ca. 1:70,000. Tacoma, WA: Metsker Maps. Foo inset, sec. A1.
• Easterbrook, D. J. (1976). Geologic Map of Western Whatcom County, Washington (Map). 1:62,500. Miscellaneous investigations series. Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey. Map 1-854-B.

Thoughts? Imzadi 1979 → 15:41, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

The reason why I designed cite map to display in the order that it does is because for the vast majority of maps, the cartographer is unknown or irrelevant. Maps are generally referenced by the company publishing them—the state DOT, Rand McNally, etc. The cartography field was intended for cases where McNally or Gousha did the cartography, but it was published under the Texaco or Skelly or Esso brand, as was the custom during the first half of the 20th century. Knowing that the cartography was done by Gertrude Bracht doesn't really help you locate the 1936 Oklahoma Department of Highways map—the most important information in the citation is her employer. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 18:00, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, in many cases, but CS1 is based on APA standards, which call for the author up front. Sometimes author=cartographer, but not always. As I mention below, there's a map drawn by Chris Bessert and published by the Mackinac Island Tourism Bureau cited on the M-185 article. The WorldCat records list the MITB as the author, and note Bessert as the cartographer further down. In short, what I would do is list the MITB as the author and publisher, bumping a "Cartography by Christopher J. Bessert" credit after the scale or series space.

However, in the gas station maps, McNally or Gousha would be credited in a library catalog as the author, and that should be up front, like the 1955 Texaco Touring Map of Michigan.

Taking a page from MLA, we can borrow their flexibility. When I cite a song in a paper using MLA, if the lyrics are the important part, I cite the lyricist first and put the artist later, or I can reverse it. So in your example, we could still have |cartography=Gertrude Brach, but if her specific contributions were important (say in an article about her), they she's bumped up front into the author space. Imzadi 1979 → 03:40, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Map in a book or atlas

Again, starting with the APA format example because CS1 is closest to APA:

• Magocsi, P. R. (2003). Population movements, 1944-1948 [map]. 1:8 890 000. In P. R. Magocsi, Historical atlas of central Europe. (Rev. & ex. ed.) Seattle: University of Washington Press. (p. 53).

Just like my modifications above, I'd come up with something like:

• <author/cartographer> (date/year). "<map name>" (Map). <scale>. <book authors/editors, if different>. <book/atlas title>. (<edition> ed.). <publication location>: <publisher>. <in-map location information, least to most specific>. <IDs like ISBN OCLC, etc>. <archive info and accessdate, if online>.
• Magocsi, Paul R. (2003). "Population Movements, 1944-1948" (Map). 1:8,890,000. Magocsi, Paul R. Historical Atlas of Central Europe (Rev. & ex. ed.). Seattle: University of Washington Press. p. 53, sec. A1. ISBN 9780295981468.
• Rand McNally (2013). "Michigan" (Map). 1 in ≈ 20 mi. The Road Atlas (2013 Walmart ed.). Chicago: Rand McNally. p. 50, Western Upper Peninsula inset, sec. B10. ISBN 0-528-00626-6.

APA does mandate only initials in place of first and middle names, and since I looked up the ISBN for my example, I used the author's first name. So far, it's keeping all of the map info up front, followed by book info in the middle. Then we get the in-source location, starting with the page first, then the inset as the next smallest unit, and finally the map section. The cite ends with the ID information.

Thoughts? Imzadi 1979 → 15:56, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Map in a journal

For this example, I'm going to use the online periodical APA example, then we don't have to do a separate section on online maps.

• Thom, B. Hul'qumi'num traditional territory statement of intent [map]. (2009). Scale not given. In Thom, B., The paradcox of boundaries in coast Salish territories. Cultural Geographies, 16:193. doi:10.1177/1474474008101516

From this, using the known variations between APA and CS1:, I'd give us something like:

• <authors/cartographers> (<date>). "<map title>" (Map). <scale>. <journal authors/editors>. "<article title>". <journal title>. <journal publication data>, <in-map locations>. <IDs> <archive and access dates>.
• Thom, Brian. (April 2009). "Hul'qumi'num Traditional Territory Statement of Intent" (Map). Scale not given. Thom, Brian, "The Paradox of Boundaries in Coast Salish Territories". Cultural Geographies. 16 (2): 193, sec. A1. doi:10.1177/1474474008101516 .
• Colorado State Highway Department (July 1923). "New Map Showing the 8,880 Miles Which Comprise Colorado's Primary Highway System" (Map). Scale not given. Colorado Highways. 2 (7): 12–13. Retrieved November 18, 2013. —via Google Books.

For the last example, I added the |via= that many CS1 templates have now to indicate where a source is republished online. That map wasn't printed within an article, so I jumped directly from map to journal. Also, the style guides consistently say that if a scale is not listed, add "Scale not given" in its place except for dynamically scaleable online products like Google Maps. Thoughts? Imzadi 1979 → 16:15, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Summary format

Summarizing what is put together above, let's assume for some reason we were citing an inset of a topographic quad republished in a book or journal that we consulted online through Google Books, we'd get something like:

• <author/cartographer> (date/year). "<map name>" (Map). <scale>. <series>. Cartography by <cartographer>. <book or journal authors/editors, if different>. <book/atlas/journal title>. (<edition> ed.). <publication location>: <publisher>. <in-map location information, least to most specific>. <IDs like ISBN OCLC, etc>. <archive info and accessdate, if online>.
• United States Geological Survey (2014) [orig. pub. 1973]. "Foo Quadrangle" (Map). 1:70,000. 7.5-Minute Series. Public, John Q. My Awesome Book (2nd. ed.). New York: Good Books. p. 123, Bar inset, sec. 12. OCLC 1234. Retrieved April 26, 2014. —via Google Books.
• United States Geological Survey (April 2014) [orig. pub. 1973]. "Foo Quadrangle" (Map). 1:70,000. 7.5-Minute Series. Public, John Q. "Great Article". Journal of Awesome (New York: American Awesome Association). 12 (3): 45, Bar inset, sec. 12. doi:10.1177/1474474008101516. Retrieved April 26, 2014. —via Google Books.

Of course on top of this, I would make sure that maps with foreign-language titles would still have the option to have the language appear after the date in parentheses and a translated version of the title(s) would appear in square brackets. Thoughts? Imzadi 1979 → 16:35, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

One thing that I forgot in these examples is how to deal with a case like the Mackinac Island tourist map drawn by Chris Bessert that is cited on M-185 (Michigan highway); in that case the library categorizes list his contribution in a footnote essentially. Some CS1 templates have a |others= parameter that we could use that would allow us to still have "Cartography by Christopher J. Bessert", and the like. Also, I abbreviated "section" and dropped the case on it to "sec,", which is a standard MLA abbreviation. I wonder though in journal-based cites if that shouldn't be § as well. Imzadi 1979 → 17:00, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Above, I added an underlined section to address a common issue citing maps. APA, MLA, and Chicago call for an author to be listed first, and for many maps, author=cartographer. However, as I noted just above, sometimes this is not the case. In those cases, I would use something like:

• Mackinac Island Tourism Bureau (2009). Tourism Bureau Map of Mackinac Island (Map) (PDF). 1:8,600 or 1:4,100. Cartography by Christopher J. Bessert. Mackinac Island, MI: Mackinac Island Tourism Bureau. OCLC 648133817. Archived from the original on May 28, 2008. Retrieved June 1, 2009.

Imzadi 1979 → 03:50, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Overall discussion

I hate to say this, but I think we've hit the tl;dr mark already. I understand that it's important to iron out how {{Cite map}} will be converted to Lua, but I don't know if it's so important that we needed a wall of text. I can't speak for everyone else, but I'd say that it just needs to work like the rest of the Cite XX templates. –Fredddie™ 18:28, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with the tl;dr sentiment. I do not care what the exact output is as long as it works and the relevant fields are supported.  VC  02:27, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

This all came out of a discussion about fixing the lack of journal-type volume/issue/page number support. Previously, I was told that couldn't be fixed until Lua-ification, and I was told earlier today that we should have a discussion on what a proper map citation really should look like first. The current template is a massive kludge of parser functions grafted on top of a parser-function based meta-template. In short, we decide what a proper citation will look like, and the Lua module will be updated to give us that. Since CS1 is based on APA style, and the other CS1 templates follow that modified APA format, that's what I started with. Imzadi 1979 → 03:24, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

In the other cite templates, |format= is appended after the link in the title. Given that these all have (Map) after the title, how is that going work? Having two sets of parentheses, as in ... "Title" (PDF) (Map) ... , doesn't look good, so should the format and word Map be combined? If so, how? - Evad37 [talk] 03:04, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

There is {{cite map/new}} that is a start on moving to Lua. In it, the |format= is shifted to follow the link instead of following the date like "(2014) (PDF)." As for rest of CS1, as it stands, we'd have " Title (Map) (PDF).", but I would love if CS1 merged the adjacent parentheses. You could get cases like "Title (Map, PDF)" or "(2014, in French)" for foreign-language sources where the language follows the date. I will note that legal citations do have adjacent parentheses like CS1 does now, but I agree that it doesn't look good. (As for the PDF icon, those may be going away completely, meaning the |format= would become very imporant; also not all PDF URLs have ".pdf" at the end, meaning the server can't know to display it sometimes.) Imzadi 1979 → 03:24, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

U.S. Route 40 Alternate Disambiguation

There has been some back and forth regarding the hatnotes in the two Maryland U.S. Route 40 Alternate articles, U.S. Route 40 Alternate (Keysers Ridge–Cumberland, Maryland) and U.S. Route 40 Alternate (Hagerstown–Frederick, Maryland). Instead of undo-ing each other again, we should work something out here. Some background:

• These are the only current U.S. Route 40 Alternates in the country.
• These routes are unrelated to each other beyond both being alternate routes of U.S. Route 40 and both being in Maryland.

Please explain whether there should be hatnotes at the top of these articles and, if so, what they should say.  VC  12:12, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia's editing guideline about disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous, there should be no hatnotes on these articles because these two articles' titles are not ambiguous. Readers are highly unlikely to end up at one of these articles when looking for the other. U.S. Route 40 Alternate is a disambiguation page and anyone typing that phrase into the search bar will be presented with all options. Furthermore, links between articles already specify the relevant article. A hatnote would simply serve as an inappropriately placed "See also" section. Neelix (talk) 14:37, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

No need for hatnotes in this case. Should be in the infobox browse, maybe See also section, and possibly a navbox if there is one. All three are overkill enough, don't need a fourth option here. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 16:21, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

There used to be many more: http://www.us-highways.com/altus.htm#a3040 I can understand putting a link to the disambiguation in the article since you might search for US 40 Alternate in an external search engine and end up at one of these articles. --NE2 17:15, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I see no reason for a hatnote as we have a U.S. Route 40 Alternate dab page. Dough4872 00:13, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

I was going to agree with the policy position that the hatnote should be removed, but now I'm not sure that's correct. If you search for "us alternate 40" on Google, U.S. Route 40 Alternate (Hagerstown–Frederick, Maryland) is the first result. Someone who clicks on that is likely to think it is the only US 40 Alternate. The example on the policy page of "Tree (set theory)" makes sense. However, the example of Matt Smith (comics) and Matt Smith (illustrator) seems to be closer to this case, since they are two alternates of the same road. Even though the name isn't ambiguous, it's still likely to be confused. So I think the articles should either have hatnotes to each other or to the disambiguation page, so the reader is aware there's more than one US 40 Alternate. ToBk (talk) 19:30, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

If that's the case, there should be some kind of SEO so Google searches point to the disambiguation page first. Maybe that can be accomplished by deploying a link to the dab page at the top of each alternate route's article, as NE2 suggested. –Fredddie™ 19:40, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Discussion on WT:HWY

A discussion on adding U.S. Roads articles to WP:HWY assessment categories is taking place at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Highways#Assessment table of USRD is not in the main Highways WikiProject table. -happy5214 12:02, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

U.S. Route 78 in Georgia's bannered routes in Athens and Washington

Since GDOT's map archive is not zoomed in enough (especially for Washington) to determine the history of U.S. Route 78 in Georgia's bannered routes. Do you know where I can get the information? On User:Morriswa/sandbox3, I have been working on expanding the Georgia state-specific page. I have reached a stand still point, as I need this information to add/correct the history information for the bannered routes. Thanks, everyone! Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 23:51, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I found this, but it may only be somewhat helpful. You would think they would keep historic county maps somewhere like North and South Carolina does. --WashuOtaku (talk) 01:00, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

That link is just the state maps, current county maps, and other maps. I have noticed that GDOT's website isn't the most user friendly page I have visited. It is hard to find stuff, even when you search for it. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 01:20, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Have there been street-level changes? The GDOT maps do show these business routes (Washington appears in 1971, while Athens is first in 1989-90, by which time there's an Athens inset on the reverse). There's also http://nationalmap.gov/historical/ and http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/topics/maps/articles/county-highway-1995 . --NE2 01:59, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. I'm about to check them out. I can let you know if they are useful for this "project" of mine. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 03:14, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Interstate 795 (North Carolina)

Quick question, should the exit list still go south to north when the mileage markers/exits going from north to south? I-795 mileage begins at I-95 then goes south, this is also the only case in NC that does that. Leave be or correct? Thank you. --WashuOtaku (talk) 17:12, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the exit list and prose should still be written south to north, despite the reference direction. -- LJ ↗ 19:06, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

See ON 406. List the mileages from south to north with the exits numbered as they are, appearing in reverse in the junction list. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 19:26, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I'd do it north to south. There can't be a hard rule about direction because diagonals exist (and which way would you do US 321 in Tennessee?). --NE2 21:43, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I tend to agree. There are oddballs like M-115 that are signed north–south, but inventoried west-to-east while running northwest–southeast. In that case, a simple note above the table handles the seeming inconsistency with the milepost direction. In other case-by-case situations, even if we have the general west-to-east and south-to-north guideline, we may need to reverse that to follow the mileposts. Imzadi 1979 → 21:56, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with following the mileposts. –Fredddie™ 22:06, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Haven't we typically advocated for consistency across our articles by using south to north or west to east as much as possible? (I assume that is why {{USRD-wrongdir}} exists.) Granted we do need to make individual exceptions for diagonals and other oddball occurrences. But for a route that is clearly north/south like this, a hatnote above the table still helps explain any seeming discrepancy. Or do we have a different thought for routes that act like spurs...? -- LJ ↗ 23:03, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I've always thought the wrongdir template was used for routes where we know they're inventoried west to east or south to north but aren't written that way. In fact, the text of the template says "U.S. road articles are generally written in a south-to-north and west-to-east direction in order to follow the order of their mileposts." –Fredddie™ 23:16, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Except on freeways and expressways, the MUTCD doesn't actually require mileposts to go in any direction; it's a guidance statement that says the south or west terminus should be used. Exit numbers (and thus mileposts) on spur Interstates are required to begin at the parent. --NE2 00:10, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I always use the south-to-north and west-to-east convention regardless of the mileposts to keep the articles consistent. See Atlantic City Expressway. Dough4872 00:12, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Isn't that signed only with control cities, not directions? Internally it does seem to be treated as eastbound and westbound, but it's really a diagonal. --NE2 00:32, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

The NJDOT SLD inventories the Atlantic City Expressway as "East to West" and it does appear that the expressway is signed without directions. The Atlantic City Expressway does however parallel signed east-west routes such as US 30, US 40, and US 322 which also run on a diagonal and it runs perpendicular to the east coast of New Jersey, which runs southwest to northeast at this point. The route is likely inventoried starting in the east in order to make Atlantic City milepost 0. Dough4872 00:44, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I'll just point out that it's impossible to come up with one standard for all articles, there are too many odd-ball cases out there. One case nobody's mentioned so far, is for multi state highways where the mileposts reverse direction at a state line, as is the case for 2 or 3 highways including one that has an FA class wikipedia article, U.S. Route 491.Dave (talk) 01:19, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, I didn't realize this would cause a great debate here. >_< --WashuOtaku (talk) 01:44, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Someone brought up this same point WRT Alaska Route 2. As the eastern terminus is an international border, that isn't likely to change anytime soon. However, roadwork began on the western extension of the Elliott Highway last year. I believe the concern was over the extra work involved in revising mileages as new portions of roadway open, which I don't necessarily see as that big a deal. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 17:39, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

IRC client

I just recently replaced my laptop, and need to re-install an IRC client, so I can use the IRC chat room for the project. It has Windows 8.1 on it. Is there one that you guys suggest for me to use? I was using HexChat on my other laptop, but I'm thinking of possibly getting a different client. Thank you for your help. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 01:28, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Check out Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients. Everybody has a different taste in IRC clients, so you're bound to get five different responses from five people. –Fredddie™ 02:25, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I actually looked at that page before I posted my question. It was too confusing for me to understand. If someone could explain it in simpler terms, that would be great. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 03:17, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

This page explains that list in simpler terms: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_Relay_Chat_clients. Hope that is helpful to you.  VC  20:30, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

To be totally honest, it didn't explain it simpler for me. In fact, not all of the clients on the regular Wikipedia page were listed on the Simple page. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 10:05, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I downloaded the ChatZilla add-on for FireFox. How do I set it up to be able to connect to the US Hwy chat room? Thanks. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 11:53, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

WP:HWY/IRC has all the details. –Fredddie™ 21:29, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

@Fredddie:, I didn't see how to set it up. Maybe I'm overlooking the instructions, but I honestly don't see how to set it up. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 04:02, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I saw this morning that you got into the channel, but please keep in mind that we are not your personal help staff. Google exists. –Fredddie™ 11:47, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I know you guys aren't my "personal help staff". I used Google, but -- at the beginning -- I got no help. Later on, I found a way to download an actual client. If I have problems or need help, what am I supposed to do, if you don't want me asking for help? You guys discourage me more and more into not wanting to do anything else. Very sad. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 02:25, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Interstate 82 (Oregon–Idaho)

As an active member of WikiProject Oregon I would like to remove our project tag from this redirect. At WP:ORE, we generally don't tag redirects unless an article at that title has potential to become a separate article one day. And since this talk page will not be highly trafficked, I don't think a tag there will serve the purpose of notifying people about our project. Can someone direct me to your project's (or Wikipedia's) guideline about--I can't think of any other way to say it--"forcing" other projects to have their tags on redirects? I'm a bit confused, I guess. Thanks, Valfontis (talk) 15:57, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

There is no standard and I doubt that tagging was done by anybody in this project. It's more likely this was done as part of the fallout from the wikiproject US tagging. Dave (talk) 16:40, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

If it feels good, do it. –Fredddie™ 16:44, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

It felt good twice, I don't want to get into 3RR. Can I get a couple more opinions? Valfontis (talk) 17:14, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

OK, I take it back, it sounds like there is a wikipedian in this project that would do that kind of tagging, one anyways. =-) Dave (talk) 20:41, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

@Morriswa: let other projects decide how they want to tag articles or redirects, especially if they revert you. Imzadi 1979 → 20:46, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

(←) Thanks folks. Happy trails. Valfontis (talk) 21:20, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I am glad that got resolved quickly, but it begs the question: why are editors tagging redirects at all or creating these implausible redirects?  VC  23:10, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

That's the million dollar question. USRD now has over 9000 tagged redirects. –Fredddie™ 23:16, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

This one's linked from List of highways numbered 82 and in several categories, so it's not implausible. Tagging is pretty pointless though. --NE2 00:05, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry if I messed anything up. I thought every page in USRD was supposed to be tagged. Since this highway traveled (or was proposed to travel) through Oregon, I tagged it for WP:ORE. And this is not an implausible redirect. If you look at the reference on the target page, you will see why this is good and maybe even needed. I think that every major highway that existed or was proposed to exist should have an article or redirect about it. Should I stop assessing redirects? Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 09:06, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I honestly don't think it's an issue if you tag it for USRD. There isn't much of a benefit, but it can't hurt. But please respect the wishes of other WikiProjects as to how they want redirects tagged for their project. If WPORE doesn't want redirects tagged, then don't tag it for WPORE. -happy5214 10:02, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

4th Objective in Planning

The 4th objective, adding KML to all B+ articles, in planning has already been completed as far as I know, should it be stated it's done? Thewombatguru (talk) 15:34, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I would say leave it. Sure now we have the task completed, in the future we may get some Bs that do not have KMLs. –Fredddie™ 16:50, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

It's not completed. The way that the wording is, B-Class articles are included, and I can find several Bs without KMLs. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 17:11, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

According to WP:USRD/A B-class is part of the upper tier classes, so why are there B-class articles withouth KMLs that are not in this category? Category:U.S._Roads_project_upper_tier_articles_without_a_KML Thewombatguru (talk) 19:45, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Because WP:USRD/A is wrong; the "upper tier" has always been FA-A-GA because those are the classes that require a specific process to produce an assessment of. If you look at the category you linked to, its description reads "FA-Class, A-Class, or GA-Class U.S. road articles without a KML." —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 09:00, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Owh sorry, I assumed the information on USRD/A was accurate, but because the objective says all B-class and above articles, could a category be generated that lists all B-class road articles without KML? Thewombatguru (talk) 16:52, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

It is accurate though. The confusion is that USRD/A is talking about the move into the classes above C-Class, which is the first assessment to require the "Big Three". As it explains, we have a gentleman's agreement in place whereby USRD members don't generally assess their own work for B-Class, making it the first that has an informal requirement for a second reviewer to get involved. The upper-tier articles affirmatively require additional editors to be involved to make the assessment promotions. I have edited the page to retitle that section "Higher classes" (as in higher than the Stub-/Start-/C-Class in the preceding section) instead of "Upper classes" (not "upper tier") and affirmatively state that "upper tier" applies to GA-Class or higher. As for the category for B-Class, that wouldn't be a bad idea to implement. Imzadi 1979 → 17:18, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet For U.S. Roads At Wikimania 2014

Are you looking to recruit more contributors to your project?
We are offering to design and print physical paper leaflets to be distributed at WIkimania 2014 for all projects that apply.
For more information, click the link below.
Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 10:28, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

This is an interesting idea. Do we want to pursue it? –Fredddie™ 16:34, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Why not? One avenue would be to emphasize the US 66 task force/collaboration to see if that drums up some interest in the various aspects that aren't purely about the road itself. Imzadi 1979 → 23:53, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Jct abbreviations

I've been mulling this over for a while and now I'd like some input from everyone. Would it be wise to scrap the banner abbreviations used by {{Jct}}? What I mean is, US 30 Alt. → US 30 Alternate. For off-Interstate routes, I-35 Bus. → I-35 Business Loop/Spur. I think for the most part (aside from Georgia), special routes are used sparingly enough that this won't cause junction lists to become walls of text. –Fredddie™ 02:29, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Only if we unabbreviate the rest: U.S. Route 30 Alternate (or United States Route 30 Alternate?), Interstate 35 Business... --NE2 03:25, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Why stop there? We could spell out the number and channel Calrog with United States Federal Route Thirty Alternate. –Fredddie™ 04:39, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I am fine with the status quo. The abbreviations save on space and reduce clutter in articles. Dough4872 03:32, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I am slightly in favor of this idea. Most appealing to me is it obviates the question of how to abbreviate Alternate or Business.  VC  04:26, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I personally like the spelled-out variations. What if a new editor, or someone who is just a casual "drive-by" reader, sees the "Alt.", "Bus.", etc. and have no idea what they mean? When I was younger, I used to think that "BUS" routes were only for buses to travel on. Boy, did I feel dumb when I learned they are business routes. LOL.

As a side note, I still don't understand that, when {{Jct}} is used, why can't it display the link to "Interstate 20 in Georgia"? It instead displays the link to "Interstate 20 (Georgia)" (which is a redirect to the previous one. I totally understand that intrastate routes, such as I-16, would be a redirect either way. What do you guys think? Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 04:47, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the link, there is nothing wrong with the way it is set up now. Having Interstates link to Interstate x (State) will always redirect the reader to the appropriate article, whether is is the national-level article, a state-detail page, or that state's version of a 3di. Remember, redirects are cheap. Dough4872 05:14, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ok, I'm not in favor of expanding them, partially for the reason NE2 demonstrates with the inconsistency between abbreviating one half but not the other. I have some other reasons that I'll elaborate further in a moment.

As for Allen's comment: jct doesn't currently discern between two- and three-digit numbers to create the links. The "in Georgia" form is for a state-specific subarticle of the longer 2dI while the "(Georgia)" form is to disambiguate between the state-specific repeats in 3dIs. I agree that it would be nicer if jct discerned between these to avoid using redirects, and I think it would be even nicer if it didn't add the state in cases like I-96. That's all complications that might be possible with more Lua usage in the future. Imzadi 1979 → 05:53, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah. It's a great idea to have to poke around in the depths of template code every time a number is reused in another state. --NE2 07:47, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Better standardization

I would like to see us standardize the abbreviations better across the states. If newspapers can rely on the guidance from The AP Stylebook to standardize on "U.S. 66", regardless of what the dozens of government agencies do with periods, spaces or hyphens, then surely we can standardize our abbreviation format.

In response to Allen's "casual 'drive-by' reader" example, the MOS already solves this problem. Per MOS:ACRO: Unless specified in the "Exceptions" section below, an acronym should be written out in full the first time it is used on a page, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses, e.g. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). So if we develop a 50-state standard that alternate routes use "Alt." as the abbreviation, and we follow MOS:ACRO's advice, then U.S Highway 30 Alternate (US 30 Alt.) or Alternate U.S. Highway 30 (Alt. US 30) on first usage handles Allen's situation.

We've pretty much ignored the TxDOT practice of IH-35 for I-35 to have a uniform abbreviation, so I don't see why we can't standardize the rest, at least for USRD articles. The entire standard would fit in a single table on WP:USRD/STDS like the one at MOS:ABBR#Abbreviations widely used in Wikipedia. Define the necessary state-specific abbreviations like New York State Route = NY along with the more generic State Route = SR, etc, toss in the banner types, settle on which are spaced and which are hyphenated, and it's done. Imzadi 1979 → 06:13, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

As far as the table, I had an idea a while back to add the abbreviations to the naming conventions page. I agree that it's something we should probably look at. -- LJ ↗ 07:58, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Minor point, but I think a subpage of USRD/STDS would be better as the standards page is starting to get tl;dr. Then we could be thorough, or even move WP:USSH into USRD space. But yes, I agree that we should standardize hyphens, periods, case, and placement. –Fredddie™ 14:36, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Portal rename

An editor has suggested that two of the project's portals, but not the other four American or two non-American roads portals, be renamed. The discussion is at Portal_talk:Molecular_and_Cellular_Biology#Requested_moves. Imzadi 1979 → 17:34, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Regarding maintenance/funding/jurisdictional changes

See Talk:Ontario Highway 23/GA1 for a prelude to this.

I figured since USRD is more populated and relevant, that this was the place to ask. A question has arose as to my mention of Connecting Link boundaries in the notes column of junction tables. These are basically points in certain towns where the provincial transportation department funds the roads and has final say in approving signage, lighting, roadwork, utilities, signals, etc, but otherwise the town picks what work and when to do it. I think these are important boundaries of jurisdiction and feel they should be included, but another editor disagrees. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 06:59, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Are these at the town limits (or consistently at former town limits)? If not, it seems like a reasonable inclusion (but note that it's not the 'beginning' or 'end' unless it's a one-way highway). I could see a case where a route has insanely many of these, but this isn't so. But a question: the traffic counts simply state that "the roadway is not under provincial jurisdiction". Couldn't this happen without the Connecting Link funding? See also a 2004 canroads discussion that mentions this.

Given the above issue, and the fact that what actually matters is maintenance, not funding, I'd label them simply as maintenance changes. I've done this on a few Florida state roads: Florida State Road 527#Major intersections, Florida State Road 986#Major intersections. --NE2 07:30, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Generally speaking, they are portions of the highway that lie within built up urban areas. The routes are partially funded by the province and signed as part of the highway in exchange for the local government paying a portion of the funding and having allowance - with approval from the MTO - to do their own construction on the road. They are signed, albeit sporadically and inconspicuously to the general public. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 22:02, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I would not list maintenance changes in junction lists as they can be very numerous along a route and may occur at a minor and unimportant junction or some other arbitrary point that really shouldn't be listed in a "Major intersections" table. Look at New Jersey for example, where state routes may alternate frequently between state, county, local, and bridge authority maintenance. Dough4872 01:46, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

In Florida, on the other hand, they are rare and definitely worth mentioning. --NE2 02:03, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Maintenance jurisdiction changes should possibly be handled by state/province, depending on how frequent or unique they are. I know the maintenance changes in Route 54 (Delaware–Maryland) are probably important to mention due to it straddling a state line. Dough4872 02:07, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Up here there are about 100 of these, with most major non-400 highways having two or three. If a minor street or lot parcel serves as the dividing line for one, I simply put in the notes for the important junctions that they are within the Connecting Link, rather than noting the specific beginning and/or end point. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 22:02, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I do not think maintenance changes by themselves are notable enough to include as a row in a junction table. I am not arguing that maintenance changes are not important. Instead, they should be mentioned in a prose section. In most cases, the proper location will be in the Route description, but I can imagine how it could be included in the History section.  VC  23:32, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

New KML Tutorial

Hello,

I've added a tutorial for making KML files using Google Maps at Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Maps task force/Tutorial.
Could some of you check if you can represent it by using this tutorial?

Greetings,
Thewombatguru (talk) 05:15, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

KML file for U.S. Route 20 is too big

Hello all,

So I was making a KML file for U.S. Route 20, using Google Maps Engine Lite, Google Maps Enginge Lite. By using this method, you can use Google's Route directions, which are pretty accurate and it is often a lot faster than just drawing the line yourself.

My problem with this road is that the road is 5400 km in length, so the KML became really big, 3,5 million bytes. Because the maximum page size is set to about 2 million bytes, I'm not able to put it onto wikipedia. Even after removing a lot of zeros that were next to each other at the end of the coordinates, the file was still 2,3 million bytes.

I've seen other long routes that do have KMLs, but they aren't nearly as accurate as the ones by using directions.

So does anyone have a solution to this?

The KML file can be found here, it has not yet been styled with correct names and colours. File on Google Drive.

Greetings,
Thewombatguru (talk) 00:37, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Although I don't have a weblink on hand, a script should be able to take out the insignificant digits (only a few decimal places are needed to get a scale of inches), quickly and effortlessly across the whole file. Given that the coords occupy 99% of any lengthy KML, lopping off half the digits should nearly halve the file size. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 03:19, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

It would be nice if there were state-detail articles you could use to split it. Oh wait.

Also, something about this strikes me as sketchy copyright-wise. It's one thing to get individual coords or trace an aerial, but this is exactly copying the work someone else did in drawing the road, including a good detail of potential creativity with respect to where in the wide strip of pavement to draw the line, where ramps merge with the mainline, etc. --NE2 04:41, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

I know there are state-detail articles that also need KMLs but the big article also requested a map, so that one needs the entire route, I don't know how to combine multiple KML files into one big KML file so I wouldn't know how to use the several state-detail KMLs to make the parent KML.Thewombatguru (talk) 05:12, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Also, data can't be copyright, only the presentation of it. We only provide the raw data. Also, state detail articles are great and all, but, oh wait... there's also a national article. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 09:55, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Data can be copyrighted, or at least that's what the FBI tells me when I watch a DVD. What can't be copyrighted is simple factual data without any creativity. See how the two directions split apart abruptly here, rather than more smoothly angling out like on OSM? That is arguably a creative choice that can't be legally copied. I know Wikipedia runs under US law, but trap street describes a similar case in the UK: "In this case, the identifying 'fingerprints' were not deliberate errors but rather stylistic features such as the width of roads." --NE2 10:22, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Statistics, not data, cannot be copyrighted, which you could argue a list or coordinates is just that. –Fredddie™ 11:58, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

The directions to draw a map with a robotic arm are a list of coordinates. Yet maps can be copyrighted - or rather the creative aspects of them can be copyrighted. Those creative aspects may be in the KML file generated by Thewombatguru's process. --NE2 12:02, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

But wouldn't the directions to actually draw the map on Gcraps or Bing be on their end? We're just providing the coordinates for the line that their map engines draw. –Fredddie™ 12:06, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

The directions are to start at the first node, go to the next, and so on, with a certain width. --NE2 12:17, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Here's a thought experiment: generate these KML files for all streets in a small town. Use Google's rendering rules (which are probably simple enough as to be non-copyrightable) to produce a map. If done correctly, it should look exactly like a Google Maps screenshot with non-road features removed. Is this a free image? --NE2 10:25, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

I've asked the question at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions#Detailed map data. --NE2 12:17, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Another question: do you know enough about the route to be able to identify errors in Google Maps? Because there are a lot.

Anyway, to reduce size, I'd import the KML into QGIS, where there's probably an option to round off the coordinates and remove extraneous nodes. Perhaps [3] is useful. --NE2 08:16, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Interstate 140 (North Carolina)

Help, I was adding the additional information for the Dan Cameron Bridge, which include coordinates and now it's making weirdness in the upper-right corner with two coordinates (one for the highway, one for the bridge). Can this be fixed some way without separating the articles? (Note, I didn't add the bridge to the article, I simply improved the information for it.) --WashuOtaku (talk) 15:08, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

The |lat= and |long= parameters in the bridge infobox put coordinates in the top corner by default. By using |coordinates= and not using |display=title in {{Coord}}, it's limited to the infobox now. –Fredddie™ 15:40, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, I learned something new today. --WashuOtaku (talk) 16:00, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia page update rates

Does anyone know how frequently the User:AlexNewArtBot/USRoadsSearchResult‎ page is updated? What about the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/U.S. road transport articles by quality log page? Thanks. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 17:13, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

According to the page history, the new article list is daily. The log will update daily so long as assessment changes occur. –Fredddie™ 17:37, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

There was a temporary outage caused by a system configuration change combined with the deletion of the schedule for bot tasks the put the WP1.0bot offline for a while, but it has resumed. Under normal operation, Fredddie is correct: that bot updates daily as long as there was an assessment change for it to log. Imzadi 1979 → 20:38, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Route websites

Are there any websites, that are considered reliable sources, that have all Interstate and U.S. highways, past, present, and future, whether actual, proposed, unsigned, etc.? Thanks. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 17:16, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

A reliable source for all proposed highways a tall order. The problem is that "proposed" is subject to the political winds, and a source that is otherwise reliable could be outdated and wrong for proposals. Transportation projects get proposed all the time, but unless they gain enough momentum to survive the next funding crisis/election turnover/politician who wants to kill it just to prove a point or make a power play/whatever they join the scrap heap of history. There are literally dozens of cases of proposed highways that are still technically active (some even codified into law) but the funding has never been approved, and the proposed route is no longer even viable. That leaves a whole lot of grey area as to what is proposed. So My $.02 is wikipedia should avoid dedicated articles on proposed highways, until that critical mass has been obtained (i.e. has gone beyond just feasibility studies). As a couple of examples in the early 2000's several ceremonial Interstate designations were codified into law. Most were just political grandstanding and will likely never be built. However, there is one that I assumed was a joke (and I even chastised editors for creating a wikipedia article on) but actually seems to be gaining momentum. WP:CRYSTAL Dave (talk) 18:12, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

If you're talking about proposed highways, the trick in my area is that most proposed US highways were also planned along roads that were never built. US 51 was planned along the Hammond-New Orleans Highway, which was never finished. You would need a good construction map from the period to actually determine where the highway was supposed to go. But, if anyone does find a website, it would be a gem in the rough! 'Mcdonaat → 22:14, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Outside of the roadgeek sites, I can't foresee anyone collecting all of the various proposals into a single online venue. Some state DOTs might have assembled records of various proposals in some form. I know for Michigan, the older editions of the Control Section Atlas often show the alignments for proposed new highway segments because they were assigned control section numbers, and other sections proposed for jurisdictional transfers have notes to that effect. However, those old atlases are not online. Imzadi 1979 → 22:28, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about past and proposed routes so much. The current system of routes is our most important thing to cover, and in most areas of the country, our coverage of them is "unfinished". Historic routes can wait until the current system is covered well. (And, in fact, while researching the history of the current routes, you will often run across information on historic routes anyway.) As for proposed routes, that information will mostly come from newspaper articles (if it hasn't hit the press, chances are slim that it will actually happen). @Moabdave: which route was that, out of curiosity? —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 22:59, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Local newspaper and city/state archives will always be the treasure trove for reliable sources. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 00:24, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Yep. Spend a day and go to the largest library in your area and look through the vertical files of newspaper clippings. Odds are, they have a folder dedicated to highways. Even better is searching the catalog and finding news articles on microfiche. –Fredddie™ 01:21, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

@Scott5114: Interstate 11, which I assumed would be dead when the widening of U.S. Route 93 in Arizona was done, and still may, but it's had more staying power than I thought. Dave (talk) 05:55, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

If there was a reliable source with all Interstate and U.S. highways, past, present, and future, whether actual, proposed, unsigned, we would have found it and used it to create complete articles by now. There is no easy way out; highway research takes a lot of time and effort.  VC  00:31, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

GAR notification

New York State Route 135, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Rschen7754 00:10, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Bumping thread. –Fredddie™ 17:43, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to restart the clock on this one. I'll give it a week before I delist it. –Fredddie™ 17:43, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Bypass plates

I don't remember if this used to work, but it's broken:

US 1 Byp. --NE2 09:22, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Works now. Had to add US-Byp to {{Jct/plate/GA/1}}–4. Will be nice once the sandbox is fully functional. –Fredddie™ 14:52, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I added the truck plate similarly, but now an extra bypass plate appears above the SR shield (though arguably this redundancy may be good):

US 278 Truck / SR 12 Byp. --NE2 17:18, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

 Fixed, for better or worse. By the way, the above transclusion does not currently work in the sandbox. -happy5214 18:08, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Shield file names for {{Jct}}

How can I find out what shield file names are used for the transclusions in {{Jct}}? When I put a normal link, instead of using the template, I want to use the proper shield image. Thanks. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 05:41, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

The file names vary depending on shield type. Try poking around on the Commons to find what you're looking for. -- LJ ↗ 08:19, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Media related to Diagrams of road signs of the United States at Wikimedia Commons

Click on the image. Oh wait, someone "helpfully" made the image unclickable. You can always right click to get the URL. --NE2 13:57, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

They're supposed to be unclickable, I believe its in MOS:ICON. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 02:38, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Sign commons category search

Is there a specific commons category for street name signs that mimic late-Victorian and post-Victorian era street names signs such as this one? There's another one in Rockville Centre, New York that would also be appropriate for this category. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 15:42, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Welcome centers in the United States article

After finding this article I was tempted to add one of Template:Overly detailed, Template:Travel guide, or Template:Very long (article at this writing stands at more than 118K) but figured I'd mention it here first. (Didn't see previous discussion in the archives.) Mapsax (talk) 17:08, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

The list seems to conflate actual welcome centers with tourist information centers and other such facilities (e.g. Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea, Tamarack: The Best of West Virginia - and New Jersey: what the hell?). Also: lolwut at the 'location and notes' column for the Florida's Turnpike service areas. A simple list by state of what Interstates don't have them and what non-Interstates do might be useful (for example, it's interesting that US 231 has one on both sides of the AL-FL border), but the more detailed information would fit in the junction lists. --NE2 18:29, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

The article is decent except for the giant list. This article should become a standard article and the list information split into the relevant road articles. Tagging it is fine as long as you explain on the talk page why it is tagged.  VC  00:11, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Hard-coded junction list converted

Hello,

I converted my first hard-coded junction list in Idaho State Highway 55 to a junction list using the jctint template. Could anybody check if I converted it correctly, because it's the first time I did it, so I can convert more? Thewombatguru (talk) 11:40, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

That looks fine to me. Imzadi 1979 → 12:39, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Template:Roadlink broken

Resolved

It seems that {{roadlink}} is broken and not generating any output (example case here: US 77), perhaps after the last edit to it two days ago. Yes, it is deprecated, but it is still transcluded in several hundred articles, so perhaps someone who is more template-savvy could double-check in the meantime. --Kinu ^t/_c 22:12, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

All right, after I posted this, I boldly reverted the last edits to the template, which appears to have resolved the issue. I'll leave it to Imzadi1979 to double-check the issue and reintroduce the edit as needed. --Kinu ^t/_c 22:22, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

There was an extra pipe in the code. Seems to work now.–Fredddie™ 22:23, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I think I fixed it properly. The extra pipe was making the first parameter blank. --NE2 22:24, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Looks good! Thanks all. --Kinu ^t/_c 22:43, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

An article split proposal

There is a discussion at Talk:Pennsylvania Turnpike‎‎#Article split where participation is welcomed. Imzadi 1979 → 10:58, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Category:U.S. Roads project articles needing shields

I'm wondering if Category:U.S. Roads project articles needing shields is necessary. The only way to flag it is with |needs-shields=yes in {{USRD}}. However, with the {{Jct}} and {{Infobox road}} tracking categories (Category:Jct template errors and Category:Infobox road transclusions without route marker) automatically telling those who watch the categories what is needed and where, the USRD category is a kludgy way to ask for a shield. What do you think? –Fredddie™ 01:22, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

I can't disagree with this reasoning. When's the last time anybody even used that parameter? -- LJ ↗ 04:41, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Within the last six months, a few Louisiana articles were flagged. –Fredddie™ 11:32, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Missing links in jct

SR 313

Probably because it uses the logic in other states, where secondary routes are more like county routes. But in Tennessee they're just another shield used for normal state routes that were part of the federal aid secondary system. --NE2 15:30, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Yea, never been a fan of Tennessee's use of identifying routes as primary or secondary while using the same number, then hide them in other routes. Anyway, I believe it's a coding issue because some secondary roads are linkable while others are not, probably someone hard coded the numbers are something. --WashuOtaku (talk) 03:55, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

County roads and things like the FM/RMs in Texas are set that if the article doesn't exist, the link is suppressed. That's probably why some of Tennessee's secondaries are linked (the article exists), and the other are not linked (the article doesn't exist). Imzadi 1979 → 04:08, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

@Imzadi1979: Is Right. There is not currently an article on Tennessee State Route 313. Hope That Helps!!!! --ACase0000 (talk) 04:32, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes. My point is that it shouldn't be this way (but it's probably moot with the pending change to Lua, where Module:Road data/strings/USA/TN rather than a fully-protected behemoth governs the links). --NE2 05:15, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Tennessee State Route 461

For Some the shield for this Route is not showing up in the Infobox. --ACase0000 (talk) 05:39, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Where Some = All: Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Shields task force/Requests

PS: I think you have the north end wrong; state maintenance ends at the park boundary. KY 453 similarly does not enter the park. --NE2 06:10, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Standards Department

I think we should upgrade Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Standards to the status of a USRD Department, and it should be split into manageable subpages. Each major part of an article would have a dedicated subpage, with MOS:RJL linked as the subpage for junction lists. Some of the shorter parts could remain on the main STDS page. Thoughts? Imzadi 1979 → 04:12, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I think it would be a good idea to make a Standards Department, as we can have a group of editors that can hash out any changes and improvements to our article standards. Dough4872 04:50, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Just keep in mind that they're guidelines, not to be applied just because you're bored. --NE2 07:09, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I oppose this. The reason why the Standards page was created in the first place was because the standards were split across too many pages. It made it difficult to point users to a central "these are the USRD guidelines" page. It may be a long and rather bulky document, but that's better than creating sub-documents that might be overlooked. A better option would be to streamline the existing document and remove unneeded information. We can probably jettison the "Deprecated sections" section, for example, since it's been years since anyone has added those. We could also probably edit it to remove information that is duplicated by the MOS (or move that to a MOS compliance page). —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 20:05, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

HWY Cup start time

Sorry to ask this at such a late time, but what time does the Cup actually begin, E.S.T.? I thought it would be at 8 pm, but the IRC channel said that it would be a different time. I'm confused. Thanks. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 23:46, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm from the Pacific time zone. 0:00 UTC means 5:00 pm for me, so adding 3 hours would 8:00 pm for eastern. --Bloonstdfan360 ^{Transit center!} 23:49, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

It starts in nine minutes. The topic hasn't been updated in a while. TCN7JM 23:51, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Lua jct deployment

The Lua version of {{jct}} will be deployed this weekend. Last-minute requests may be made at Template talk:Jct#Deployment of Lua version. -happy5214 00:54, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Maybe I was out of it, or it was during my transitioning to this newer laptop, but I don't think I ever heard what the Lua deployment for {{Jct}} is actually entail. Sorry to bother you guys, but I would like to know. Thanks. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 13:17, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Long story short, it's been rewritten with a new programming language to make it faster. –Fredddie™ 13:30, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for the "duplicate" section. Will it allow more than 4 roads to be used? How many times can it be used on a page, without affecting performance? Any other cool features? Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 13:38, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

There is a thread on Template talk:Jct about how many times you can use the new Jct (look for the I-99 shields). Other than that, it will be able to bake cookies and give back rubs in addition to displaying everything we've come to know and love about Jct. –Fredddie™ 17:47, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

What's the holdup? --NE2 04:54, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Lack of testing? Feel free to help. -happy5214 06:00, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

How would you recommend helping? I'll check existing jct subtemplates against the new ones, but otherwise what? --NE2 06:03, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Do page previews using the sandbox and report anything unusual. -happy5214 06:13, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Weirdness in old and new: Hwy 1 / Hwy 1 (TCH) Hwy 1 / Hwy 1 (TCH) - why the different shields? --NE2 06:08, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Who knows? @Floydian: Any ideas? -happy5214 06:13, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

The TCH shields fell out of copyright a few years ago, so we should be using those instead of the silly PD maple leaf squares. –Fredddie™ 14:40, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

How do I write this in Lua? {{#ifexist:County Route {{{num}}} ({{{county}}} County, Alabama)|County Route {{{num}}} ({{{county}}} County, Alabama)|none}} --NE2 06:17, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

I fixed that. The parser has its own syntax for doing that. -happy5214 08:32, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

If only I could do this for all states. But it's timing out when I try to save the sandbox version of Alabama. --NE2 07:44, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Blame the re-addition of automatic existence testing for shields for killing the expensive PF count. -happy5214 08:32, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

• 
  
  Iowa 26 north / WIS 82 east
• 
  
  Iowa 26 north / WIS 82 east

Is there a way to call the Wisconsin module without having to put WI in the Iowa module? –Fredddie™ 14:44, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Could always do {{jct|state=IA|IA|26|dir1=north}}&nbsp;/ {{jct|state=WI|WI|82|dir2=east}}, I suppose. I didn't even know that old Jct allowed you to mix states like that.—Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 19:57, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

No. Is that supposed to be allowed? I think it originated with the consolidation of the state types into the U.S. subtemplates. -happy5214 21:29, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Would be nice if you could do something like IA.WI = ../WI.WI.WI but I doubt it. Module:Road data/strings/USA/WI actually has MN in it, so I've similarly added WI to Module:Road data/strings/USA/IA. Unfortunately this is a step back, since you could redirect the old templates. --NE2 22:47, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I've added type aliasing to the parser. The IA.WI type now serves as a symbolic link to the WI module. -happy5214 23:19, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh, cool. --NE2 01:08, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Is it possible to make the "Invalid type" error link to the relevant road data module? --NE2 04:35, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

AASHTO spring 2014 meeting

Everything was approved or conditionally approved.

1. USRNApplication US 278 2-26-14.pdf US 278 (AL) minor relocation west of Baldwin
2. USRN Application US 331 2-26-14.pdf US 331 (AL) minor relocation at Ada
3. US Hwy 49 through Brookland - redesignate as US Hw....pdf U.S. Route 49B (Brookland, Arkansas)
4. US Hwy 49 through Brookland - relocate.pdf US 49 (AR) new bypass
5. US Hwy 63 through Bono - redesignate as US Hwy 63....pdf U.S. Route 63B (Bono, Arkansas)
6. US Hwy 63 through Bono - relocate.pdf US 63 (AR) new bypass
7. US Hwy 167 through Sheridan - redesignate as US Hw....pdf U.S. Route 167B (Sheridan, Arkansas)
8. US Hwy 167 through Sheridan - relocate.pdf US 167 (AR) new bypass
9. DC_USBR 50 Application.pdf along C&O Canal Towpath
10. USBRSApplication37.pdf (IL) from Downtown Chicago to Wisconsin, including the Chicago Lakefront Trail, North Branch Trail, and Robert McClory Trail
11. USBRSApplication36.pdf (IL) from Downtown Chicago to Indiana. including the Chicago Lakefront Trail and Burnham Greenway
12. USInterstRtNum_LA_I49.pdf I-49 (LA) north of I-220
13. AASHTO Route Numbering Application_I70_April 2014.....pdf I-70 (MD) truncated at I-695 (doesn't say what the new state number is)
14. USBR1 2-sided signed application.pdf (MA) along Charles River Path and Northern Strand Community Trail
15. AASHTOappUS 14.pdf US 14 (MN) relocation around Janesville-Waseca-Owatonna
16. NE US 34 AASHTO.pdf
17. AASHTO Application for I99 4_9_14.pdf I-99 (NY) from Pennsylvania to I-86
18. US 401.pdf US 401 (NC) around Rolesville
19. US 401BUS.PDF U.S. Route 401 Business (Rolesville, North Carolina)
20. US85_ND_Relocation_Alexander.pdf US 85 (ND)
21. US85_ND_Business_Addition_Alexander.pdf U.S. Route 85 Business (Alexander, North Dakota)
22. US85_ND_Relocation_WatfordCity.pdf US 85 (ND)
23. US85_ND_Business_Addition_WatfordCity.pdf U.S. Route 85 Business (Watford City, North Dakota)
24. USBR 50 Signed Application_final.pdf (OH) across the center of the state
25. TDOT_USRNapp_US70_2014.pdf US 11 (TN)/US 70 (TN) relocated along the Knoxville riverfront
26. I-69 Harris County.pdf I-69 (TX) inside I-610
27. I-69 C Hidalgo County.pdf I-69C (TX) extended north to FM 490
28. I-69-E Nueces County.pdf I-69E (TX) extended south on the rest of the Robstown bypass
29. I-69-W Webb County.pdf I-69W (TX) on Loop 20 west of I-35
30. US-59 Webb County.pdf US 59 (TX) relocated to follow Loop 20 to the border
31. US-59-Z Business Webb County.pdf U.S. Route 59 Business (Laredo, Texas)
32. USBR10_WSDOT_Application_Spring2014.pdf (WA) across the state on SR 20
33. I-11 (NV), from Hoover Dam to I-15 at I-515 (no PDF)

--NE2 01:54, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Already ahead on US 401 Business, though the bypass isn't completed at this time... Maybe by September I've heard. As for I-70 in Baltimore, that will become Cooks Boulevard and will be reconfigured. --WashuOtaku (talk) 02:53, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Cooks Boulevard "will remain under SHA maintenance". --NE2 03:07, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

I am guessing we will not see which route number Cooks Boulevard will be until the 2014 HLR is released about a year from now.  VC  13:40, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Interesting that US 34 NE is on the list but US 34 IA is not. –Fredddie™ 15:23, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Ooh, I like what they're doing with US-85 ND. Anything that makes travel times faster (with the oil boom clogging up traffic in even the smallest of cities along major highways) is welcome. TCN7JM 15:31, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Georgia State Route 10 Loop (Athens)

There is a proposal to split Georgia State Route 10 Loop (Athens) into its own page (or actually re-split it). The appropriate talk section is here. There is another topic of discussion related to this in that section. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 23:35, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Two I-494 proposals in Illinois

Transcribed in part from User talk:NE2#Two I-494 proposals in Illinois

There seem to have been two I-494 proposals, the second along Lake Shore Drive about the same time as the first. I'm assuming that these files are legit enough regarding the second: text map (the map is linked from the text but the link on the archive version doesn't work; a later map exists but I can't find its context, only an old link on Kurumi's page). If so the existing redirect should probably become a DAB page to the Crosstown and LSD articles, with the above info added to the History section of LSD's. Mapsax (talk) 16:00, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Maybe it's just me, but neither of those redirects seem particularly useful. –Fredddie™ 16:53, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't appear any different than other redirects involving an obsolete designation, just that there were two distinct proposals of apparently equal importance, so a single redirect wouldn't work. At the very least this could address the situation of I-494 being ID'd on the Crosstown Expressway article but not the Lake Shore Drive one. Mapsax (talk) 15:56, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

With no replies, I was bold and did it, while adding a paragraph to the LSD article and a hatnote to the Crosstown one. The reference rendering on the LSD one is generally rough because I wasn't sure what descriptions to use given the small amount of information. Mapsax (talk) 18:36, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I said I don't care. --NE2 19:01, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Keep us posted on how that's going for you. In the meantime, I'm pretty sure the reason why Mapsax posted this here is because you don't care and he wanted someone else's opinion. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 01:08, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

I still don't care. --NE2 02:07, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Update: no change in status. --NE2 11:21, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll make an appropriate notation in my diary. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 03:33, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Still don't care. A ditto mark in your diary is good enough. --NE2 11:55, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Template:Jct broken?

I just was editing Georgia State Route 100. The southern terminus in the infobox was incorrect. It had US 27. It is actually US 27 Alt. When I corrected the template from "US|27" to "US-Alt|27", it broke the code. The string "[[U.S. Route 27 Alternate ([%dab%||%dab, |]Georgia)|US 27 Alt.]]" was put in place of the link. Can someone look to see what is wrong? Thanks. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 02:22, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

It's not broken. You have to add |dab1=<whatever the city is> –Fredddie™ 02:27, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Actually, the format string had a couple of syntax errors. It should be fixed now. |dab1= is not required here. -happy5214 02:35, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, US 27 Alt. is one of those huge alternate routes that doesn't need to be disambiguated. --NE2 11:51, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

In related news, Category:Jct template errors is the new missing shield/invalid type category. –Fredddie™ 12:01, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I just cleaned the current invalid types that don't involve pretty old-style shields. --NE2 12:05, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Missing shield: File:US 1/9.svg. Did the old templates substitute File:US 1-9.svg? If so, a redirect on Commons is all that's needed (but should the articles be cleaned up to all use 1/9 in prose?). --NE2 12:09, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Too many expensive function calls: State highways in New Jersey --NE2 12:10, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Also U.S. Route 1 in Florida. --NE2 14:56, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

The New Jersey one can be fixed by converting to the routelist templates (which do not use any expensive functions) and/or not using {{roadlink}}. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 17:28, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

US 1 is a perfect example of why I wanted to get rid of automatic existence testing. However, that would remove missing shield detection. -happy5214 22:37, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Is there any way to have a page generate the intersection of the missing image category with what transcludes jct? --NE2 23:03, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

If you get rid of half of the 102 mentions of I-95 in the destinations column (and that's before it chokes on the expensive function limit) and the at-grade CR intersections, we'd clear the limit by a long way. –Fredddie™ 23:14, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

And if horses were goats... --NE2 00:28, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

I can certainly understand the need to reduce the number of "To I-95" links in the junction parameters. Sure, some local street or minor county roads leading to I-95 are okay, but we don't have to have them for every road that goes to I-95 from Miami to the Georgia State Line. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 16:50, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

I can't. These streets are all posted by FDOT as routes from US 1 to I-95. --NE2 17:34, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

You misspelled "won't". We can and should exercise editorial discretion here. –Fredddie™ 17:36, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, we should. Common sense says don't remove information that you would include on a shorter route. --NE2 17:42, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Yay, moot issue. --NE2 13:03, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Any chance of having Category:Jct template errors place pages with both types of errors under 2 rather than 1? --NE2 13:01, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

The internal backlog of articles with the old template has been cleared, meaning that all errors that appear on the pages should be actually in the category now. --NE2 02:08, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

How can I fix this?

IL 155 west / Lincoln Heritage Trail (Southern Branch) north / Great River Road Spur

Setting width=0 in Module:Road data/strings/USA/IL gives a script error. --NE2 23:00, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

In the interrim, try flipping the order around:

IL 155 west / Great River Road Spur / Lincoln Heritage Trail (Southern Branch) north

The template is going to assume the second of the three has a marker graphic appearing and space the banner for the third accordingly, but if you put it last, things line up properly. The other solution is to create the missing graphic for the LHT so there's something to appear in the second position. Imzadi 1979 → 01:37, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess I can crop File:End Lincoln Heritage Trail and Lincoln Trail Homestead State Park signs.jpg. --NE2 01:45, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Change in location field in Google Street View?

As best as I can tell, about a week ago the behavior of the location next to the road name in Google Street View changed, so it no longer only gives a city name if it's inside city limits. Therefore this can no longer be relied on for accurate locations. The gray shading and the city limits given when you search for the place still appear to be accurate. --NE2 15:38, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

RJL issues

See discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Road junction lists#Mile or km and subsequent sections - Evad37 [talk] 12:45, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Arkansas abbreviation

Currently the USSH-compliant abbreviation for Arkansas is Hwy., which is what AHTD seems to use historically. But I've noticed many signs that use AR (example) and a few older (?) ones (example) with Ark. Can someone who's traveled in different parts of Arkansas confirm if this is a statewide standard? If so, should we be changing the abbreviation used in articles to match? --NE2 17:41, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Brandonrush might be able to help. –Fredddie™ 17:44, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Ark. is old school. Hwy and AR seem to be pretty interchangeable. I have been across a lot of the state, and if I had to guess; a majority statewide say AR. New signs in NWA (where I am) say AR, but AHTD's other districts probably mint new signs in Hwy style. Brandonrush Woo pig soooooooie! 02:07, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

{{NYSR-AIDpast}}

Template:NYSR-AIDpast (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 05:35, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

What is this shield?

Looks like a fat tepee. If you turn you see the standard arrowhead shield. Is this an older standard? (By the way, this used to carry the Great River Road when it extended into Canada.) --NE2 18:25, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Says Indian Service and the 3 looks to be in a thatch hut. I agree that it's probably an old standard. –Fredddie™ 19:08, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Tennessee Business and Bypass Routes

There seems to be a problem with the new system of Jct's
SR 55 Bus. You can also see Tennessee State Route 55's infobox and junction list section. And also
SR 22 Byp. does work right anymore. --ACase0000 (talk) 05:42, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

I added SR-Byp, so that works, now. Unfortunately, I copied the SR-Bus format, so we have the same issue with SR-Byp now. –Fredddie™ 05:48, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

 Fixed –Fredddie™ 05:50, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks @Fredddie:!!!

The Tennessee dash

Hey guys, since the new jct system took over, highways in Tennessee no longer use a dash, which is standard in their highway terminology (example SR 1). Similar to Alabama (example SR 71), a dash should appear in all State Route, Secondary Route and U.S. Highways. Hope you all can correct, thank you. --WashuOtaku (talk) 15:41, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Is this actually the standard? [4] --NE2 17:11, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm, point taken. Originally a dash was used before the conversion, but as pointed out TDOT doesn't use this standard (or at least anymore). My bad; future revisions of Tennessee highways will reflect the current usage by TDOT. --WashuOtaku (talk) 17:37, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

One other concept to consider is embodied in the "in a nutshell" at the top of WP:SPECIALSTYLE. We really should be applying styling decisions like this on a project-wide consistent basis, and we are not beholden to exact mimicry of the state DOTs. In other words, we don't have to use the hyphen just because the DOT does. My copy of the AP Stylebook I have here says to use "U.S. #" as the abbreviation regardless of DOT preference, and The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.) would tell you to drop the periods. We can choose a standard on these things and go with it. Imzadi 1979 → 23:13, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Where does the Avenue of the Saints end?

Avenue of the Saints claims that the south end is the I-64 interchange with Lindbergh, 5 miles from St. Louis city limits, and the north end is at I-94 in downtown St. Paul. Neither end is referenced. http://www.modot.org/northeast/61_27AveofSts.htm doesn't say where it ends, and the legal definition is simply "from St. Louis, Missouri, to St. Paul, Minnesota". The special banner does appear on I-64, including inside I-270, but that could simply reflect a directive to place them above US 61 signs, not an official endpoint. --NE2 01:06, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

From what I've seen in the St. Louis area, the Avenue of the Saints signs stop at the US 67/Lindbergh interchange. I'm not claiming this as proof, but these signs near Forest Park don't include the AotS banner, but do include the Lewis and Clark Trail sign. –Fredddie™ 01:59, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Redirects

I updated the lead and most of the links on the Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Redirects page. Either this page needs more updating or needs to be deleted, whichever is correct. I looked at the history, and -- before my edit -- it hadn't been edited since 2010. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 23:48, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Just keep in mind that redirects are not broken links. –Fredddie™ 23:50, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

There probably really isn't much that needed to be updated. Yes, you tweaked it to update for the fact that states don't have separate wikiprojects anymore, but all of the links still redirected to the intended targets. Imzadi 1979 → 00:14, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I know that the states no longer have separate projects, and I also know that redirects aren't "broken" links. However, what about the red links? What will be done about those? Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 00:30, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Routing of the Great River Road

I've converted this to prose. Would it make sense to merge it with Great River Road, or should it be kept separate? --NE2 02:09, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Merge away. –Fredddie™ 02:13, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, feel free to merge at your discretion. Imzadi 1979 → 02:16, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Merge into a "Route description" section in the Great River Road article. Dough4872 03:08, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Merged. I'm working on a map and possibly a KML file. --NE2 05:53, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

GAR notification

New Jersey Route 53, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Rschen7754 08:57, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Featured article criteria

Copied from Talk:Interstate 805 for reference The usage of the highway is dramatically understated in Interstate 805. There is just one sentence on average daily users and no contextualization of this figure i.e. How does it compare with similar highways? Does it represent an overall increase in traffic? What was it's effect on nearby highways upon opening?. For all the listing of costs, there is also no mention of the cost-justification for building this road. There is no comment on the composition of traffic (heavy goods, commercial, commuters, cars vs motorcyles, etc). There is no discussion of the social or economic impact of I-805. What is written is factual and to the point, but I'm amazed that this is classed as one of Wikipedia's best articles when it fails to detail the very purpose of the subject. SFB 08:42, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

@Sillyfolkboy: The problem is that what you want is steering very close to original research, or information that is simply not available. Most of the San Diego roads were built in the 1960s in a very short period of time, so it's hard to match effects to specific roads. This isn't like California State Route 52, where there were significant environmental concerns, as well as a significant drop in the economy of the stores along the old road. Also, I notice that you have made no effort to locate sources for the information you want, either. I simply go off what the local newspapers say. --Rschen7754 00:10, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: That's a fair assessment, but I'm here to give feedback on the Featured Article status, rather than get involved in a topic area in which I have little experience of sources. I certainly don't mean to denigrate your work, as I believe this is undoubtedly of Good Article quality. I suppose it comes down to the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria: note that 1b and 1c are separate - i.e. you could reference all the literature ever on a subject, but if that doesn't get the article to the point where "it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context", then it maybe that an FA simply isn't possible on a topic at that point. I would say highway usage and economic impact are a key facet of meeting the 1b ("comprehensive") criterion for a road article – they are among the most basic facts that underpin the road's existence. I would appreciate opinions from others in the WikiProject about whether this is an issue or not. SFB 16:29, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Clean up

Can someone remove the articles from Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Roadlink/USA? 188.74.96.111 (talk) 22:25, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

 Done, there was only one. Imzadi 1979 → 22:46, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

yes, thank you! 188.74.96.111 (talk) 22:52, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

template:jct issue

You can't have a banner without a route number:

Route 110 (CKC)

--NE2 08:06, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

That's because you used the wrong width code when defining the type. expand requires a route number because the banner output for that code is dependent on that number's length. wide should be used here, since the shield is alway 25px. -happy5214 08:58, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Ah, sensical. --NE2 09:29, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

In related news, having just driven a chunk of the CKC yesterday, the Illinois 110 shield should be a square. –Fredddie™ 14:44, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Requested move: Central Florida Expressway Authority

Talk:Central Florida Expressway Authority#Requested move --NE2 23:29, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Road with no system

Lewis and Clark Trail: could someone edit {{infobox road}} so system=none works? --NE2 03:12, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Isn't it an Auto trail? So shouldn't it look similar then to the Lincoln Highway's infobox? --WashuOtaku (talk) 03:19, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

It may be an auto trail in some sense, but it was established in the 1960s. Great River Road uses National Scenic Byways, which the L&C is not one of. --NE2 03:26, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Since parts of it are state-maintained highways, adding {{infobox road/browselinks/USA|state=IA}}, etc to the parameter will add the appropriate state system links in the box. Imzadi 1979 → 03:29, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

What the fuck. That's ugly as hell. --NE2 03:42, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Another question: does this need a junction list or not (assuming the exact route can be identified)? Talk:Lewis and Clark Trail has needs-jctint=missing set, but Talk:Great River Road has needs-jctint=NA. --NE2 06:03, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

If anyone's interested in the 1951 GRR report, it's on http://ddaforum.com/DocumentLibrary/tabid/80/Default.aspx under Iowa Great River Road reference documents. --NE2 09:08, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

ACR needs reviews!

Just a reminder that there are several nominations on WP:HWY/ACR needing review. --Rschen7754 23:54, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

2 state rule

I remember having the discussion quite clearly in the last couple years, but did we ever write down the 2 state rule prohibiting state-detail articles for routes that only enter two states? –Fredddie™ 02:25, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Probably because it is not an Iron Law; and all rules are meant to have exceptions. Some routes enter three states, but have no need for state-level detail. Other routes may be long enough in both states to get their own articles per state. The rule should be "don't create additional articles if they aren't truly needed. Just becomes some routes have different articles per state doesn't mean they all should have them." A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds and all that... The two state rule is a good rule of thumb, but we should not be beholden to it if it doesn't meet our purposes of writing good articles. --Jayron32 02:30, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I disagree and agree with Jayron: US 8 has no need for separate articles by state since 90% of the parent article would duplicate a theoretical Wisconsin-only article. However, I cannot foresee splitting two-state Interstate or US Highways into three articles (national, state 1, state 2) in most cases because there will be issues of how to summarize the two articles to make the third. Just as there are going to be exceptions to the three-state rule like US 8, there may be exceptions to the two-state rule. These two rules should be the norm unless or until a specific case is made. It's not a "foolish consistency" when the exceptions are few and far between. Imzadi 1979 → 03:12, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

You're probably correct there. I can forsee many more reasons to not create articles merely because a route passes through three states. We don't need to blindly create articles simply because the route hits the third state. That's mainly what I was arguing for. Create articles because they are needed, not because of some arbitrary rule. --Jayron32 01:32, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

[5] I believe that's the guideline you're looking for, but as stated above, it's just a guideline. Dave (talk) 03:48, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

US 377 is split. US 9 would probably be split even if it had never been extended into Delaware, being a different major corridor in each state (Jersey Shore, NYC-Montreal). I could definitely see a split of US 151. --NE2 05:44, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

US 377 is split only on a technicality, because SH-99 would exist either way, so it makes sense to have SH-99 cover US-377 in Oklahoma as well. Texas is so large that we should probably make exceptions to this rule if Texas is one of the states; US-277 could absolutely work as split articles, for instance. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 06:02, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Interstate 8 is about to test the two-state rule... --Rschen7754 16:48, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Time-lapse videos

It occurred to me that time-lapse videos would be a good way to show the appearance of an entire route, rather than static photographs which are limited to a single position. I've made a few which I've added to Cross-Bronx Expressway, New Jersey Turnpike, and Baltimore–Washington Parkway. I welcome any feedback.

In case anybody wants to make videos of their own, I just propped up my iPhone on my dashboard and used the LapseIt app. The Pro version is inexpensive and takes much higher-resolution images. Then I used VLC to trim and transcode into WebM. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 04:00, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I've thought of the idea too. I'm sure its alright as long it's video that is clear (i.e. not blurry, not showing other things, etc.) and had no accompanied music that would cause copyright issue (unless you can find public domain music for it ^_~ ). --WashuOtaku (talk) 04:17, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Neat videos! Thanks for the advice on how to make them. Dough4872 04:19, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Consider contacting User:Haljackey if you're interested in making these. He's uploaded dozens for sections of Ontario highways (good example) and could probably offer some good tips on keeping the video smooth and adding annotations / comments. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 04:41, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Oh, those are nice! Yeah, mostly I'm looking for advice about transcode settings that will preserve the video quality, but feedback on composition is great too. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:24, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata intersections property proposal

See d:Wikidata:Property_proposal/Place#intersections - would Micru's proposal be something that would work? --Rschen7754 17:48, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Portal

In recent months, there has been a lack of suggestions for articles, pictures, and DYK hooks for our featured portal, P:USRD. Instead of me having to go through a crunch at the end of the month looking for ideas, I feel as a project we need to plan out the future months of our portal more in advance. We should get together and list out the suggestions for articles, pictures, and DYKs for the next six months or so. In doing this, we should keep regional balance in mind and try to go to different regions of the country every month for articles and pictures. For DYK hooks, we should try to have five regionally spaced states one month and five different regionally spaced states the following month in that no state is repeated two months in a row at DYK. I would like to get everyone's thoughts on this idea and hopefully get some fruitful suggestions for the portal. Dough4872 00:56, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

In short, everyone should suggest at least two hooks for DYK, suggest a selected article, and choose a picture you really like. Keep in mind, we may be planning for the holidays, so winter pics are not a bad thing. –Fredddie™ 00:58, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Portal:U.S. Roads/Did you know/Recommend is the page. --Rschen7754 08:08, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Requested move: Tennessee State Route 159

Hello everyone, there has been a request to move SR 159 into US 321. Talk:U.S. Route 321 in Tennessee. --WashuOtaku (talk) 15:01, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Kentucky anyone?

Mardis, Bill (July 9, 2014). "Traditional Local Route Ky. 80 Getting Makeover". Commonwealth Journal. Somerset, KY. Retrieved July 9, 2014. has some historical information rarely found in newspaper reporting. Imzadi 1979 → 15:56, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Completely duplicate entries

Please tell me we don't want to have two entries for the same exact road: Bannered routes of U.S. Route 15#Remington business loop, Bannered routes of U.S. Route 29#Remington business loop --NE2 08:49, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Certainly redundant articles no, that's what re-directs are for. However, this is a short sub-route covered in a larger article, with only a paragraph of coverage. The most that would be gained by a hatnote and/or redirect is a paragraph. IMO it's not worth the effort to combine them. Dave (talk) 14:38, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I made the effort and was reverted. --NE2 19:41, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

The reason they were reverted was because these articles already existed and pointed to each other in the description identifying their concurrency. They are listed in their respective banner pages and their was no additional reason to combine them for combining sake. Also, instead of actually combining the articles, you were redirecting US 29 Business automatically to US 15 Business with little explanation other than the mention of concurrency. The point is, they already exist, there is no reason to pretend they suddenly don't exist. --WashuOtaku (talk) 22:13, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

To be honest, your explanation doesn't make much sense. It's like you're stringing together sentences without any relation. What is "there is no reason to pretend they suddenly don't exist" supposed to mean? What needs to be combined from the sections (not articles)? Other than the two disagreeing about James Madison Street vs. Road, all I see in 29 that's not in 15 is that it's two-lane. If I add that to 15, will you stop reverting? PS: we were just blocked for edit warring. Why are you still at it? --NE2 22:21, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

@NE2: Then I have no answer that will satisfy you. Please allow others to chime in first before you revert my revert. --WashuOtaku (talk) 22:39, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Redundancy is not always bad, period. In fact, our highway systems are full of various redundancies. If M-28 (Michigan highway) did not cover the 60-mile concurrency with U.S. Route 41 in Michigan, and instead directed readers to the latter article for all information on that section of highway, it would not be very comprehensive. In the example that started this discussion, yes, each article should have have a section on that stretch of road. Add an explicit HTML comment that any updates to the one need to be applied to the other, but I oppose any effort to merge into one location and deny the other the possibility of being a single comprehensive article. Imzadi 1979 → 22:50, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly disagree. The 60-mile overlap should be covered in detail in one article and in brief in the other; anything else is unmaintainable (as can be seen by the different state of the US 15 Bus. and US 29 Bus. entries). We don't have the manpower to keep articles free of errors; why would we have it to keep duplicates error-free? But if useless duplication is USRD policy, I'll apply it to U.S. Route 1/9 Truck. --NE2 23:16, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

It's not USRD policy, per se, but it is in the FA Criteria, specifically criterion 1b: "it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context". The major facts about that section of highway equally apply to both US 41 and M-28, so omitting them from M-28 would mean that the article is not comprehensive. Imzadi 1979 → 23:34, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

There's nothing neglectful about sending the reader to another article for details. Otherwise Virginia couldn't be featured. Anyway, this is getting rather off-topic, since the purpose of a "bannered routes" list is to plop together a bunch of articles that would otherwise be too short. Comprehensiveness applies to those individual sections, not the entire list, just as putting a redirect in a category doesn't make the category less comprehensive. --NE2 23:44, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

As discussed above, these aren't purely lists though, and if they were improved enough, they'd properly go to FAC, not FLC, meaning the comprehensiveness criterion quoted above would apply. Even if they were to be taken to FLC, the FL Criteria have a similar criterion, 3a: " It comprehensively covers the defined scope, providing at least all of the major items and, where practical, a complete set of items; where appropriate, it has annotations that provide useful and appropriate information about the items." Imzadi 1979 → 00:03, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. They're not purely lists, but separate articles plopped together to satisfy the deletionists. if they were two separate articles, we'd redirect one to the other. So apply that logically to these listicles. --NE2 01:04, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

We don't want to have two entries for the same exact road.  VC  23:20, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Regarding U.S. Route 15/29 Business in Remington, I would be fine with doing either a mention in one list with the other having a hatnote and a brief summary or just duplicating the information in both the US 15 and US 29 bannered routes list as it is little information. However, I would not split U.S. Route 1/9 Truck into redundant U.S. Route 1 Truck (Jersey City, New Jersey) and U.S. Route 9 Truck (Jersey City, New Jersey) articles as that route has a full article and is signed with the 1 and 9 in one shield in most places. Dough4872 00:20, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Corridor H article name

Does it make sense to anyone else to move U.S. Route 48 to Corridor H? The latter is the more common name by far. --NE2 15:32, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I would leave it as is. More often than not the corridor shares with multiple or just part of a highway. --WashuOtaku (talk) 17:30, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

No.  VC  17:32, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

While, a redirect could lead readers to the Corridor H page, U.S. Route 48 is a more common name. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 17:58, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

It should stay where it is. It's quite clear from the article that the route will be signed when complete, and it's going to be there soon. --Jayron32 18:18, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Just for some other articles we do this way, Corridor T is Interstate 86 (Pennsylvania–New York), which is also not yet complete, and yet Corridor T redirects to there. Corridor X (Appalachian Development Highway System) redirects to the yet-to-be completed Interstate 22. The only time it makes sense to have a separate article for one of the Appalachian corridors would be when the corridor itself covers multiple routes. When it is entirely part of a single route, it makes more sense to just redirect it to the route number, which will be the more common name. --Jayron32 18:24, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

U.S. Route 48 a more common name? Sure, if 86 is greater than 39400. More importantly, newspaper articles only call it Corridor H, even though new segments are being signed as US 48 from opening. Do your research before kneejerking. --NE2 18:49, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I get 3,430,000 for U.S. 48, but a very similar 39,500 for Corridor H when I click those links. For news searches, the results are uncorrelated and of no use... but Google also screwed its news search service royally. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 04:04, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

You click this link and get 3 million results? --NE2 09:01, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Yep... 3,400,000 this time. Not sure why really, but I think it may be one of those things that makes google results sketchy for these kind of proposals. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 05:16, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I concur with Floydian. I only get 44 results when I change "u.s. route 48" to "u.s. highway 48". –Fredddie™ 05:22, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

OK, I see where the 3 million comes from - if I "repeat the search with the omitted results included" I get 3410000. But then I scroll down to the bottom and it's only 3 pages (100 per page), ending up on "Page 3 of 209 results". Don't be fooled by the Goog. --NE2 11:09, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Oh look, several simultaneous comments and then nothing more. Seems like offsite coordination, but you guys would never do that, would you? --NE2 09:32, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

You should get that paranoia checked out by a doctor. I hear they have medicine for that now. --Jayron32 03:23, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

The IRC channel is publicly accessible and you're chasing a red herring - only onsite discussion matters and the result of it has no correlation to the timing of the posts. Besides, on a Sunday afternoon, four posts over 48 minutes seems like casual watchlisting to me. Kick the attitude to the curb or you will find yourself facing scrutiny and/or dismissal from your fellow editors before they even read your suggestions. Nobody is receptive towards a grumpy Gus. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 09:55, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The above is clearly "dismissal from your fellow editors before they even read your suggestions". All four posts are either content-free or outright incorrect, yet give the appearance of actual discussion. --NE2 10:32, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Well?!? Like I'm saying, try approaching situations with respect for your fellow volunteers. We're all just people trying to make everything informative yet tidy and concise. A little bit of friendliness and positive attitude will get you better results the first time you try, I will put anything on the line to promise that. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 05:20, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Point out the disrespect, unfriendliness, or negative attitude in this: "Does it make sense to anyone else to move U.S. Route 48 to Corridor H? The latter is the more common name by far." --NE2 11:12, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@NE2:, I believe you will just need to accept that the majority that has responded simply do not agree with you. They are not gaining up on you nor making a united front; they each weighed your proposal and gave you an answer. Everyone has had an idea shot down at some point; just don't let that dissuade you. --WashuOtaku (talk) 14:46, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I love bad faith assumptions. We don't talk about the wiki in the IRC channel anyway; it's all about NASCAR and Candy Crush Saga or road trips now. From what I can tell Corridors D (US 50/OH 32), G (US 119), Q (US 460), and X1 (I-422) do not redirect currently. Corridor D seems to be completed, otherwise the other corridors that do not redirect don't because the road is still under construction, which fits H perfectly. I guess I'd be OK with moving to Corridor H until it's all done. –Fredddie™ 12:01, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Even after it's all done, there's a good chance that Corridor H will be the common name. Interstate 90 in Indiana is probably the best existing example. --NE2 12:53, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Also PA 43/WV 43. --NE2 13:20, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Using Mon-Fayette instead of the state route numbers from two different states in separate articles is not an equivalent situation.  VC  01:09, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree the title should be US 48 rather than Corridor H as route numbers should take precedence to road names. For example, we moved Intercounty Connector to Maryland Route 200 for the same reason. Dough4872 01:33, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

That's another silly move. --NE2 09:01, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Sure it is; it could have been combined like New Hampshire Route 26 or Route 286 (Massachusetts – New Hampshire). --NE2 09:01, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Renaming to Corridor H won't hurt anything in the short term. We can review the name once the construction is finished. –Fredddie™ 02:31, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Oppose renaming to Corridor H; usage in local media might refer to it as that, but maps and signs will show it as US-48, so someone from outside of the area will not recognize the two concepts as linked. A redirect from Corridor H to US-48 will allow users more familiar with the latter former term to reach the article on it. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 03:42, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

PS: Interstate 90 in Massachusetts --NE2 09:01, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Excuse me, but might you have a discussion about moving Massachusetts Turnpike? That is a pure violation of WP:Common name and an outright move without a discussion is unacceptable. There are several reasons why Mass Pike is the proper name, one is that the name predates the Interstate system by a few years. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 17:30, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

@Jerem43: no one from this project did the move, and I think NE2 was just pointing out a counterexample.

@Sphilbrick: you might want to reverse that move. Imzadi 1979 → 17:37, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I was implementing something claimed to be non-controversial, apparently not the case. Can whomever requested the move request the reversal? Frankly, I don't know how. I can figure it out if necessary, but it would be better if the initiator did it. I think it was User:NE2. Hmmm ,not sure that's the case.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:41, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I can't figure out who asked. I assume that Interstate 90 in Massachusetts should be renamed Massachusetts Turnpike and Interstate 90 in Massachusetts should become a redirect to Massachusetts Turnpike?--S Philbrick(Talk) 18:25, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I-90/Masspike is a very similar case to US 48/Corridor H. In both cases, the name is much more common, but is not always signed (e.g. signs in the South Boston Waterfront only say I-90). If the project policy is to use the number rather than the name, I-90 in Massachusetts follows the policy. If not, US 48 should be moved to Corridor H. --NE2 19:10, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

The Massachusetts Turnpike has been known by that name since its inception in the 1950s, and has called that from day one. There are numerous other reasons that it should be under that name as well, by I am limiting it to the one I am mentioning here. WP:Common name trumps the naming guidelines of any project, and should be the presiding policy that you should be following. The Mass Pike name should be the name the article is known by. Please move it back and discuss any planned move before you plan to move in the future. I would suggest that you involve people from WP:Massachusetts also, as they should have a say in this. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 06:54, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Interstate 90 in Massachusetts should be moved back to Massachusetts Turnpike as the turnpike name is more commonly known and is notable in its own right. Many northeastern turnpikes are the same way in which the road name is more known than the route number(s) i.e. Pennsylvania Turnpike vs. I-70, I-76, and I-276 and New Jersey Turnpike vs. I-95. US 48 should not be moved to Corridor H because there is nothing but local newspapers that use Corridor H as the name for the still-under-construction highway. Once it is complete, US 48 will likely become the common name for the highway. Dough4872 20:51, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

"there is nothing but local newspapers that use Corridor H as the name for the still-under-construction highway" - nope. The AP is hardly a local newspaper. I challenge you to find one reliable source that calls it US 48 but not Corridor H. --NE2 21:22, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

• This source uses U.S. 48 as the primary name, and only uses Corridor H as a parenthetical note. This source does not mention Corridor H at all, and only identifies the road as U.S. 48. The West Virginia Department of Transportation uses US 48 and doesn't mention Corridor H at all. --Jayron32 00:54, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

First one's interesting, but does still call it Corridor H. Second one is a typo for North Carolina Highway 48. Third one - who knows. Probably typed up by an intern with a weather map, since that's all you need. PS: Fairfax County Parkway --NE2 01:03, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

You know, randomly naming unrelated roads is not an argument. Some roads are known better by names. Some roads are known better by numbers. It happens both ways. --Jayron32 03:22, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Requested split: U.S. Route 117

Hello everyone, there has been a request to split the previous designation of US 117 from its main article. Talk:U.S. Route 117. --WashuOtaku (talk) 01:00, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

To clarify, the request is to put it back in U.S. Route 158#History. --NE2 01:04, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

To more clarify, the request is to officially merge the previous US 117 to US 158; which were never combine to start until it was a few days ago and was reverted back for this discussion. ;) --WashuOtaku (talk) 03:47, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

How to code a junction on the border between two independent cities?

On U.S. Route 58#Major intersections, the Norfolk-Virginia Beach city line exactly follows SR 403 (mile ~497).

More complicated would be a junction on a border between an independent city and a town within a county. --NE2 07:49, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

This edit solved that after the missing |indep_city_special= was added to {{VAint}}. As for your second example, U.S. Route 101 in California#Major intersections gives an example: the Golden Gate Bridge is listed as spanning the line between San Francisco and Marin County in one column and the line between San Francisco and Sausalito in the other. That works, in part, because it is the City and County of San Francisco, but the idea could also work for your hypothetical situation. Imzadi 1979 → 08:19, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Some of the independent cities in the Hampton Roads area are more like counties. For example, Suffolk has a whole bunch of rural communities. Would a county_special=City of Suffolk be a good idea here? --NE2 15:05, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

RCS lists

Are WP:USRD/RCS lists considered articles or lists? I'm doing Mississippi Highway 145 (still not finished) and I wasn't sure which class it would belong in.—CycloneIsaac (Talk) 00:37, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I feel that RCS lists should be treated as articles because they are prose listings of various routes. The main purpose of RCS lists was to be a collection place for articles about short and/or non-notable roads that would not be able to sustain an article on their own. In many cases, the RCS lists have the "big three" in condensed form similar to what a standalone article would have. A true list simply lists entries with links to other articles and is often presented as a table or bulleted lists. In the case of MS 145 it is simply an article on a highway with multiple segments that should still has a route description for each section, a history section, and a junction list for each segment - the "big three" that constitute a highway article. We have other highways such as Mississippi Highway 198 and Maryland Route 7 that are similar to MS 145 in that they have multiple segments and are presented as articles. Dough4872 00:46, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

The case of Mississippi Highway 145 would not fall under RCS lists. This is an article about a single highway designation, and as such does not warrant the RCS list style format...although if there's more separate sections than what's currently in the article, putting it in RCS format might make it more readable.

The RCS lists were meant to consolidate several short "permastub" articles into one place (most notably with county routes, typically considered non-notable, in order to condense and give a better degree of notability as a collective whole). As such, these became more detailed list pages and have been classified as such. While each individual route may make mention of the "big 3" sections in some cases, they don't really give much detail and the overall article should be considered a list. In my opinion, if an RCS section is providing more than a paragraph in each of the major sections, we should look at splitting it out of the list as a standalone article. -- LJ ↗ 02:54, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that where an article is serving the purpose of relating the Big Three about a highway or a discrete subset of highways, then it isn't really a list anymore. List-Class, IMHO, is more for something like List of Interstate Highways in Michigan than Business routes of U.S. Route 10 in Michigan. In the former case, the purpose of that article is clearly to list entries, usually entries that have their own articles, and give some background to put those entries into context. In that latter case, the page's purpose isn't to list entries, or else they'd be rows in a table, but rather it is a basically a page of prose. In those cases several years ago, I had advocated that we treat each L2 section as if it were a self-contained article, assess each section against our criteria and then average those assessments like a simpler WikiWork calculation to gain an overall classification. Using my US 10 example, the five sections would basically be a start (5), C (4), C (4), B (3) and C (4), for an overall C ( 5+4+4+3+4 = 20, divided by 5 = 4). Imzadi 1979 → 05:38, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't recall seeing that assessment proposal (an off-wiki discussion perhaps?), but that would make sense if it were implemented. As it stands right now the RCS page says such entries are typically classified as list-class, so maybe it could stand to be revisited at the project level... -- LJ ↗ 06:46, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I have no idea if it was discussed on- or off-wiki. All I can say is that I probably had the idea in 2008 when I first got really active editing articles. Settling on List-Class just simplified things, but in reality it oversimplified and distorted things. The best way to resolve this is to improve one of these prose-based articles and see what happens when nominated at GAN/FAC. Imzadi 1979 → 08:19, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to update project banner template

Please see Template talk:U.S. Roads WikiProject#Cross-project tagging, part deux to comment. Imzadi 1979 → 08:21, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

List of unsigned state highways in Mississippi

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of unsigned state highways in Mississippi --NE2 19:25, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

List of unsigned state highways in Mississippi is nominated for deletion. Here's the discussion.—CycloneIsaac (Talk) 19:25, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Using writing or markup on documents as a source

I recently found a bunch of scanned materials in the Maryland archives online that I wish to use eventually to add more detail and more accurate dates and to support facts I cannot support currently with the sources I have been using. Most of these materials are memoranda of action or excerpts from state roads commission minutes that discuss road transfers between the state and counties or cities. The documents themselves have a clear date on them. However, many of these documents are marked up in pen, pencil, or marker with some clarifying information. Often this clarifying information is just the route number in question, a list of county inventory numbers, or a contract number. However, sometimes dates or an explanation, such as that the road transfer was rescinded on a later date, are written into the scanned documents.

As an example, in the Washington County set of memos, on page 573 of the PDF (warning: 36 MB), is an excerpt from the commission minutes of June 29, 1954. This excerpt concerns a project in Hagerstown to transfer control of US 40 from the city to the state and elevate the railroad to eliminate a bunch of level crossings near downtown. After the excerpt is the text of the actual agreement between the state and city. Written in hand on the excerpt on page 573 is (1) that this concerns Franklin and Washington Streets in Hagerstown, (2) that the streets are transferred to state control upon completion of the project, (3) the contract number, and (4) text saying "Contract Completed 11-30-61."

(1) and (2) are pieces of information that do not require significant scrutiny, and this information can also be gained by reading the excerpt and, if not in the excerpt, the contract. (3) is not something that would be included in a Wikipedia article. I am not sure how to handle (4) in terms of supporting facts in an article and writing the reference. I do not know how reliable someone's handwritten notes are. Yes, these are official state documents, so it is almost certainly a state employee doing the writing, but it is still an uneasy situation. In many cases, the handwritten information is the only support I have for when an event took place.

What suggestions do you all have on how to handle this?  VC  13:53, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Layout consistency

I've started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Highways#Layout consistency regarding the layout order of non-standard sections (ex Tolls, Services, unique top-level sections etc), which I have come to notice varies even between Featured Articles. Your input is appreciated. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 21:24, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Another great news article resource

• Cunningham, Ben (July 27, 2014). "Alabama 21: From Panhandle to Piedmont, It's a Route of History". The Anniston Star. Archived from the original on July 27, 2014. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

is another good news article that would make a good source in the appropriate articles. Imzadi 1979 → 23:07, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata update

Well, it's been a while since we've had these, but now we have a change that will affect our project directly

Badges will be deployed hopefully on August 19th. This will allow us to store what articles are a GA and a FA on other wikis on Wikidata, so we will no longer need {{LinkFA}} and {{LinkGA}}. (For an example of this in action, see Nevada State Route 375). Similar things will happen on other wikis. We will either need to add the ~1000 badges for our articles ourselves, or wait for a bot to do it for us.

This will be a breakthrough as a lot of other language Wikipedias (French, Dutch, German, Spanish) have been copying and translating our articles recently, and they will know what articles are GAs and FAs and translate those first and with more effort. --Rschen7754 18:56, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Junction lists

On Tennessee State Route 73 Scenic in junction lists when it appears it doesn't list "scenic" beside it. I am wondering Why it does show "scenic" after SR 73.

For example:

SR 73 Scenic

--ACase0000 (talk) 05:52, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

 Done The Lua module has been updated to display the word "Scenic". Imzadi 1979 → 06:03, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Imzadi1979!!!!!!!!!! --ACase0000 (talk) 04:34, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

2 spotchecks needed

The following two reviews need spotchecks:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways/Assessment/A-Class Review/California State Route 76
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways/Assessment/A-Class Review/Ontario Highway 403

I have done the vast majority of the spotchecks at ACR, so if others (including those I have done spotchecks for) could step up, that would be helpful. --Rschen7754 23:23, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

US 66 in California

There are currently 3 articles which discuss US 66 in California: U.S. Route 66 in California, California State Route 66, and Foothill Boulevard (Southern California). Having 3 articles for similar stretches of road seems to be overkill. The problem is, what should be merged to what? --Rschen7754 08:15, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

All three are different in their own right. I don't see how it could merge into one or two and not have a disjointed article as a result. --WashuOtaku (talk) 13:49, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

My vote, Merge US Route 66 in CA into CA Route 66 (I believe at one time they were merged, but somebody broke the former off). I disagree with the above comment, these two are highly redundant. However, I think Foothill Blvd. is going to have to stay a separate article. Although a significant portion of Foothill Blvd. was and/or is used for Route 66, there is a significant portion that was never part of 66. With that said, although Foothill Blvd. predates Interstate 210 (California), it is today essentially a frontage road or alternate route for the freeway. It may be possible to do some merges with that. Dave (talk) 15:19, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

And I will take the opposite view. The SR 66 article should summarize the US 66 history and carry the story forward once it was designated, but the US 66 history should exist someplace in expanded form. Also of note: a lot of former US 66 in CA is not SR 66, and that fact heavily works against merging 316 miles of cross-state highway into the 32-mile rump left over in the Los Angeles area. If there is overlap with other articles, so be it. Because of concurrencies or redesignations/decommissionings, we will have overlapping articles.

This would be very similar to U.S. Route 16 in Michigan vs. Interstate 96. In that situation, the former article handles the 19th century history through designation as M-16, to the year US 16 was decommissioned in favor of I-96. The latter article summarizes some of that backstory but concentrates where the I-96 story begins in the 1950s and continues through the modern day. Imzadi 1979 → 15:43, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you on the condition that there is enough quality content in both articles (CA 66 and US 66 (CA)) to justify separate articles. Currently CA 66 has no history section and US 66 (CA) has no route description. As such currently we have two half-articles about two highways where one is a remnant of the other. Dave (talk) 16:36, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Then the answer is to improve the articles. Merging them now would make a disjointed mess because most of the history of US 66 doesn't apply to SR 66, and most of US 66 would be missing from the SR 66 route description. Even if they matched up closer in length, any merged article would need a significant expansion just to be coherent; at least the two partial articles display their weakness up front by just omitting the missing sections. Imzadi 1979 → 16:44, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

With content improvement either scenario works, and we have examples of both. I.E. California State Route 91 is an example of a merged article that is in descent shape, while you listed one where they are split off. If we're talking about improving articles, I'd leave that decision to whomever actually makes the improvement. Dave (talk) 16:49, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd merge SR 66 into US 66 (and also cover the recently-designated CR 66 in the latter). This is not comparable to US 16/I-96, since Historic US 66 signs are posted on the old surface road, not the last freeway alignment. --NE2 17:09, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I think US 66 is enough of a special case to merit keeping it separate from SR 66. There's easily enough history to justify giving US 66 (CA) its own article, and since SR 66 only covers one section of the route, merging US 66 there wouldn't cover the entire route description of one of the most significant highways in the US. On the other hand, the state of California thought the section of US 66 which became SR 66 was important enough to sign and maintain, while the rest of the route wasn't; that itself is significant, and is a similar situation to OK-66 (also a separate article). I could see merging SR 66 into Foothill Boulevard, though, since the former is a subset of the latter (though Foothill has a different enough route from US 66 to merit keeping those two separate). TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 20:04, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I would keep all three articles, and use summary style to properly direct the emphasis in each article. The CA 66 article would be the main article about the stretch that is the state highway. The Foothill Boulevard and US 66 CA articles would summarize the stretches that are CA 66.  VC  00:40, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

I say that US 66 CA should have its own article with a complete history and route description, summarizing the points covered in CA 66 and Foothill Boulevard route descriptions with hatnotes to those articles. Meanwhile, CA 66 and Foothill Boulevard should also have a complete history and route description, with the history summarizing the points covered in US 66 CA with a hatnote. The junction list for CA 66 and Foothill Boulevard should be present-day while US 66 CA should be at its longest historical extent (similar to U.S. Route 80 in California). Dough4872 19:26, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

I mostly agree with Dough. In my view, Foothill Boulevard isn't under USRD's scope. I honestly think Foothill Boulevard's notability comes from, or at least should come from, its status as a major thoroughfare in the region, not from part of it being signed as US 66. Therefore, I think it should be part of USST. All in all, CA 66 and Foothill should focus on their respective present-day routings, each briefly discussing the history of US 66. US 66 can then focus on the pre-1964 route and history, plus the post-1964 history of the remainder of the former route. -happy5214 07:57, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Simpler case: U.S. Route 99 in California

Perhaps we should start with a simpler case then: U.S. Route 99 and California State Route 99. Should there be a U.S. Route 99 in California? Or should it all go into CA 99? --Rschen7754 17:20, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

The one thing that is certain is that we are not consistent in how we handle these cases (i.e U.S. Route 66 (California), U.S. Route 99 (California), and U.S. Route 91 (California)) are all handled differently, and frankly I'm ok with that. I think its futile to be consistent with a project with a complex as scope as the US highway system.

In the case of US 99, there is no doubt that the reason why the powers that be in California chose the number 99 for CA 99 was to pay homage to the former US highway (same for CA 66, CA 60, CA 91 and I'm sure a few others). Even though CA 99 is not 100% identical to US 99, a redirect is appropriate. The fact that the CA portion of US 99 ran from Mexico to Oregon, while CA 99 does not, can be explained in the history section. However, I would argue that US 99 is not necessarily a simpler case. While the bulk of former US 99 is now CA 99, there are probably a dozen other CA state highways were at one time a piece of US 99. Dave (talk) 19:44, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Well, there's a lot of extra details in US 99 that should probably go into a state-detail article. Where that winds up, though, is open to interpretation... --Rschen7754 19:48, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

My apologies I was only referring to the California portion, I have clarified my response above inline.

Regarding 60, 91, and 99, I say we have the US route article focus on the historical US route designation and the state route article focus on the current state route designation with a brief mention of the former US route it replaced with an appropriate hatnote. Dough4872 00:18, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Dough on this. Imzadi 1979 → 00:23, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

There's quite a bit of US 99 in California which not only isn't part of CA 99, but is signed as Historic US 99, so the historic route should still have its own article. A more complicated example would be U.S. Route 99 in Oregon, though; almost the entire route is part of a state highway, but because of the 99W/99E split, it's divided among three state highways. Where should that title point if US 99 was ever split into state-by-state articles? TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 03:08, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

In the case of Oregon, U.S. Route 99 in Oregon should probably redirect to the Oregon Route 99 article as the former OR 99W/OR 99E was once US 99W/US 99E as opposed to mainline US 99. U.S. Route 99W in Oregon and related titles should redirect to Oregon Route 99W while U.S. Route 99E in Oregon and related titles should redirect to Oregon Route 99E. Dough4872 03:48, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

The thing about US 99 is that current SR 99 is at least as important as it was back when it was US 99. SR 66, on the other hand, is a relatively minor local street that's remained in the state highway system for whatever reason. (Also note that north of Sacto, US 99 split into 99E and 99W, neither of which followed SR 99 entirely.) --NE2 05:33, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree that in the California case US 99 and CA 99 should have their own articles as they are both important in their own right and had wildly different routings. But in the Oregon case, most of US 99 is now OR 99 while US 99W is OR 99W and US 99E is OR 99E. Therefore, for Oregon it would be best to cover US 99, US 99W, and US 99E in the appropriate state route article. Dough4872 00:14, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

I will go ahead and split the article in a few minutes. But next... --Rschen7754 02:47, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Another case: U.S. Route 70 in California

Should that have its own article? The problem is, most of this was multiplexed with US 60, but not all of it... --Rschen7754 02:47, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

No, since the rest was also US 99, and then it was all I-10. Maybe Interstate 10 in California#History would be a better target. --NE2 03:46, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/67.248.99.93

Looks like a lot of crap being changed on New York exit lists (the Florida change is BS and has been reverted). Anyone want to double-check? --NE2 00:42, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Taken care of. Mitch32^{(Protection is not a principle, but an expedient.)} 01:29, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Vehicle pileups revisited

I wanted to reopen the discussion from February because it appears not to have been resolved, but I wanted to wait until a time of the year when there would probably be no bias regarding winter weather, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. Mapsax (talk) 09:27, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm still of the opinion that only if the accident results in permanent changes to the highway, it warrants a mention. That could be a redesign or rerouting of the road, for example. Another would be the case where a stretch of roadway was given a memorial highway designation. With the modern 24-hour news cycle, it's common to find a large car accident making national news the day it happens. It's also common for the story to be picked up internationally, but the story fades from the media within a day or so. Unless the DOT makes changes, these aren't worth mentioning.

There is an exception, for cases like M-15 (Michigan highway)#"Death Alley" where the highway gains a reputation for accidents, and the news media specifically reports on that reputation. Wikipedia editors shouldn't string together a series of articles and then declare a reputation or pattern; let the media do that for us. Another case would be Northwest Airlines Flight 255, which crashed on Middlebelt Road and Interstate 94 in Michigan after take off from Detroit Metro Airport in 1987. Jetliners do not crash on highways as often as cars or trucks do. Imzadi 1979 → 10:04, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree, with an emphasis on its a reputable source giving the road a moniker, such as "death alley", for a documented series of accidents that is statistically abnormal or an accident severe enough that it creates national news. As sad as it is for those involved, traffic fatalities are literally an everyday occurrence, and that a wikipedia editor could string a few together for an article does not equal notability for a project with a global scope. Dave (talk) 16:29, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

There should be a clear and notable pattern of accidents over time (see Death Alley) before we start listing them. One particularly bad accident, however tragic, should not be mentioned just because it was bad. –Fredddie™ 16:35, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Disagree. I've got plenty of notable single-case pileups of 75, 100 odd vehicles. I suggested a good set of circumstances in the previous discussion. I'm too lazy to go get them now, and I will be following them regardless because I'm stubborn today and I took the time to come up with them and then nobody bothered to respond. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 17:26, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Meh, I disagree with Fredddie in one point. Some singular accidents certainly are notable enough to merit entire articles, not to mention passing mentions in the articles on the highways where they occurred. The Chappaquiddick incident comes to mind. However, I also disagree with using arbitrary internally chosen criteria for notability as mentioned above, to see where that will lead, look no further than these articles List of road accidents, Pile up#Major pileups, etc.Dave (talk) 18:23, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I believe accidents should only be mentioned in road articles if it leads to changes in the design of the road. Everyday accidents, even if they are huge pileups, should not be mentioned. Remember, WP:NOTNEWS. Dough4872 00:19, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

While your view overall, which appears to be the majority view, seems reasonable, your second sentence is contradictory to me. Huge pileups are not everyday accidents. Mapsax (talk) 15:31, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Chappaquiddick was less about a car accident and more about a political coverup that may have prevented a second Kennedy from becoming president. That situation proves my point though: major and enduring national or international media coverage makes an accident notable, both for its own article and inclusion in the history section of the appropriate highway article. Chappaquiddick is still the subject of historical debate 45 years after the fact and 5 years after Ted Kennedy's death. Sadly, a 50-car pileup on an Interstate gets press for a day before it drops off the media's radar. Imzadi 1979 → 00:47, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

The problem that I have with that reasoning is that while widespread news coverage can be used to prove notability, I don't see its absence as disproving notability. News organizations, especially cable news networks, will broadcast/publish whatever gets them ratings/sales/visits. If this isn't happening anymore with a story, or a newer event happens whose story they think will get them more of this than the old one, the old one will fade or completely disappear, even if it hasn't lost any importance or relevance. NOTNEWS shows that there should be some disconnect with the decisions of the media. "This crash was important but it isn't anymore because no one's talking about it anymore" really doesn't make much sense. Mapsax (talk) 15:31, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

The issue I have is that traffic accidents, and even traffic fatalities, are literally an everyday occurrence. I know this is going to sound crass to some, but unless there is something else to make an accident stand out among the noise, I don't think it wikipedia should dedicate much coverage on it. To use an absurd example, to list every accident that has occurred on Interstate 80, would involve lists of literally 10,000+ entries. Here we are trying to keep the junctions in the infobox below 10 to keep some semblance of order, listing accidents would be an even more difficult to manage scenario. Dave (talk) 05:56, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

How about some anecdotal examples. Ontario Highway 401 had a massive crash in 1999 that led to changes in the design of the highway. It has a whole section devoted to it. In 2008, a nearby propane plant exploded and closed the (possibly) busiest section of the busiest highway in the world; a picture and paragraph are devoted to it. Ontario Highway 416 had a 75-vehicle pileup several years ago that made national news and led to no changes, but closed the highway for over a day. Two days ago, a truck driven by a drunken-driver with its bed raised smashed into the Burlington Bay Skyway on the QEW, with ongoing engineering investigation to determine the damage (but based on pictures, minor damage to stabilizing beams that are non-structural (aka not important to keep the bridge in the air)). The first two I deem worthy of inclusion in the two featured articles they are included in. The third I have routinely reverted over the past 48 hours unless and until an engineering report comes back showing structural damage requiring weeks of repairs. Even still, the Toronto-bound lanes of the highway has been closed since Thursday and will remain so until Monday at the earliest. I agree that hard and fast criteria are not the way to go, but surely we can admit that there is an editorial decision as far as what accidents are significant enough to merit mention. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 19:34, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm kind of going against what I said earlier here, but work with me. Maybe the "hard and fast criteria" should be on the editorial decision and not a simple up or down vote on the inclusion of pileups. A short test could be applied to the pileup to see if it's worth mentioning. Going off of the instances the Floydian's FAs mention, they could be something like:

1. Did the crash make national news? For more than one news cycle?
2. Did the crash affect a significant amount of traffic?
3. Did the crash lead to the highway being redesigned or rebuilt?

Like with the QEW crash the other day, #3 could take some time to figure out, so there would still be the kneejerk urge to revert right away. I'd say that so long as at least two of the three main questions can be answered yes, inclusion can be merited. Then we can give it a snappy shortcut like WP:PILEUP, thoroughly explain our rationale there, and move on. –Fredddie™ 00:14, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

It's also possible to work them into the route description. For example, it can be mentioned that Interstate 75 in Florida through Paynes Prairie is prone to fog, with a mention of this crash. --NE2 07:32, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Virginia State Bannered Routes

I recently tagged Virginia State Route 40 with a to do tag requesting a chapter on bannered routes of VA 40. Tonight I realizes that Virginia State Route 3 needs a chapter on bannered routes as well. So how many more are missing? ---------User:DanTD (talk) 01:22, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

SR 3, SR 40, SR 42, US 250, SR 259, US 340. --NE2 01:45, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeesh, and I forgot about another one for SR 49 (Virginia State Route 49 Truck (Victoria)). BTW, I like your work on US ALT 11 in Salem and Roanoke. I could swipe some info from the former version when both were listed separately. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 02:23, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Interstate 4/Major junctions

tl;dr, go to Talk:Interstate 4#Major junctions (infobox). Imzadi 1979 → 22:18, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I've had changes made to the Interstate 4 infobox reverted twice (page history) by user User:NE2 and would like some users from the project to check out the matter. Most of the reasoning is explained in detail at Talk:Interstate 4#Major junctions (infobox). Also, the reason for writing so much is that I noticed this user is active in this project and editing road articles, so rather than simply putting a short "check out these edits", it seemed more appropriate to address both the edits to the I-4 article and other similar (and in my opinion, unexplainable) removals in "major junction" lists in road infoboxes as well as what a "major junction" should be (since NE2's reasoning for the changes is that the junctions should be spread out, which I can't find in the style guide (and don't agree with) and given this user's activity here, it's worth discussing). Simply put, I changed the "Major junctions" in the infobox to list the one Interstate (except termini...the style guide for this project specifically states "[major junctions] are preferably Interstates") that I-4 intersects and all the limited-access routes it meets, which amounts to 9 (limit is 10, also per style guide). (Note: I mentioned the style guide in my first edit and then started a new talk page discussion above before reverting the revert) These limited-access highways (FL Turnpike, rest are toll state roads) serve traffic needs of Central Florida much like auxiliary interstate highways do in many parts of the country (since there is only one such highway...I-275 in Tampa Bay area). The Turnpike is much like an Interstate in terms of its function (limited-access, covers important long-distance route where no Interstate hwy exists) while a couple of the other toll highways function much like auxiliary interstates would in most major cities, since the Orlando metro area doesn't have any (probably because growth occurred after the IHS plan developed & there was no funding for any, but I digress). The reasoning NE2 has given for the reverts is that they are spread out. Well, so were the major junctions I had changed to...which is besides the fact that most major junctions on highways are near cities. I-4 is by far the largest artery across the Orlando metro area which is basically oval-shaped with an axis along I-4, so naturally the junctions with the beltways (SR417 on east, & the partial western beltway SR429); the only other major, long-distance highway in the city (Florida's Turnpike); and with the E-W expressways (as I-4 runs N-S through the area) are "major" junctions. One of the roads listed in the version that NE2 reverts to is SR39. I mentioned on the talk page that SR39 is just a two-lane highway (see for yourself...Google Maps), then when reverting the second time, NE2 put on the talk page that Alexander Street (a 4-lane, divide hwy a half mile to the west) is now SR39. I couldn't find an official source online, but use streetview and the eastbound exit has signs for "To SR39" at Alexander Street and "SR39" at Paul Buchanan Hwy/Wheeler St. I can't possibly understand why a 2-lane road or even a 4-lane, divided hwy that leads into a town of 34,000 would be more important to list as a "major junction" as opposed to listing a major cross-country Interstate(!!!) that's just 13mi away(!!) or a loop expressway (SR570) just 5mi away(!!) that provides access to about 150-200,000 residents on the south side of Lakeland and much of central Polk County (Bartow, Winter Haven). And that's just nearby...there's the Turnpike and several expressways in the Orlando metro area (home to about 2 million, plus over 50 million tourists per year!). State Roads 44 & 46 aren't quite as inexplicable, but still far less important junctions than 1-75 or the Orlando-area expressways. I'm not irritated about changes being made to content that I've added (I've edited on WP and other wikis long enough), but I am irritated by the fact that the changes were flat-out reverted a second time without any real reason or attempt to reply to the points made on the discussion page (namely the relevant guidelines) or mentioned in a note put a note on NE2's talk page. I decided to look through I-4's history to see how the odd choices in major junction list came to be...NE2 created the list (that I edited/NE2 has reverted to). While the choices prior to that weren't the best, in my opinion, I don't understand why I-75 & the Turnpike were removed. I noticed that there were notable omissions in the Infobox/Major junctions on other Florida highway articles and found that this user has also changed (with no edit summary): I-75 in FL - removed I-275, which is probably the most important highway I-75 connects with, as it is the Interstate running through the Tampa Bay area (home to about 1.5-2 million): Pinellas County (the peninsula, incl. St.Petersburg, Largo, Clearwater) & most of Tampa.(Note: I-4 & I-75 provide connectivity on just the west side of Tampa, but the bulk of the population of the Tampa Bay area (2/3rds) is served by I-275). Also removed was the I-595/Toll SR869 junction...I-595 is a major E-W route that continues the path of I-75 into Ft.Lauderdale & SR869 continues the western beltway/N-S corridor past Miami & Ft.Lauderdale formed by the Turnpike/I-75/SR869. (I've changed to better choices) Toll SR528 - E-W highway from Orlando to coast...SR417 (Orlando's eastern beltway) and the Turnpike were removed for no reason Several others were edited to remove expressways (toll state highways) and US/state highways that aren't quite as contentious and probably not apparent as major junctions to people not familiar with the region. I don't see any policy in the style guide that the major junctions list should be spread out across the entire route. Even if there were, that doesn't seem very encyclopedic...Wikipedia is not a place for indiscriminate lists (essay) and the best description of the "major junctions" I can figure out using NE2's comments is that it's a collection of some junctions and the list covers most sections of the highway (at the very least, it's a misnomer to call such a list "major junctions"). At least with long-distance Interstate highways, major junctions should be other Interstates, expressways (varying importance based on length/destination), then in my opinion (or I'll propose if there's no existing guideline) other roads (surface streets) in varying importance based on four things: traffic, destinations, number of other routes to same/close destinations, and in some cases the path taken (zig-zag through dense urban area vs a major, straight boulevard across a city). That said, I can understand the desire to space these out to a very limited extent. I can't think of any really good examples (I-8 or I-20 in Texas perhaps?), but take for instance, an interstate that travels through a major city and then hundreds of miles of rural area. Despite the fact that the top 10 intersections by traffic would all be in/near the city, some discretion should be given to the relative importance of junctions in the rural area and there would probably be one or two US/state highways in the rural region that connect to small cities or popular tourism destinations (parks, resorts) or are the primary routes to travel across the rural area (along an axis that isn't served by Interstates/major highways). However, and considering what I wrote above, I don't think I-4 is such a case. AHeneen (talk) 22:09, 17 August 2014 (UTC) The purpose of the infobox is to give general information about the highway. It's a lot more useful to know that it passes through the mid-sized regional cities of Plant City, Lakeland, and DeLand than to know that it intersects with almost every single toll road in the Orlando area. --NE2 22:17, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

AASHTO Special Committee on U.S. Route Numbering Database

Today I discovered AASHTO has put together a database of the route number application results from their semiannual meetings back to 1967 (warning: 50+ MB file): http://route.transportation.org/Pages/USRN-Application-Database-with-Meeting-Minutes-and-Application-Results.aspx

A graphic of the application results document from each meeting is pasted onto a spreadsheet sheet for each of their meetings. There is also a master sheet that lists the applications and their results for each meeting, with links to the documents more recent than 1989, which are linked elsewhere at the U.S. Route Numbering committee website.  VC  23:35, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Holy crap. It's missing the fall 2004 meeting, at which I'm pretty sure some things were approved, but otherwise awesome, though it does leave one wanting more.

PS:

1988 Oklahoma US 377 Re-Submittal Extension Disapproved

1980 Oklahoma US 377 Extension Disapproved

1978 Oklahoma US 377 Re-Submittal Extension Disapproved

1976 Oklahoma US 377 Re-Submittal Extension Denied

1972 Oklahoma US 377 Re-Submittal Extension Disapproved

1971 Oklahoma US 377 Re-Submittal Extension Denied

1971 Oklahoma US 377 Extension Denied

1970 Oklahoma US 377 Re-Submittal Establishment Denied

1969 Oklahoma US 377 Re-Submittal Extension Denied

--NE2 01:00, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

This is a great resource for those willing to sift through things. I have it downloaded, and it might be easier to extract and create separate PDFs of the pre-1989 minutes for hosting someplace along with the chart from the first sheet of the spreadsheet. Hopefully they'll continue to go further back with these minutes in the future. Imzadi 1979 → 05:45, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Holy crap. I completely missed the other tabs at the bottom. Wouldn't the pre-1989 documents be public domain by reason of no copyright notice?

One thing I saw in my skimming: AASHTO approved I-695 as a full beltway. It's just FHWA that never has.

Also, AASHTO officially added a gap on US 441 through the Smokies in 1970. --NE2 08:40, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Copyright notices haven't been necessary since the Copyright Act of 1976 took effect on January 1, 1978, so anything in 1978 or later is under copyright, but up through 1977 is not. Additionally, the information in the summary chart on the first sheet of the file wouldn't be subject to copyright under the Feist v. Rural standard. I will probably put together some sort of on-wiki collection, probably with sample citations for people to use over the weekend as I extract PDFs of each set of minutes. Imzadi 1979 → 08:59, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Per copyright notice: "Until 1989 all such published works in the USA required either a copyright notice or a registration filing within five years of publication." --NE2 09:28, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Sigh. The copyright law was written by lawyers for lawyers. (For signs, we have to go by 1978, ditto postage stamps.) So I'll just do the rest of the years that AASHTO isn't hosting already then. Imzadi 1979 → 09:29, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Resources/AASHTO minutes now has a sortable wikitable with the summary information. That page has links to the files. {{AASHTO minutes}} can be used to cite the various minutes or committee reports, most of which are hosted at commons: Category:Minutes from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials as well. Those that aren't hosted there are under copyright, but hosted by AASHTO. (There are a few missing though, so I hope we can get those in the near future.) Imzadi 1979 → 03:26, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Other than fall 2004 (which has been missing from the site for years), what else is missing?

Here are direct links for the pre-1989 files for mass downloading. --NE2 03:49, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

The link on the USRN committee webpage for the 2008 Spring Meeting doesn't work. The 2001 Annual Meeting was also missing in the DB file, while the 2002 Spring Meeting was listed as canceled. The 2005 Annual Meeting in the DB file said nothing was submitted, yet the committee minutes shows that they rejected a request, so I updated the WP:USRD/AASHTO copy of the chart when I was cleaning up the Excel-to-wikitable conversion.

Spring 2008 is here: http://route.transportation.org/Pages/Downloads.aspx You're right about 2001 - I never realized that the file I have is actually a copy of 2002. --NE2 05:04, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Roads vs. Byways

There has been an ongoing discussion in several places (my talk page, talk page for New Mexico Scenic Byways) and now on Talk:Trail of the Ancients where I think I summarized my points most succinctly.

My basic question is about the applicability of applying the guidelines for roads to byways that contain multiple highways / routes / etc.

Is there something in standards that clarifies the difference in writing articles for byways, particularly those that link to articles about the highways / roads - particularly regarding creating a junction list and history section?

Input on Talk:Trail of the Ancients would be much appreciated.

Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 03:40, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't say a junction list is necessary, but it's better than the travel guide that's currently there. Prose may be even better (e.g. Great River Road#Route description). --NE2 06:02, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. Yep, I have no problem rewriting the route description in prose.--CaroleHenson (talk) 06:23, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Infobox termini cities

One editor here is breaking precedent from the other state-specific articles by listing where the highway heads towards in the next state rather than the location (or nearest location) of where the terminus of the road is at the state line. My specific dispute is here: [6] It's not listed in the the standards page nor the {{Infobox road}} but no other featured article has a "x towards y" (they all use either "x in/near y" or "x at z state line") and I really hope that users don't start WP:IGNOREing all our typical conventions. Opinions? —Mr. Matté (^Talk/_Contrib) 03:19, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

For infobox termini at state lines, I would use either the location the road reaches the state line in the state it is in or the nearest city to where it reaches the state line in the state it is in as opposed to a location the road enters or leads to in the other state. Dough4872 03:57, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Dough's response doesn't really go along with the nearly 10 years of consensus of how we've been listing state lines. We list either the location it's in at the state line or we list the most notable location near the state line (5-10 miles max) regardless of which side of the line it is. Example: for US 30 (IA), it would be less correct for me to say that it enters Iowa near Missouri Valley when Blair, Nebraska, is right there on the other side of the river at the state line. If neither of those work, we can say it's at the state line. Using "toward" is fine in prose, but we should never use it like this in the infobox. –Fredddie™ 04:14, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

My preference, in order:

• the actual city/village/community at the terminus with "in" (or the city/village/community with "at" if it borders the state line since the terminus is the line itself),
• a city/village/community near the terminus within the same state,
• a city/village/community near the terminus in the adjacent state,
• listing the state line itself.

I would never use "toward", and if I have, I'd phase it out, since it seems to imply that the given location is nowhere near the terminus. Those locations are great for pull-through signage on the road to list the next control city, but they don't really help to specify the terminal location of a highway, or a state's segment of a highway. Imzadi 1979 → 04:15, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

You wouldn't need to; an ndash implies "to(wards)". - Floydian ^τ _¢ 23:41, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Using the dash in the infobox is not commonly done in the US, because it muddies the situation. That isn't to say you won't find examples, but I would say it is not a best practice, and it should be changed.

In the infobox, the "Major junctions" section is giving a few junctions and their (approximate) locations, as a summary of the RJL table at the bottom of the article.

In the junction list table, the location is given by a "Location" column, and the cities/etc after the dash are clearly in the "Destinations" column, indicating they are the destinations of the intersecting highway.

If we used the "<road> – <city>" format in the RJL to mean "this intersecting road goes to this city", but then use it to mean "this intersecting road is in/near/at this city", we're not consistent in what the dash is implying. If we used it as the "towards", we still have the problem that "towards" doesn't give any relative indication of distance between the junction and the stated location. Also, it's not a well-constructed statement when you use "<subject highway> intersects/ends at <highway> <location term> <location>" as a sentence to expand what that line of the infobox is saying.

• "M-35 intersects M-553 near Gwinn" works as a sentence to expand "M-553 near Gwinn".
• "M-99 ends at SR 15 towards Pioneer, OH" does not work.
• "M-99 ends at SR 15 near Pioneer, OH" or "M-99 ends at SR 15 at the Ohio state line near Pioneer, OH" do work.

You can make a case for "M-99 continues as SR 19 towards Pioneer, OH", but that's not a likely expansion given that this would appear next to a label that reads "South end:", not a "Southern continuation:" label. Imzadi 1979 → 09:18, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

"M-99 ends at SR 15" is awkward in any case, since it's not so much an end as a change in number as it crosses the state line. --NE2 09:57, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I've always used a major city in the next state with 'towards'. There's never been any consensus here. Does it really do the reader more good to know that the tiny dot-on-a-map right at the state line is known as Pig Bottom or that if you keep going you reach the better-known Oinker City?

Another related issue: stating that the south end of US 220 in Virginia is "US 220 near Ridgeway" is confusing at best. You need to somehow give the state, which is done by "US 220 towards Greensboro, NC".

Remember that the purpose of the infobox is to give a general idea of where the highway goes to someone who may not be familiar with every tiny community. Hence I-75 ends "near Miami", not "on the Hialeah-Hialeah Gardens city line" or whatever. --NE2 06:01, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

You could mention the state line and the nearest in-state location, such as "US 220 at the North Carolina state line near Ridgeway." That solves the problem of mentioning the state on the other side of the state line at the terminus and avoids use of a city that is not next to the state line.  VC  22:40, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree with NE2's last comment in most case for a different reason: the infobox is a summary of information in the article. Using "near" implies that we're "rounding off" the location to the nearest appropriate city/village/community/etc. Where the technical location (unincorporated Foo County) might be meaningless, an approximate location (near Foobarville) gives the reader a short statement with acceptable precision. One good way to "round" the location would be to use the location name the post office would use for mail delivery. However, "towards" still has the issues I mention above. Imzadi 1979 → 09:18, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I like VC's idea to mention the state line and the nearest in-state city. For any highway that ends at a state line, we should always mention what state line it reaches rather than simply say it connects to another state's state route or a continuation of an Interstate or U.S. Route at or heading towards a location. Dough4872 00:32, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Just to throw a wrench example in the gears, ON 61 crosses the international border to connect Thunder Bay with Duluth, Minnesota. The border is about four times closer to Thunder Bay (the northern terminus and only urban area on its route) than to Duluth, but I use the latter for obvious reasons. I'd say either use "State line near foo" or "State line – foo" (to(wards) foo) - Floydian ^τ _¢ 23:40, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Adjusting templates for the Winter skin

See WT:HWY#Adjusting templates for the Winter skin. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 07:14, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Guidelines for Byways?

I understand that byways are covered under the roads project, but the nature of a byway is different than that of a road, which means some of the content would be different, right? In addition, there seems to be a wide disparity in approach - although some of that may have been worked out on the higher quality articles. What do you think about creation of guidelines for byways:

1. Reason for byways designation: scenic, historic, etc.?
2. Sections: Route description, history of byways designation, other
3. Approach for addressing current and discontinued byways
4. Approaches for content: Scenic, historic, archaeological, geological
5. Relationship to other byways: National (NSFSB, BLMBCB, NSB), overlapping byways, neighboring / related byways
6. Junction list: relevant? If so, what should the structure be for articles with multiple highways, each with their own junctions?
7. Sources of information
8. Any style guidelines (e.g., table use, citations, etc.)
9. Other?

I would be happy to help soliciting input on these items on a project subpage or other page - and pulling some of the information together, if this is desired.

Thanks.--CaroleHenson (talk) 02:02, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't do much editing in the area of byways, but I imagine that the content of scenic byways and the roads they overlap would be fairly divorced, with the road article containing the information about construction history, costs, location of road junctions, etc., and the byway article containing information on the byway designation, why it was chosen as a byway and by whom, and tourist information like location of historical markers, scenic turnouts, recreational sites, etc. It's important to note that it is very easy to go overboard with scenic routes and violate WP:NPOV; you can't just say a site is scenic, but you can cite that opinion to commentators like travel guides and media articles. Probably the most relevant example of a scenic road in the US you could use is Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, which is an A-class article. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 07:21, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive is a little different, since it's a road of its own like the Blue Ridge Parkway, not a designation applied to other roads like the Great River Road. Or Historic US 66, for that matter (though often it's just local roads). --NE2 08:51, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, great input! I started User:CaroleHenson/Byway guidelines as an outline to gather information - and used the information and example you provided to get things rolling. Any other thoughts, comments, etc. would be much appreciated - either here, directly on the outline, or the talk page of user page.

If desired, I could take a stab at some of the points, but it might be better to get your input first so I don't go off-track. Again, very much appreciated!--CaroleHenson (talk) 09:17, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

@CaroleHenson: there is something to note about your guidelines page so far. Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive's "Points of interest" table is directly modeled on an exit list using the MOS:RJL format. The only difference between it and a regular exit/junction list is that the entries are numbered "points of interest" from the National Park Service's pamphlet given to visitors of the drive. In all other respects, it's a standard junction list in terms of its formatting.

In the next week or so, I plan on working on converting the junction list on Lake Superior Circle Tour to the MOS:RJL table format from the variation on the MOS:RJL bulleted list format. That table format already handles the situation of a named highway that has segments of different numbered highway designations. Great Eastern Highway is a Featured Article out of Australia that bears four different numerical highway designations along with two separate tourist routes. (The road infobox used in Australia looks a little different, but it's basically similar to the one used by the rest of the world; you'd still see the designations detailed in the infobox ) The article on the Ohio Turnpike also deals with a highway that carries multiple highway numbers in a single exit list table, so it can be done for tourist routes and scenic byways.

Brockway Mountain Drive is also a good template, and it's a Featured Article that has been on the Main Page. I'll be leaving some more detailed comments on the talk page for your sandbox. Imzadi 1979 → 11:26, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

@Imzadi1979:, Yes, thanks! I found your detailed comments and updated the outline with what I understand to be your points. I have a few follow-up questions that I've posted on the talk page, too.--CaroleHenson (talk) 21:31, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I have updated the outline significantly by narrowing the scope to U.S. Roads - and providing links to sections of Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Standards where it appears that here are no differences for scenic roads.

Where there are differences, such as history, route description, sources, etc. those sections are highlighted in beige. I've drafted some approaches, such as naming articles of byways and combined road / byways. It's my rough stab at the language as a novice. It would be great to get your input to see if I'm close to being on track.--CaroleHenson (talk) 23:36, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Any ideas for making these less awkward?

• 
  
  SR 528 west / SR 528 east
• 
  
  SR 5 east / SR 5 west

The first is a real example; the second is randomly chosen but there are probably some places where it exists. In addition to the awkwardness, there's the issue of information being communicated by images only. Perhaps SR 528 (toll) west / SR 528 east for the former? --NE2 06:49, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

In the second case, would Sec. communicate the difference, or is it not a common form down there? - Floydian ^τ _¢ 07:21, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's a common form anywhere. TDOT doesn't seem to care much about the difference between primary and secondary routes, except for putting it all over their bloody shields. --NE2 07:45, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

The numbering system in Tennessee is that there is no difference between primary and secondary, it is still the same route. The system was originally setup because how federal aid was dispersed between primary routes and secondary routes. That changed when the NHS system replaced the former primary/secondary aid system; but the state still utilizes them even though there is officially no difference between the two.

North Carolina uses a toll shield over state highways (currently only two) and treats them technically as two different highways from the none-tolled sections (i.e. they use "To" NC 147 shields on the toll section towards the none-toll section). However, it is still the same route and the articles on wiki reflect that. As for Florida, that is how they do their toll signage and their is nothing wrong with that. If the entire route uses a toll sign, then use that for the article; if it has both toll and none-toll, then put both there and show the difference in the junction lists. Maybe I am not understanding the question here. --WashuOtaku (talk) 14:33, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

The problem is this:

SR 528 west / SR 528 east

Ignore the shields (as a blind person would do) and that makes little sense - why not merely say SR 528? It's also not entirely obvious, even if you realize why it's split, which direction applies to which shield. If we said SR 528 (toll) west / SR 528 east both issues would be solved. --NE2 16:12, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

{{Jct}} will do dual shields now. Check out KY.AA in the Kentucky module to see how it's done. –Fredddie™ 16:46, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

How is that a solution? Now you're removing any information on which type of route is in which direction. --NE2 17:17, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

" SR 528 (toll) west / (free) east" is what I was thinking; {{{dir}}} can handle it. @Happy5214: is there a way to make the Toll shield be the correct size? It should be 20px wide, not 16px. –Fredddie™ 22:26, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Look above. -happy5214 00:29, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

In the case of Tennessee, does specifying primary/secondary really matter? –Fredddie™ 22:28, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

It does to the state when posting signs. --NE2 22:46, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, even though there is no difference, the signage still exists as is and the TDOT maps also indicate it on their most recent maps. --WashuOtaku (talk) 23:21, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Assessment

Talk:Lake Superior Circle Tour#Assessment - we are having a disagreement as to whether the article meets standards for B or C class. I would appreciate a few outside opinions, thanks. - SweetNightmares 22:29, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the article, it seems to meet B-Class as defined by our project's assessment standards. Imzadi1979 explained it in further detail on the talk page. You don't seem to have explained why it shouldn't be B-Class besides the fact that he, the primary contributor to the article, made the assessment, and I honestly don't see why you disagree with him. TCN7JM 22:39, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Please see the talk page of the article. - SweetNightmares 23:08, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

If it helps, think of the classes as crap, bullshit, and ass. --NE2 23:14, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

That is not very helpful. If you don't have anything relevant or constructive to contribute to a discussion, don't bother commenting at all. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (message) @ 23:34, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

If it helps him, it's helpful to him. If not, oh well, I've done worse. --NE2 23:44, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree with the idea that an editor should not assess his or her own articles above C-Class. All you need to do is flag the talk banner for a reassessment.  VC  02:07, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I think it's more something that should be left to discretion. If an editor has written several FAs and GAs, I see no issue with them assessing their own articles. Now, some in that category might choose not to, and that's fine as well. --Rschen7754 04:38, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Infobox problem

Route 311 (Virginia–West Virginia) --NE2 23:08, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Fixed. I've seen the same issue in U.S. Route 53; it's caused by adding line breaks in the "browse" parameter for multi-state routes, which messes up the formatting for the second state. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 23:46, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

How did this project add "class=Draft" to the assessment system?

Hi, as a regular reviewer at AfC I'm trying to help figure out a systematic way of "allocating" drafts to WikiProjects. I noticed that all the pages in Draft-space relevant to this Project are tagged with the project banner that includes a "class=Draft" parameter. When I tried it with other articles their projects' assessment systems did not recognize "Draft" as a valid parameter. How did you guys get it to work correctly? I've been searching my butt off looking for relevant help pages but found nothing. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:44, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps these diffs will help: [7] and [8]. The draft "class" isn't in {{class mask}}, so the presentation is not ideal. -happy5214 08:18, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

[9] shows how it was done for WP:CARD in Template:WikiProject Canada Roads, a banner which uses the meta template. (Ours does now, which complicates comparisons a bit.) Imzadi 1979 → 10:40, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! This stuff might be useful to help with draft sorting. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:12, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

The CARD diff is basically how USRD is set up, though we put it in a different location. Just add |draft=yes into {{class mask}} and you're good to go. –Fredddie™ 17:03, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't get Wikidata

wikidata:Q2508290 isn't a highway system. It's a rather arbitrary collection of former members of a highway system that has no real-world significance. --NE2 06:04, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

It should probably say "Wikimedia list article" as that's more accurate. I did most of the USRD items en masse over a year ago, and that probably fell through the cracks. --Rschen7754 04:46, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

KML video tutorial

KML files are a big thing around WikiProject Highways these days, with tremendously large amounts of road articles now possessing them. For those of you not in the know of how to make them, and also for The General Public, I have created a video tutorial of how to make them with what I think is the easiest method, ShareMap, posted it on YouTube and I'm now letting the roads editors know how simple it is, and hopefully some will give it a try or adjust their method. The link is [10]. I would upload it to Wikipedia but I'm not sure about all the licencing so playing it safe. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (push) @ 13:57, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Beltways

Is there a precedent for making junction lists of beltways where there are no exit numbers? For instance, Texas State Highway Loop 286. There aren't any mile markers and no point that really seems more logical as a "terminus". Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 11:55, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Maybe Texas State Highway Loop 1604 could serve as precedent. I'd say to just go with what TxDOT says the start/end point is. As a side note, few non-Interstate freeways in Texas have exit numbers. -happy5214 12:49, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Agreed... go with the terminus and direction the designation file states. --Kinu ^t/_c 04:14, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

M-185 does have posted milemarkers, but it could also serve as a template. If TxDOT doesn't specify a terminus for survey purposes, you may have to just arbitrarily pick one, say the southernmost intersection? Imzadi 1979 → 01:17, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

The HDF doesn't indicate it's a full beltway, but signage does. The mileage given in the infobox is therefore incorrect. As far as mileposts, what's this? It appears to be reference marker 652, and 660 is at the other end. This confirms that TXDOT inventories it as an east-west route, since a beltway would go in the other direction. --NE2 01:51, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

This is not the first time a sign pretending to be more grand than it actually is. Case in point Interstate 277 (North Carolina), where it has signage Inner/Outer, but it is not a full loop by any means. I am sure somewhere on TxDOT lists a begin/end information for their highways. --WashuOtaku (talk) 13:34, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

The route used to be a complete beltway in the 50s and 60s but not since according to the HDF. TxDOT chose then to give preference to the mainline U.S. routes that ran along it. The fact that TxDOT chooses to continue to sign the beltway over the decommissioned portion is rare but not unusual. You will need to offer citations demonstrating that from reliable sources such as Google Streetview in your article. Fortguy (talk) 06:52, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Jakobrots500

Hi, I am not sure if this is the right place to discuss, so let me start here. Apparently this user has been editing destinations in RJL on Massachusetts road articles that did not follow WP:RJL. In particular, the user's edits do not follow what actual signs on the road say, according to Google Street View. I have gone through several of these articles to reference appropriate sources to make sure all the destinations are right, but the user continues to edit and deviate from the referenced sources. Most notable articles include I-95 / I-90 / I-190 / I-495. (The article history really stands out.) I have tried to contact the user but without much success. There are some other issues with this user that I can discuss further, but perhaps later. Any advice on the next step? Chinissai (talk) 22:42, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

There's a rash of "new" editors with an almost identical MO, User:PieIsAwesome012 and User:RyGuy012 are two that have been causing me some grief. I'm fairly certain those two accounts are related, just based on behavioral evidence. If you believe those two are related to the thorn in your side, we can try for an investigation at WP:SPI Dave (talk) 22:56, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I wonder how SPI would work with mobile ducks.[11][12][13] - Floydian ^τ _¢ 23:04, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I am not sure if they are related to this, but User:67.248.99.93 has been running around adding numerous junctions in the last month to NY articles. I've mass reverted him and warned him twice. Mitch32^{(Protection is not a principle, but an expedient.)} 23:31, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I doubt it. The MO is the same, but the 3 named editors have had there edits flagged as originating from a mobile device. The IP's edits are not. Unless IP's edits are not marked with that flag even it if would otherwise apply? Would anybody else mind initiating the SPI on the 3 named editors? I've already warned, reverted and blocked so I'm an involved admin. (not that it will be a problem, but just to be safe)Dave (talk) 03:16, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm a SPI clerk, though obviously I would not be clerking this one. Unfortunately, if it's mobile edits, CU would probably be useless, and we can't publicly disclose connections between IP addresses and accounts. So unfortunately we're limited to looking at behavior only, but see WP:DUCK. If you want a second opinion, you could always file at SPI, but otherwise blocking is fine if you're comfortable with the two being alike. --Rschen7754 03:21, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

User:Chinissai, below is draft of message I propose to place on the talk page of the 3 accounts listing the evidence. However, there are some points that appear to only apply to 2 of the accounts, although I've not examined the accoutn Jakobrots500 as thoroughly as the other two. Can you comment, add, or correct anything I might have missed. If not, I'll post on the talk page, and if that doesn't get results, start blocking per WP:DUCK.

Hello, This is to inform you that a discussion is taking place on WT:USRD about the similarities of 3 accounts making edits to highway articles. Several editors have opined that the evidence points to a violation of wikipedia policy at WP:SOCK, compelling enough to invoke the WP:QUACK test. Please comment on the the observations below:

Contributions show a similar pattern between 3 editors specifically:[14][15][16]

• Editing primarily from a mobile device
• strong focus on highway articles, 2 of the 3 accounts primarily edit articles about highways in Massachusetts, all 3 have edited at least one article about a highway in Massachusetts
• All 3 accounts have made similar infobox edits on the main or sub-articles of Interstate 90 [17][18][19]
• All 3 accounts have been warned on their talk page about edits to infoboxes that have broken formatting, including 2 of the 3 have been warned by bracketbot [20][21][22]

These observations do not apply to the account Jakobrots500:

• 2 of the 3 accounts have made repeated anachronistic insertions of U.S. Route 66 into infoboxes of highway articles[23][24], both accounts have been previously warned on the talk page about this.
• 2 of the 3 accounts have made similar edits to U.S. Route 6 within a week. [25]
• 2 of the 3 accounts have made erroneous claims about which highway is the longest in the United States: [26][27]

Please comment on these observations here, or on WT:USRD. Regards, Dave (talk) 04:38, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Okay, User:PieIsAwesome228 was created and has started editing, so I indefinitely blocked the account. --Rschen7754 13:30, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help. I don't think Jakobrots500 is associated with any other accounts listed here. I looked at some of the edits from other accounts and they seem more "civilized" than those from this user. Jakobrots500 doesn't seem to even preview a page when editing. I need to look at more edits, though, to come to any firmer conclusion.

I would rather associate Jakobrots500 with two IP accounts whose edits show closer similarity, if that would help with anything: Special:Contributions/50.189.209.110, Special:Contributions/108.49.190.49. Chinissai (talk) 13:55, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

There goes another round of Interstate 95 in Massachusetts mess. (There was an acceptable part though, but shadowed by the rest.) Sigh. Chinissai (talk)

Has Jakobrots500 (talk · contribs) been notified of this discussion with a thread on his or her talk page? –Fredddie™ 02:39, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

No, I got busy with real life stuff. I'll take care of that now. Dave (talk) 02:15, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I have been too busy to monitor Jakobrots500 (talk · contribs)'s activity, plus, the watchlist has been down for a week. It turns out that disruptive editing continues, and I have reverted them accordingly. The edit quality is a bit better, but the countless disruptive ones have shadowed the few good ones completely. Chinissai (talk) 22:50, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I see Pieis awesome has made edits since his block expired too. But he seems to have figured out which articles are on my watchlist and stopped editing those =-) Sounds like we've made a case that the 'pedia need protecting. I'm on a mobile device, let me see if I can click the tiny little blocking button without blocking you,myself or the rest of the USRD project. =-) (The admin buttons are definately not mobile browser friendly) Dave (talk) 16:35, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

I am sorry to report that disruptive editing continues with Jakobrots500 (talk · contribs). This user probably knows that I crosscheck edits with the contributions page and hence tries to edit without logging in, as shown in these edits: [28], [29]. Also here: Special:Contributions/50.205.78.134. I hate to ask an admin to block users, so I will leave that decision to admin's discretion. However, I would like to ask for a temporary protection on Interstate 95 in Massachusetts, since a large number of recent edits has been disruptive and unverifiable. There are other articles that also apply, but I think excessive protection hurts more than help. Let me know if there is a more proper channel for this request. Chinissai (talk) 01:26, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia! There's ALWAYS a more appropriate channel than the one you chose. =-) WP:RPP is the page where admins know to look for requests. However, the important thing is if a page needs protection to notify an Admin in an honest and transparent fashion. Sigh, I'll take a look. Dave (talk) 01:46, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

I went ahead and protected the page, as there is a fair level of edit warring going on. However, what I don't understand is there is some edit warring over Foxboro vs. Foxborough, and per the wikipedia article on the city you reverted to the incorrect spelling. So what's that all about? The page protection isn't enough without also blocking the named editors, however, I'm not comfortable doing that without knowing the situation with issues like the above. Dave (talk) 02:00, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Dropping the ugh is like abbreviating Saint: everyone does it, especially on highway signs. --NE2 05:24, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

I am basing the articles on the actual road signs: if it ends with "ugh," the article has it, regardless of how the town name is officially spelled. According to WP:RJL, "Destinations: Locations and roads as presented on guide signs for the junction," that is the standard I went with. Chinissai (talk) 11:48, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Reckless editing is happening again. I am starting to wonder if this user is some sort of a bot, because "it" never wrote anything on the edit summary, never interacted with any requests we have had, and never attempted to revert my reversions but spend a countless number of edits bringing back the unwanted version. Is that possible? Chinissai (talk) 20:02, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Dave (talk) 15:50, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

I doubt it would be a bot, too complex. I'm thinking more likely someone who doesn't speak English very well or has no concept of social interaction. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 15:58, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Dave for your time taking appropriate actions and for understanding the situation. I hope to be done with all Massachusetts road articles and move on to other states before potentially facing these edits again. Chinissai (talk) 23:52, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

@Dave: Ken Gallager has been playing whack-a-mole with 50.205.78.134 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) today. It seems a clearcut case of WP:DUCK block evasion to me. –Fredddie™ 19:09, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Just did the same with with 50.189.209.110 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) on U.S. Route 20 in Massachusetts. Spent three hours going through Google Street View and it went within a blink of an eye. Chinissai (talk) 12:57, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Reverted 14 more articles by 50.189.209.110 this morning. Partly it's attempts to "improve" the destinations by adding unsigned ones, and partly it's been changing the terminology from "U.S. Route X" to "U.S. Highway X" for some reason. --Ken Gallager (talk) 13:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The protection on Interstate 95 in Massachusetts has expired, and user 24.91.82.228 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) has resumed the same disruptive editing pattern again. Sigh... Chinissai (talk) 23:26, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, Sorry I've been off grid for a few days, I've changed the block on Jackobrats to indefinite and blocked the above mentioned IP's for 2 weeks. Sigh.... Dave (talk) 05:34, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Dave. –Fredddie™ 23:44, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Improvements needed

I am trying to make an article on U.S. Route 24 in Ohio since I feel it needs one. I've gotten a start on it at User:TenPoundHammer/US 24 Ohio and I would appreciate some help on the route's history, as well as the exact mileage of each junction. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 12:38, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

For the history section, I would recommend looking at old newspaper articles and reports along with historical maps. As for the mileposts in the junction list, Ohio has straight-line diagrams that can be used to determine the mileposts. Dough4872 00:17, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't have any old maps of Ohio handy. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 00:35, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

http://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=5112 --NE2 00:53, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

@Dough4872: I'm also looking to build an article on U.S. Route 23 in Ohio. @NE2: I can't find anything that will open Ohio's .sid files on the Mac. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 12:53, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

MrSID says the Mac plugin was discontinued. It seems like a specialist format. -happy5214 13:09, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Does the OS 9.x viewer work? --NE2 17:00, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

I use a program called Graphic Converter on my Mac. It opens MrSID files, and it's available in the App Store or from Lemke Software's download page. Imzadi 1979 → 20:18, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

@NE2: OS 9 programs don't run on Intel Macs. @Imzadi1979: You feel like sending me the $40 for Graphic Converter? :-P Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 03:59, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

...then you probably shouldn't work on Ohio road articles, and find a state with PDF maps...—CycloneIsaac (Talk) 04:04, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If you want to download QGIS and if it works on Macs, that program will open MrSIDs and will allow you to view the historic Ohio maps. The only downside to these maps specifically is that they're not geolocated and each year's map bounces all over the coordinate plane. —Mr. Matté (^Talk/_Contrib) 04:09, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

How about this? I haven't tried it, so it may suck. --NE2 05:30, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

@Imzadi1979:, @Mr. Matté:, @NE2:: I got the plugin to work. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 07:32, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

@TenPoundHammer: I was going to add in US 24's mileposts for you, but the SLDs are from 2009, which was before the four lane highway opened. –Fredddie™ 14:15, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

DESTAPEs are still the most accurate and recent route logs.—CycloneIsaac (Talk) 15:21, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

@CycloneIsaac: I can't make heads or tails of that giant mass of numbers. I would appreciate some help in making more "U.S. X in Ohio" pages, since for some reason no one has seen fit to do any of them yet. I can lay the groundwork in giving a short history/route description, but I would appreciate someone else's help in calculating lengths. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 22:53, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

How to read DESTAPEs

In order to add the mileposts to Ohio articles, there's only a few simple steps needed. We will use Ohio State Route 11 as an example. You start with the southernmost county along the route, which in this case is Columbiana County. You open the DESTAPE for that county ([30]) and look for the route, which is shown as "SR 0011R 00.000 1 N" in the first column. You will then start with milepost zero at the beginning of the route. The first column lists the route and the milepost, the second column lists the municipality or township the specific intersection is in, the third column lists the feature at that milepost (intersection, bridge, mile marker, etc.), the fourth column lists the cross route at the intersection, and the fifth column gives a better description of that cross route. Looking at the beginning of SR 11, you will notice it begins in East Liverpool at the West Virginia state line. Reading down to the next column, you will notice at milepost 0 is also the beginning of a concurrency with U.S. Route 30. In the next column, you will then discover the next milepost is 10.820, which is an intersection that marks the end of the concurrency with US 30. Therefore, for the first 10.820 miles of the route, you will have to refer to the US 30 entry between mileposts 35.910 and 25.090 in the DESTAPE for Columbiana County as US 30 is the dominant route in the concurrency.

Moving down to the US 30 entry in the DESTAPE, you start at milepost 35.910, which in this case is at the end of the entry and is displayed in the first column as "US 0030R 35.910 4 ES" and is indicated in the fifth column as the West Virginia state line. To get the milepost for the first major intersection along the concurrency, which in this case is an interchange Ohio State Route 39, you will use where the ramps begin and end for the interchange. Scrolling up from the state line, you find "R15020 RAMP FROM SR00039R" in the fifth column which indicates the beginning of the SR 39 interchange. You then move over to the first column and find the milepost along US 30, which is shown as "US 0030R 35.870 1 E" and is therefore milepost 35.870 along US 30 in Columbiana County. In order to get the milepost of this junction along SR 11 you have to subtract the US 30 milepost of the ramp at the beginning of the interchange from the US 30 milepost at the state line. Therefore 35.910-35.870=0.04, which will give you milepost 0.04 along SR 11. Also note the location in the second column is East Liverpool, which gives you the location to be entered in the location column of the junction list. For the end of the interchange, you scroll up and find "R15019 RAMP FROM SR00039R" in the fifth column. You then look over to left and find it is at milepost 35.58 along US 30. 39.910-35.580 gives you 0.33 as the milepost along SR 11 for the end of the interchange. Therefore will have "mile=0.04" for the beginning milepost of the interchange and "mile2=0.33" for the ending milepost of the interchange in the junction list. You continue to follow this procedure for the remaining interchanges.

Once off the US 30 concurrency, the work calculating the mileposts becomes easier. You just have to find the beginning and ending ramps for the interchange in the fifth column and simply scroll over to the first column to get the milepost along SR 11. The last column of the SR 11 entry is milepost 25.200, which indicates the milepost at the Mahoning County line. At this point, to continue to get mileposts, you will need to open the DESTAPE for Mahoning County ([31]). The mileposts will reset to zero in the next county, which means you will have to add the 25.200 from the distance of SR 11 in Columbiana County to all the mileposts in Mahoning County. Once you get to the end of Mahoning County, you will have to take the milepost given (16.890) and add that to 25.200 to get the cumulative mileage through Columbiana and Mahoning counties, which will be added to the mileages in Trumbull County. You continue this procedure every time you enter a new county.

For at-grade intersections, such as the end of SR 11 at Ohio State Route 531, you simply look for the intersection in the fifth column, which in this case is displayed as "S00531R E 6TH". This walkthrough should provide a good guide on how to milepost Ohio road articles. If you have any more questions or concerns, feel free to ping me or leave a message here. Dough4872 01:07, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

@Dough4872:, good news: For the multiple-county routes in Ohio, the seventh column, "STLOG" provides you an overall milepost for the entire route so you don't have to do the addition from the previous county(ies). A caution about the mileposts though, some counties do not report the thousandths milepost hence the reason for me generally still rounding to hundredths when creating the RJL in Ohio. —Mr. Matté (^Talk/_Contrib) 01:14, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Okay then that takes out a step. However, for consistency's sake I say we stick to 2 decimal places for the mileposts in all Ohio articles. Dough4872 01:20, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

@Dough4872: Nothing that takes three long-ass paragraphs to explain is "simple". That looks like an epic buttload of work. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:45, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

It really isn't that hard. I explained to you how to read the log and what procedures you need to do to calculate the mileposts. I pretty much covered every situation you would need to account for regarding concurrencies, interchanges, and at-grade intersections. All it takes is a little bit of math and some patience to get the mileposts. Dough4872 03:11, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Or if you want to half-ass it, use the Goog to get distance to the nearest tenth. But then it probably smells like a bagger convention behind your ears. --NE2 03:45, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

It really isn't that hard. Let's look at a sample line from the DESTAPE Dough linked previously.

SR 0007R 05.940 1 N | M-EAST LIVERPOOL | INTERSECTION -I | SR 00039R 18.220 | S00039R RAMP B R | 236.427 |40.624158 -80.586961

Using the read me page, let's break it down by piped section. Here's what we can glean from this line:

1. SR 7 regular route (not an alternate or spur)
2. This instance is at milepost 5.940 in Columbiana County
3. This is the first (and only) line of information about this milepost
4. We are heading north(ish)

The second section:

1. We are within the city limits of East Liverpool, Ohio

Third:

1. It's an intersection and not an interchange

Fourth:

1. It meets SR 39 at that highway's milepost 18.220 in the county

Fifth:

1. SR 39 leaves to the right (you have to see it on a map)

Sixth:

1. This is the "State True Log Mileage" for this point (the milepoint you're looking for)

Seventh:

1. Coordinates Take a look

The trick is to find the route in question in the Cross Route Number/Logpoint column (column 4 above). Once you find that, getting the milepost is easy. –Fredddie™ 03:49, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

• @Fredddie: I think I get it now, but I'm still afraid to screw it up because I'm horrible at math. Also, it's gonna take weeks to slog through all these, county by county. That's why I'm leaving it to someone else, because I'm horrible at math. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:33, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
  • There is the STLOG column which lists the cumulative mileage. If all else fails, you could copy and paste it into a spreadsheet and have that do the calculations for you. –Fredddie™ 02:39, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Errata

Is there a precedent for including signage errors in junction lists? I ask because there are at least two signage errors in Michigan that probably need clarification on the junction list:

• The first is exit 240 of I-94 NE of Detroit. The signage eastbound says that 240A is "M-59 East", but this is wrong since the exit is the eastern terminus of M-59, and the ramp actually leads to William P. Rosso Highway.
• There is a similar situation at exit 69 off I-196 in Jenison, where exit 69A westbound is signed as "M-121 East" despite the exit being the eastern terminus of M-121.

The former seems like it should be noted somehow, because saying that it's signed "240A (east) and 240B (west) eastbound" is contradictory to the "eastern terminus of M-59" note — without a road name, someone might ask "wait, it's signed east WHAT eastbound?" The second one is probably more forgiveable since the exit is also signed Chicago Drive, but I'm concerned about the former. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 18:18, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

My $.02 is that in general sign errors are not notable, especially given these two specific examples are technicalities. If the signage is flagrantly wrong, or results in media coverage (for example results in an accident) then it should be covered. An example of what I do think merits coverage is the errant signage in Los Angeles at the intersection of the Arroyo Seco Parkway and the Golden State Freeway that was so bad, that rogue artists fixed it on their own volition (which is covered somewhere, but I don't remember which article covers it). A marginal case is the "End US 189" sign that was posted in Heber City, Utah for over 10 years, despite that was no where near either terminus of the highway, which I think was mentioned at one time but currently is not.Dave (talk) 00:54, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

@Moabdave: As I said though, the erratum on the East M-59 sign is contradictory to the fact that the exit is the eastern terminus of M-59. With no other indication of what the "east" ramp actually goes to, it seems like it would be confusing to readers unless some kind of note is given as to what the "east" ramp actually goes to. @Imzadi1979:, do you have a take on this? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:16, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Personally, these sorts of errors are not worth noting if no one else has noted them in the sources Dave mentioned. In the M-121 case, nothing needs to be done, and the error should be ignored. In the M-59 example, the name of the roadway that extends eastward from the terminus of M-59 should just be added, on its own line in the destinations column, for that interchange. Then it will be apparent which is west and which is east. Imzadi 1979 → 01:45, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

The name of the roadway should not be added, since it's not on the signs. If the sign was 'correct', it could simply read Selfridge ANG. Are we sure that this is an error rather than a technicality that would normally not be signed? In other words, given the existence of westbound reassurance east of Town Centre Boulevard, it would appear that M-59 officially extends east of I-94 to where state maintenance ends. By plugging the relevant PRs into the search, I find that eastbound (4205105) and westbound (807801) are both coded as Route 2059 east to at or near this sign (MP 0.517 eastbound/12.851 westbound). The exit 240A ramp (4208182) is officially named "E I 94/E M 59 RAMP". Nothing to see here, folks. --NE2 02:40, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Again, those were technicalities, not really errors. Almost always the legal end of the highway is a few feet beyond the intersection where its terminus is signed, to allow for the state to maintain the intersection where the road ends. Not even close to the example I listed, (found it, it's covered at Interstate 110 and State Route 110 (California)#I-5 signage) where the LA Times covered the fact that underground artists camouflaged as CalTrans workers fixed the signage with signs they built by hand because the existing signage was so bad. Dave (talk) 04:38, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I am fully opposed to including signage errors in junction lists. We need to keep our junction lists factually accurate regardless of what signage errors are present. Also keep in mind that signage errors can be fixed. Dough4872 16:17, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

GA review of New York State Route 287 (1970s)

I have started the GA review for the article New York State Route 287 (1970s), feedback is welcome. --AmritasyaPutra^T 06:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Abbreviations in junction module

I noticed recently the abbreviations in the junction module for named roads, turnpikes, and parkways were recently changed from abbreviations to be spelled out in full. For example, Pennsylvania Turnpike was changed from "Penna. Tpk." to "P.A. Turnpike". User:C16sh undertook these changes citing that the abbreviations should be spelled out per MOS:RJL. I was wondering if we should stick with this new abbreviations, change them back to what they were before, or change them to something else. Dough4872 00:39, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

MOS:RJL clearly states:

If the agency responsible for the highway system of a road appearing in the junction list abbreviates the name of that type of highway in its official documents, use that abbreviation (e.g. I-59, not Interstate 59). If no official abbreviation exists, an abbreviation commonly used by the general public can be substituted instead. If there is no abbreviation in use by either the road agency or the public, use the full name with no abbreviation. Such abbreviations shall also be introduced in the prose of the article for reader clarity.

Per that, I would change it to "Penna Turnpike" which would nicely match the shields. –Fredddie™ 01:01, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I think that is a fair rationale that we can go with. Dough4872 01:17, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

WTF is "P.A." supposed to stand for? Pennsylvani A? --NE2 08:36, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

C16sh logic. At least it's not Californeyeeh. Mitch32^{(The imitator dooms himself, to hopeless mediocrity.)} 20:07, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Expert attention

This is a notice about Category:U.S. Roads articles needing expert attention, which might be of interest to your WikiProject. It might take a while before the category is populated. Iceblock (talk) 20:49, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Indiana State Road 931 northern segment

I found this in the FAQ for the newly-opened section of US-31 freeway between US-20 and US-30:

What happens to the existing US 31?

INDOT has been working with local municipalities to discuss relinquishing various portions of the former highway. Below is the current status of US 31:
•Old US 31 is closed permanently between 7th Road and 3A Road in Marshall County.
•Old US 31 is SR 931 in St. Joseph County and Lakeville.
•In Marshall County and LaPaz, the roadway is Michigan Road.
•US 31 is closed permanently between Hildebrand Street and US 20 in St. Joseph County.

The portion of Old US 31 through St. Joseph County will become a local street once construction is complete at the end of the year.

So many things on which to comment...first, it says "Old US 31 is SR 931" in the present tense. (Note that "and Lakeville" is redundant for our purposes since Lakeville is wholly within St. Joseph County.) I would take this at face value, since the 31 Plymouth to South Bend page is an official INDOT page, and therefore this information can be taken as official. However, it's sketchy since it's part of an undated FAQ, and there's no backup that I can find such as a press release. There is another unofficial, secondary source in the form of a news article and video from the day of the ribbon cutting for the new freeway segment (I don't know how this flew under my radar at the time) but that's also probably not reliable enough, plus any changes noted above were in the future then. But even if it's the case that we can prove with a RS that the northern 931 exists, you've got the last sentence: "The portion of Old US 31 through St. Joseph County will become a local street once construction is complete at the end of the year". If I follow, that means that the 931 designation is temporary and will disappear at the end of the year, maybe without any signage even being fabricated. It seems to me that it would just be easier to call it "Old US 31" and not even involve the number "931" especially with Kokomo's 931 already well established.

All that said: Is it even worth it to include any of this in the SR-931 article or the parent US-31 article? I certainly don't want anyone to go through the trouble of rewriting the former to account for a two-segment route if the north one is just going to disappear soon.... Mapsax (talk) 17:19, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

@Mapsax: Maybe not in the route description, but it's probably worth mentioning in the history. But unfortunately, there would be sourcing issues as you mention. --Rschen7754 01:50, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Something like this:

The old alignment in Marshall County was given to the county government in [whenever]. The St. Joseph County portion was briefly designated as a second segment of SR 931, but was downgraded in [whenever].

But maybe it's going to stay SR 931. See the version of the FAQ posted in April. (PS: I just told them to save the current version.) --NE2 02:25, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Although this is WP:CRYSTAL, I see this 931 hanging around a while since St. Joseph County doesn't seem to want to take on anything; witness 933 disappearing at the Elkhart County line. And forget my "without any signage even being fabricated"; I didn't get the end of the news video to play initially so I missed the reporter stating that INDOT told her that markers were likely being made as she spoke. I guess we'll just have to wait for a field check to see if there have been markers posted; this AARoads thread was started in 2011 but keeps getting resurrected anytime there's a new event/observation, with the last post just nine days ago, so eventually someone should come across something (it's 300 miles from me so I can't do it myself). Or we can wait around for Street View's next pass.... Of course even if markers are reported it'd still be OR, but at least we'll know it's still worth pursuing. In lieu of a press release or something similar, I guess the status quo is the best option. Mapsax (talk) 12:05, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Virginia State Route 638

There is a discussion at RfD about several redirects related to Virginia State Route 638, and the potential notability of these roads, that people here are likely to have useful input to. Please comment at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 October 18#Virginia State Route 638. Thanks. Thryduulf (talk) 21:31, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Attached KMLs for I-69 et al.

These 3 KML files — Template:Attached KML/Interstate 69, Template:Attached KML/Interstate 69 in Tennessee, and Template:Attached KML/Interstate 69 in Mississippi — are incomplete. I also don't have data for Template:Attached KML/Interstate 69 in Louisiana and Template:Attached KML/Interstate 69 in Arkansas. Any help on that will be appreciated. – Epicgenius (talk) 02:10, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I-69 doesn't exist yet in Louisiana or Arkansas, and I don't think an exact corridor has been defined. If you want the proposed route where it has been: http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/89400970 --NE2 03:00, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. May I export it to KML? Epicgenius (talk) 13:52, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Forget it, I'll just make a KML file on Google Earth. Epicgenius (talk) 15:32, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

County Roads

Several county roads are up for renaming, see Talk:County_Road_3_(Florida) -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 23:52, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Help needed at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ontario Highway 403/archive1

Unfortunately, Floydian is inactive for a few weeks, and his FAC has issues that need some minor fixing. I'm willing to pick up whatever's not done, but if I could have some help, it would be much appreciated. --Rschen7754 05:16, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: don't run ifexist on images in template:jct

If {{jct}} were changed to provide redlinked images rather than empty images where no image exists, pages would be categorized in Category:Articles with missing files rather than Category:Jct template errors. The former may have been overloaded when the current setup was chosen, but it is currently being maintained. The benefit to doing this would be avoiding the "expensive" ifexist parserfunction, which causes pages to take a while to save. The downside would be ungraceful failing causing temporary ugliness until the shield is created. --NE2 19:51, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Where was this six months ago? -happy5214 20:26, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

"The former may have been overloaded when the current setup was chosen" --NE2 20:38, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Plus they'd be way easier to find. I'm all for it. –Fredddie™ 03:05, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Also, we could remove the Jct error category sorting. –Fredddie™ 03:08, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Are we all on board with this change? -happy5214 11:08, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

What's with all the Quebec stuff in Category:Jct template errors? --NE2 13:02, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

it has to do with TCH. I changed the TCH parameter so it displays a double shield instead of one. I've been too busy/lazy to fix them. –Fredddie™ 18:03, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

But I can't fix them if they're not in the category. I've enlisted the help of another editor who asked me to make some TCH-related changes to get this squared away. –Fredddie™ 03:07, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Quebec is now all clear. –Fredddie™ 02:07, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Anything? If it weren't Lua, I'd take a stab at it. --NE2 17:29, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

If there are no objections, I'll whip up something overnight. -happy5214 18:43, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

It's in the sandbox. Please test. -happy5214 11:21, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Seems to work on User:NE2/temp (a list that has too many ifexists normally), but still takes a while to save. --NE2 16:42, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

That's not this template's fault. The parser only spends a little more than a second within the Lua code. -happy5214 17:07, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Anyway, I support the change. --NE2 19:28, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Interstate 840

Hello, a move request was recently submitted to move I-840 (NC) to I-840, discussion located here: Talk:Interstate 840 (North Carolina). Please chime in if you have any opinion on it. --WashuOtaku (talk) 19:06, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

New Category for ETCs

I recently updated SunPass on its interoperability agreement with Georgia and notice that their is no clear category for all the ETC systems used in the United States & Canada. Beyond the general Electronic toll collection cat, can we setup a specific category for the systems (i.e. SunPass, I-Pass, MnPASS, etc.) only? --WashuOtaku (talk) 20:43, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I think we should only have two articles on ETC. One describing how it works and the other a list of ETC systems. However I think I'm in the minority on this. –Fredddie™ 22:51, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps we don't need one for every branding, but there is specific technical information about how each transponder works that would overwhelm a simple list. --NE2 23:01, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, I'm not against consolidating them all onto a single article and just breaking out the small differences between them (i.e. utilization, areas where its used and interoperability with other systems). There just need something to organize them all. --WashuOtaku (talk) 01:02, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I support the creation of a category but believe the articles should remain separate as the differences can be stark between ETC systems. Also some systems like E-ZPass are big enough to sustain an independent article while others can possibly be merged with the road or bridge they serve. Dough4872 03:47, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Some of these may have notability as a company, though I don't know the rules on that. --Rschen7754 03:54, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Categorizing redirects

I see a lot of effort being made to identify bannered routes of various U.S. routes, eliminating stubs, and redirecting them to the appropriate article subsection. These redirects, however, are being redundantly classified into Category:Bannered and suffixed U.S. Highways. This category is now just shy of nearly a thousand entries at this writing rendering the category essentially useless. I suggest that redirects be removed from this and other similar categories when the target article is already included. I support instead the continued categorization of bannered route redirects in local categories such as Category:Transportation in (some) County, (state) as a means of helping readers interested in roads in a particular locale to be redirected immediately to an appropriate article subsection and allow them to ignore other routes along potentially transnational highways in which they have no interest. Removing redundant redirects also allows editors to more easily find articles about bannered routes and distinguish between those that should be redirected as hopeless stubs or worthy of being standalone articles. Fortguy (talk) 06:57, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

This makes sense. It seems things are getting overcategorized as of late. (Do we have a defined USRD category structure?) Perhaps if it is desired to have categories on these redirects, a better category structure within Category:Bannered and suffixed U.S. Highways would be in order... Introducing "Bannered and suffixed U.S. Highways in (state)" subcategories could potentially be useful for navigation—Introducing "Bannered and suffixed routes of U.S. X" subcategories, on the other hand, would not be useful since articles already exist. -- LJ ↗ 07:17, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

I can understand putting these in the bannered category, since not every route has its own "bannered routes of X" page. But categorizing them into Category:Former U.S. Highways utterly ruins the usefulness of that category. --NE2 16:01, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, I think that all of them should be in the appropriate categories. Is this another veiled attempt at stopping me from contributing to the project in a quick manner? Lately, I haven't had as much time to participate in the actual article editing like the rest of USRD. This is the least I can do. Do I need to stop with the categorization totally? :-( Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 00:28, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

@Morriswa: not necessarily. We as a project need to come up with some guidelines for categorization so you can categorize to your heart's content. –Fredddie™ 04:16, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Whew! Well, that's a relief. I hope everyone can come to a mutual agreement and understanding as to how this should be done. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 04:45, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Fort Lee lane closure scandal

Can anyone here take a look at this article? I've had to fail its GA review and quite frankly reading the article is wading through treacle. Since it's (apparently) been a major national news event, somebody here might be able to help? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:40, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Why on earth is this tagged for USRD? This is much more of a political scandal and cover-up than anything having to do with roads. We don't usually even cover bridges. I personally think this is outside of our domain, but someone else here might be able to provide some help. -happy5214 11:48, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Unrelated discussions about project scope

I guess it depends how you define a "project". Certainly since the article talks about a major bridge containing problems relating to the toll booth alignment of a nationally important interstate and a major commuter route, that is cited to multiple news sources and reaching a high level of news prominence would at least be partially relevant, even if you can't stomach the political stuff. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:54, 7 November 2014 (UTC) I'm not sure. It's probably only slightly more related to USRD than e.g. New York City Marathon (which uses the Verrazano Bridge). On the other hand, USRD editors (not I because fuck politics) could help make sure the description of what was closed is accurate. --NE2 14:05, 7 November 2014 (UTC) It's not within our scope; we don't even cover any article on the bridge. --Rschen7754 14:11, 7 November 2014 (UTC) We should cover the bridge, but poo. --NE2 14:39, 7 November 2014 (UTC) Indeed, my view is a project that can cover some facet of an article does no harm in including it. It would also help improve activity to this project by including outsiders, but given what I've just read on Talk:Mackinac Bridge, I'm not going to hold my breath. Have a nice day, y'all. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:56, 7 November 2014 (UTC) Thanks for the notification, Ritchie333. I would hope that people here with the ability and interest to contribute would do so whether or not the article falls within our project's scope. We may not include most bridges within our scope, but as individual members, we can still work on bridge-related articles. I know that I do work from time to time on the articles for NRHP-listed bridges. If such a bridge formerly carried, or currently carries, a state highway, and I'm working on improving the article on the state highway, it only makes sense to both link out to the bridge article from the highway article and give the bridge article some polish or expansion. None of that work means that the bridge article has to be tagged for USRD. In other words, we've been asked for help, If you're interested and able, please help. If not, shut up already. Imzadi 1979 → 18:07, 7 November 2014 (UTC) I have to disagree with that. As you are probably aware, projects are in decline - even this one only has a few contributors as expressed above. It would make sense to merge projects together and tag whatever projects can help. You wouldn't remove Mackinac Bridge from WikiProject Michigan would you, it's a well-known component of the state. And personally I would consider all transport GAs I've done such as Dartford Crossing, Blackwall Tunnel and Twyford Down to be all "roads" related and should appear in projects thereof. As I've said elsewhere in WP space, we need to revisit how projects work to get more widespread use and appreciation. (PS: I had to chuckle at comments thinking 25 is old, at my day job the general opinion is that if you remember the Great Storm of 1987 (and I do), you are officially an old fart). Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:13, 10 November 2014 (UTC) I strongly disagree with merging other wikiprojects with USRD as we are quite an active project and can sustain ourselves. Just because other projects are not as active anymore does not mean we should take on the burden of working on those articles which have little to do with the scope of our project. Bridges and scandals about lane closures at a bridge approach have nothing to do with us and should remain outside our scope. Dough4872 18:01, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Getting back to what's important here, because discussions of project scope are not really relevant to the request at hand. USRD members like Mitchazenia or Dough4872 are located closer to Fort Lee. There may be others on WP:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Participants from adjacent areas. They would have some more localized knowledge about the situation. Most of the rest of us are halfway across the country from New Jersey, so we wouldn't have that advantage. I've found that not all project members watch this talk page, so Ritchie333 may want to look over that list and ping some individuals directly to see what they can contribute.

As for the article, it's mostly about a political scandal that happens to involve a bridge that carries a highway. That may discourage some project members from assisting. It does not fall within how this project has decided, by consensus of several years, to determine its scope. On the other hand, being a member of USRD does not lock any of us into working only on USRD articles. Any further discussion should take place over on Talk:Fort Lee lane closure scandal. Imzadi 1979 → 19:55, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Yet Talk:Port Miami Tunnel is tagged for USRD. The only difference between this and most water crossings is that it is the entire length of a numbered route. --NE2 02:52, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Would something like a list of DDIs fit in Wikidata?

Diverging diamond interchange used to have a list of them. I agree with its removal, but is this something that could fit in Wikidata? --NE2 06:05, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't think so. Think of Wikidata as a database of information about individual subjects, which would be the topics we have articles on. If Wikidata had entries on individual interchanges, they could be tagged with a property that identified them as DDIs just as the entry on an individual highway identifies who maintains that highway, which graphic is the highway's marker or map, etc. Imzadi 1979 → 06:56, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Would entries on individual interchanges be reasonable? Or does Wikidata have similar notability rules to Wikipedia? --NE2 07:08, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm thinking not at this time, but as Wikidata is constantly changing and evolving, the answer might be different within a few years. --Rschen7754 07:01, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

It's not so much that Wikidata wouldn't allow a list. More that the way that Wikidata works would make expressing a simple list like this somewhat awkward. The Wikidata notability policy would probably allow items for major interchanges, especially if you can think up some way that the items would be linked to by other items (probably through some sort of major-intersections property), thus satisfying criterion 3. The intended way for Wikidata to work in this situation would be to create an item for each interchange, label it something like "instance of: diverging diamond interchange", and then when queries happen (which could be several centuries from now considering how fast the developers move) you would be able to do a query that would essentially be the equivalent of an SQL statement like SELECT ALL FROM wikidata WHERE "instance of" = "diverging diamond interchange"; and would thus produce a dynamically-generated list of DDIs. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 07:30, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

I suppose I was thinking of a simple category, but then you'd have to assign each object a name to appear in the category? --NE2 23:00, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata doesn't have categories in the sense that we have them on Wikipedia. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 23:07, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Quick edit suggestions

Hey. I have had lots of stuff going on IRL, so I haven't edited much lately. Until the redirect categorization gets sorted out and I can continue with that project, are there any quick edits that I can do while at work to still help out? I still want to be relevant until I have more time to edit properly. Thanks. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 00:36, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

We still have over 300 articles with hardcoded junction lists. You don't have to fill in the mileposts, just convert to templates. –Fredddie™ 01:03, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion. I think that will work well with my work schedule, too.  :-) Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 01:40, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

I had been slowly whittling away at that category for the last few months (brought it down from mid 400), since I wasn't in a editing/research mood for a while..cleared out most of the Nebraska, Colorado and Illinois SRs, among others. Good mindless activity, but it's not always quick. -- LJ ↗ 08:30, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

There are many articles with hardcoded shields in the infobox termini/junctions, but no way to find them. --NE2 02:07, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Google Maps KML change coming

https://developers.google.com/maps/support/kmlmaps

Hopefully this won't affect us too badly. –Fredddie™ 04:38, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Looks like we're fucked. --NE2 04:53, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

It does look like it will break the Google Maps links. Perhaps since we're Wikipedia though, we can ask them to reconsider (other subject areas use KML, not just us). --Rschen7754 06:09, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Here's my guess as to what will happen: they'll say use our Javascript or API. Wikimedia will say no, it's not free software. --NE2 06:42, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

There's still Bing Maps. But it does look like the changes will render KML files on Wikipedia unusable on Google Maps.

I've looked for the best way to contact the WMF Tech/Engineering departement (or one of their staff members) and the best I could find is meta:Tech, where I started the discussion meta:Tech#Google Maps changes. I don't know a whole lot about KML files on Wikipedia, so if you have more to add to that discussion please add your thoughts/opinions to it. AHeneen (talk) 08:23, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

(stalking) From my experience elsewhere, Google APIs have a habit of breaking every now and again for the hell of it. I assume this is plain old Fire and Motion, because why would Google want a competitor to display map data better than itself? Not good business sense at all. I assume this KML is just a whole bunch of lat/lon pairs stuck together with a few tags thrown in - can't you convert it to OpenStreetMap OSM - that's a much better solution in my view, and with an open license more in-tune with the WMF. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 22:02, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

We haven't been able to find a site that will overlay KMLs on OSM. (There's also the preference of many for the Goog, not least because you can easily see street view photos of the route.) --NE2 22:05, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

No, I mean if you convert the file from KML to OSM (and if you can write a script to do one, it should do at least 80% of the rest, and 100% with bugfixes), you can definitely use OpenLayers to display that. Lots of dynamic map examples here, for example. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:17, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Problem with this is that you can do more with a KML than just overlay it on Google Maps (there's still Bing Maps, it can be imported into Google Earth and most GIS programs, etc.). —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 12:18, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I think OpenLayers already supports KML. Plus, the OpenLayers project just released a new version with a bunch of new features. -happy5214 15:59, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

• Don't get your hopes up that Wikimedia will make a difference. Google has made its decision to destroy yet another useful service, and they will never back down; besides the fact that there is no way to contact Google directly, just user support forums. It's a sad day. Better off trying to contact openstreetmaps and remove Google from KML and Geohack entirely... maybe get the point across when they lose millions of hits. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 15:56, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

situation at Talk:Diverging diamond interchange

I can't deal with this on my own. --NE2 22:58, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Renaming highway shield files

I am looking for feedback regarding renaming shield files. You can join in the discussion here: commons:Commons talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads#Renaming shields--Svgalbertian (talk) 18:01, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Loosely related discussion about duplicate circle files: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Shields task force#Time to delete and redirect elongated/ellipse 0-99? --NE2 02:13, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Cherohala Skyway

There has been a merge request to combine SR 165 with the Cherohala Skyway that has existed since September 2013. Currently it has three disgree and one comment. Could more people way into this so this request can eventually be closed out (if not already can be). Discussion here: Talk:Cherohala Skyway. Thank you. --WashuOtaku (talk) 16:33, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Interstate 80 Business (Winnemucca, Nevada)

I revamped the article, using Google Maps, Google Street View, and Rand McNally's online maps (for reference). Another editor had removed some edits. I could revert them, but I don't want to start an edit war. I think that my edits were correct. If a more-experienced editor could investigate and revamp the article, I'd really appreciate it. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 10:00, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

The article was previously more of a disambiguation page (I don't recall why this was changed from a redirect). Your edits weren't bad, but can't really be considered a revamp as all you really did was add a junction list and infobox...the other editor made some refinements to what you put in.

Most of the current Nevada I-80 BLs are not stand-alone articles, but rather redirects. My current opinion is not to break all these redirects into their own articles for a couple reasons, mainly the lack of uniformity in how these all have varying natures with underlying state routes (or lack thereof) and how they are not listed in NDOT logs. I'd much rather see them all summarized into the list at Business routes of Interstate 80 (or another list location) for the time being. -- LJ ↗ 10:30, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Which of Famartin's edits do you dispute? His removal of SR 289 "south" (actually signed west?) appears to be correct (p. 112) - SR 289 only runs east from US 95 at Melarkey Street. Why the three rows for one interchange anyway?

My problem with this is that I-80 Bus. and Nevada State Route 794 are separate articles. SR 794 is simply a second designation for part of I-80 Bus. and should be merged. --NE2 10:45, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree that it is silly to have separate articles for all of the business loops of I-80 in Nevada. Like LJ said, the signage and designation on the map verses field signage isn't consistent from town to town. In this specific case, as pointed out by NE2 above we have three mostly redundant articles, Nevada State Route 794 Nevada State Route 289 and Interstate 80 Business (Winnemucca, Nevada).

There are two options that I prefer for resolution, and I could be persuaded either way on which I like more. Option one: a singe article describing the historical route of U.S. Route 40 in Nevada (currently a redirect to I-80) and redirect all of the I-80 business loops and relevant state routes that are fragments of the legacy US 40 routing to this article. The article would have to include mention of the stubs that were created that carry part of the SR designation to connect the old US-40 to an exit on I-80. Option 2: Redirect the state routes (NV 794 in this case) to a business loop article, mentioning similarly that this is mostly the historical US 40 routing, with stubs and extensions added to make the connection to downtown/I-80 as appropriate.

In either event NV 289 would probably have to remain a separate article, as It includes a stub piece that is neither part of US-40, the BL nor a connection to I-80. I hate having separate articles for these po-dunk routes, but sigh, what do you do? Dave (talk) 21:49, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Actually the majority of SR 289 is separate from I-80 Bus. --NE2 22:02, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm not generally in favor of creating separate business route articles. I know that might seem odd to read, but I have an pair of rules for an exception to that stance.

• The first: "Is this business route maintained as a separate state highway?" In Michigan, our business routes are fully their own state highways and not under local jurisdiction, like most of them are in Wisconsin. Business routes under local-only jurisdiction seem to be too epehmeral, while those maintained by the state like a state highway tend to have much better opportunities for writing, especially if that business route has its own history separate from the parent highway. That's why M-28 Business (Ishpeming–Negaunee, Michigan) and M-13 Connector (Michigan highway) have separate articles.
• The second: "Is there enough content to be written about the business route that precludes a merger?" As long as the writer avoid trivial details he or she wouldn't add to any other state highway's article, the trick is to look at the length of the resulting content. If you can cover the content in two paragraphs (for an RD and a History) and a RJL, skip trying to summarize those paragraphs into a lead section and merge it someplace.

  If it's the only business route of the parent (in that state if there's a state-detail article in play), then if the content can be inserted without issues regarding due vs. undue weight, then it should be added to the parent article. If there are a set of business routes, the trick is to consider if adding the full set would unbalance the parent, otherwise a separate list article should be created. That's why Interstate 196 has its 3 business loops within the parent article, but Business routes of Interstate 75 in Michigan will likely never be merged into the parent because there are nine to list. My cutoff is around 4–5 but it will be a case-by-case decision.

In this case, based on the other comments, I don't think a separate article is quite warranted. Imzadi 1979 → 22:21, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Portal

I think it is time to discuss the future of P:USRD. Over the past couple years, there have been increasingly less suggestions for selected articles, selected pictures, and DYK hooks, which has led to me having to crunch at the end of the month to find ideas for the portal. I brought this issue back in July (see here for discussion), but nothing really came out of it except for some ideas for selected pictures. At this point, I am starting to run out of ideas for DYK hooks and selected articles that are not from the same two or three states and really would appreciate help from other editors in getting suggestions for the portal. If we are not going to get suggestions for the portal in the future, I think we may need to change the model of the portal. One idea I have thought about is having the content of the portal rotate every time it is reloaded between different articles, pictures, and/or DYK hooks, depending on how suggestion ideas work out. I would like to seek the input of the project to see what action should be taken at this point to make running and maintaining the portal more efficient. Dough4872 02:38, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Links to the applications through spring 2010

Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Resources/AASHTO minutes

 – Imzadi 1979 → 02:04, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

If anyone wants to add them to the table: User:NE2/AASHTO --NE2 01:49, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

I added the later ones (which aren't so nice with filenames). Also note that the November 2014 report is out (but not the individual applications). --NE2 19:05, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Naming inconsistency for lists of U.S. Routes.

Hello,

Today I came across the lists of U.S. Routes in different states. The naming of these articles seem to be inconsistent, as there are pages titled like List of U.S. Highways in Alabama and pages titled as List of U.S. Routes in Arkansas. Is there a reason for this? At first I thought it was how different states called their highways, but that wouldn't make sense for List of U.S. Highways in Michigan, as the individual articles are for example called U.S. Route 2 in Michigan. Your thoughts on this please. TheWombatGuru (talk) 18:27, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Generally it is how the State calls it. Officially its "route," but "highway" is used interchangeably or exclusively in several states. --WashuOtaku (talk) 18:35, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

But how does that make sense for Michigan? The list talks about highways while the individual articles talk about routes. TheWombatGuru (talk) 18:44, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Actually, WashuOtaku, officially to AASHTO, both "U.S. Highway" and "U.S. Route" are used. The definitive guide to the system last published in 1989 is entitled United States Numbered Highways, while section headings within the book use "U.S. Route". The latter was arbitrarily chosen for the titles of individual articles, so as TheWombatGuru noted, it is called "U.S. Route 2 in Michigan", yet that state's list is "List of U.S. Highways in Michigan". Some states have had their lists titled with the opposite convention. The categories though are consistent. Regardless of state DOT nomenclature, they pretty much all use "U.S. Highways in <state>" for the category names. Because of the variation between state DOT practices, and our general preference to date of honoring the terminology used in a manner akin to how Wikipedia honors and respects the variations in English vocabulary from nation to nation (aka WP:ENGVAR), we've left this quirky inconsistency stand. Imzadi 1979 → 18:51, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

@Washuotaku: just a re-ping because of the capitalization difference in the copy/paste above, the original ping would not have gone through, and correcting an old ping won't do anything because a ping must be accompanied by a signature in the exact same edit. Imzadi 1979 → 18:54, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Didn't know that, thanks. --WashuOtaku (talk) 22:17, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

If I had my druthers, I'd phase out the U.S. Route nomenclature for U.S. Highway. But I wasn't active here when that discussion and !vote occurred. –Fredddie™ 00:14, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

When did that vote occur? Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 00:33, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

See WP:SRNC. –Fredddie™ 00:36, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

SRNC didn't technically cover U.S. Route vs. U.S. Highway (it was State Route Naming Conventions after all), though of course a strong consensus would be advisable to change something like this. --Rschen7754 02:28, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, before I recently created the US Route list article for Nevada, I looked to see what the naming was on other US route list articles. Of the roughly 25 states that had an article, there were about twice as many "List of U.S. Highways in X" lists as there were "List of U.S. Routes in X" lists. Despite this, I went with the latter format...I thought it would be better to match the article titles. I would not be opposed to an effort to change the naming if consensus were to bring all lists/articles titles under uniform naming (I also wasn't active when that convention was decided). -- LJ ↗ 03:38, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Embassy and getting new editors

Over the last few weeks, I have started to feel encouraged about USRD again. While some are reducing their activity here due to outside circumstances, we have new editors interested in getting involved.

The problem is, I feel that in the size of a project like USRD, it's easy to get lost. There's so much to do, and yet we seem to be having trouble getting people connected into these areas.

In the meantime, we have the page Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Embassy, which is not very helpful in my opinion; it says that users have various rights like reviewer and rollbacker, but that doesn't mean that they know anything about how to create content on that project, or that they're willing to help other USRD members with stuff.

I've set up a draft page User:Rschen7754/Coordination (which was originally used for something else) that is a list of people that can be contacted to ask questions in certain areas and/or get some mentoring to get started in that particular area. This would be a followup to our New user orientation page. This would also replace the Embassy; I feel that between that and m:WikiProject U.S. Roads/List most of the info is covered.

Thoughts? --Rschen7754 04:45, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I also think we should take another look at our project help and guidelines pages. For example, the page for "Rockland County Scenario" is a cute nod to the interests of the editors who wrote the page, but that title is useless for helping an new editor find the content they need to develop articles. Many new editors do not need to know about the SRNC (State Route Naming Conventions) debacle (nor should they), and we don't need to keep referring to that in our documentation. Etc. Etc. I'm not claiming to be innocent, I've done my fair share of this in the pages I've written, but just saying now that us old geezers are older and wiser, we should perhaps take a second look. Dave (talk) 05:03, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Actually one of the most common noob errors is to spell out the full article name in states where the state name should be omitted. It's a relatively minor error, but certainly more important than adding random nbsps all over the place. --NE2 05:13, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

 Done after no objections. --Rschen7754 03:55, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Can't tag a list-class as needs-jctint=yes

Talk:Bannered routes of U.S. Route 79 --NE2 13:28, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Moot point. I just converted them. -happy5214 14:15, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

There are others that I tagged... --NE2 14:57, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

U.S. Route 1/9

Not sure where I saw people talking about it, so I'll bring it here: if we wanted to do away with the article or merge it or something, the sooner it's done, the better, because two other Wikipedias already have articles on it, likely because we do. --Rschen7754 02:20, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

As I have said multiple times, I oppose getting rid of the US 1/9 article as the concurrency is long and detailed enough to warrant its own article. While 31 miles may not be long to some people (especially people who live out west), in New Jersey the route passes through 31 miles of some of the most urbanized areas in the United States and there is a lot of descriptive information and history to discuss. In addition, many in the North Jersey area refer to the road as "1 and 9" and in many areas the two routes are lumped together into one shield. US 1/9 even has its own truck route that is also signed with the routes in one shield. I feel that splitting the information from US 1/9 into the separate U.S. Route 1 in New Jersey and U.S. Route 9 in New Jersey articles would create a large amount of redundancy and would overburden those articles with more information that the US 1/9 article can easily handle. Dough4872 05:11, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

If we're going to take pot shots at each other, I support splitting US 1/9 for the opposite reasons Dough cites. See also U.S. Route 15-501 in North Carolina for splitting precedent. –Fredddie™ 19:16, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Hell no on the split. 15-501 should have remained together; the "article" on the overlap is a permastub, and the 15 and 501 articles have more text in common than otherwise. (But if 1-9 must be split, it should be merged and redirected to US 1, keeping the {{main}} in U.S. Route 9 in New Jersey#The US 1/9 concurrency as-is.) --NE2 21:40, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Regarding US 15/501, if you look back to this discussion from 2012, I opposed splitting the concurrency article for the same reasons I discussed with US 1/9 and advocated for the concurrency article to remain for both cases. That example is an even longer concurrency in length and the split has resulted in large redundancy between the U.S. Route 15 in North Carolina and U.S. Route 501 in North Carolina articles while leaving U.S. Route 15-501 in North Carolina as a stubby set index article that has potential. In addition, much like US 1/9, this concurrency also appears to be often referred to jointly as "15-501". In addition, "15-501" also serves as a symbol of the Carolina–Duke rivalry as it connects UNC in Chapel Hill to Duke in Durham. In reality, both the US 1/9 and US 15/501 concurrnecies should remain as separate articles as splitting creates large amounts of redundancy when all the information can be provided in a non-redundant separate article with a simple summary in the main articles. Also, if US 1/9 were to be split, we cannot just put the information in the US 1 article with a hatnote from the US 9 articles as that gives undue weight to US 1 and is cherry-picking. Therefore, if a split were to happen, we would have to recite the same information in both the US 1 and US 9 articles, which is highly redundant and would overburden those two articles. Therefore, I feel the status quo for US 1/9 is the best option. Dough4872 01:29, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Does not including the detailed history of the New York State Thruway in Interstate 90 in New York give undue weight? Nope. --NE2 01:44, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

The overlap between named toll roads/freeways and route numbers is another issue unto itself. The toll roads are usually notable enough in their own right to warrant an individual article separate from the route number(s) it carries. We should still mention information about the toll road in the route number article though, but hatnotes can work to provide greater detail in the toll road article. In some cases, we may use a route number as a set index article to the named segments it follows, such as Interstate 76 in Pennsylvania to Pennsylvania Turnpike and Schuylkill Expressway. Dough4872 02:02, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

But I-76 isn't a "set index" topic: it's a route number topic. And there's significant history behind the route number that doesn't fit in the subarticles. The clear thing to do is redirect I-76 in PA to the main I-76 article. --NE2 02:14, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Move to U.S. Route 0.11. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 02:41, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Um? Dough4872 02:43, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, you're right. I meant U.S. Route $0.{\overline {1}}$. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 02:49, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Lol. Dough4872 03:13, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

A bit of a random question, but why do we call it "1/9" if the shield says "1–9"? TCN7JM 02:56, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

That naming convention goes years back, even before I started using the site. I would have no objections to changing the article title to U.S. Route 1-9 to better match the shields. I should also note there are some shields that have an ampersand instead of a hyphen, like this one. Dough4872 03:11, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Most of the time concurrencies are separated with a forward slash: US 1 / US 9 —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 08:03, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I must oppose this split. The stretch seems substantial enough to maintain its own article. TCN7JM 04:00, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Operationally, because US 1-9 crosses a state line along its course from Woodbridge to New York City, the article functions like a state article in terms of article series continuity. It it very similar to US 11E and US 11W in that regard. However, US 15-501 is all within North Carolina; there are segments of US 15 and US 501 on either side of the concurrency endpoints in Durham and Laurinburg. The status of US 15-501 does not need to match that of US 1-9, nor should we use what we did with US 15-501 as a reason to split US 1-9 by itself.  VC  03:26, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

No unassessed articles?

Perhaps I do not know your methods, but do I understand there are no articles without a class= or an importance= unranked? I just finished getting U.S. Streets to that status, but there were hundreds of talk pages to do to reach that status.--DThomsen8 (talk) 20:24, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Basically, Dthomsen8, members from the project years ago made it a priority to tag and assess articles. Since then, we've conducted semi-regular audits by state to make sure assessments are still accurate. I try to watch the new article listing collated by the bot, and when I see new articles, I tag and assess them right away. Others watch the unassessed categories and clear them on a regular basis. Imzadi 1979 → 02:39, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

It's really as simple as what Imzadi said. Just make the effort to get them assessed and then keep up on it. Me, I watch Category:Unassessed U.S. road transport articles, so if a new article is tagged lazily or someone pulls the class for reassessment, it flags on my userpage and I can look at it. –Fredddie™ 04:31, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

It's one of the best ways to track progress and article quality, which is why it's a priority; this really was one of the key factors in our ability to have such a functional WikiProject. --Rschen7754 09:23, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Proposed changes to ACR

Please see WT:HWY#Change of outlook at ACR for a discussion on a proposed change to how ACR works. Rschen7754 (delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:00, 14 December 2014 (UTC))

Thoughts on FLC?

If I recall correctly this is a relatively active project. Most of List of Seattle bridges is related and it is up for FL. Any thoughts would be appreciated.Cptnono (talk) 02:43, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Since it's an article that mainly deals with bridges, it it within the scope of WP:BRIDGES and not us. I see that the article is already tagged for the project. --BloonsTDFan360 ^{(Park and Ride)} 03:37, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Though for what it's worth I took a quick glance and didn't find any obvious problems. --Rschen7754 04:11, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Be included in the USRD newsletter for the 10th anniversary!

Hi everyone! Sorry for the last-minute announcement, but instead of writing a tl;dr essay about how I feel about USRD, I thought it would be nice to include more people in the story. So, if you're interested in being included, please write a paragraph answering the four questions below at the appropriate section on Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Newsletter/Newsroom:

• What brought you to USRD?
• What do you do for the project?
• What has this project meant to you over the last several years?
• Looking forward to the next 5-10 years of USRD, where do you hope USRD will go? --Rschen7754 05:24, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Great idea! I like this prompt as both a way to create content for the newsletter and for introspection.  VC  06:19, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Future FA sweeps

If anyone's been watching WT:FAC or WT:FAR lately, he or she would know that there are some plans being worked out to pick up an old priority to re-review older FAs. Right now they're talking about making a list of FAs that haven't been re-reviewed, stopping at the 2009 or 2010 promotions.

I'm wondering if it might not be a good idea to continue taking some of our older FAs through the ACR process in an expedited fashion. I'm thinking that if we give each one a read through to make sure the prose still looks good, that we won't have outdated information, or if there aren't newer best practices that haven't been implemented on older promotions. I'm not thinking an in-depth review, more like a general spot check to give things a once over to look for any bigger issues before older articles are pulled through FAR. Imzadi 1979 → 03:11, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

• I did a cursory glance (about 30-60 seconds) in the now stalled User:Rschen7754/USRD GA audit, but we should probably take a further look. However, one I am concerned about is Pulaski Skyway; it went through massive revisions by one editor who is now indefinitely blocked. Also, California State Route 78 was rewritten by me in 2013 because it was not up to standard, but nobody really looked at it. --Rschen7754 04:10, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Pulaski had a FAR not that long ago, so it wouldn't be in the FA sweeps coming up. SR 78 would need to go through a full FAR, and not the more abbreviated process they're considering to give older articles a once over. I'm just thinking that it wouldn't hurt to put a few project eyes on things like M-35 (Michigan highway) (promoted in May 2008) just to make sure that when stuff is FAR-ed, we're in good shape already. (That said, I've made a checklist of some things to update and polish for consistency on my older FAs, which is something I'll probably do as well on As/GAs that are part of future FTCs before opening the topic nominations.) Imzadi 1979 → 04:53, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
    • Pulaski may not be on their list, but I have zero faith in that article's ability to pass a FAR. --Rschen7754 19:19, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
      • Other than the bit of inherent instability because of the ongoing rehabilitation project. I don't see that as a bar to FA status. After all, various presidential candidates' articles were FAs pre-election day, and they've remained FAs since. (Obama and McCain in 2008, Romney before 2012, etc.) I've tried to follow up on the various additions to make sure that the citations being added are in the same format as the other citations in the article. I also fix prose that could be worded better. It wouldn't hurt if someone decided to copy edit the whole thing, and maybe summarize some of the detail on the rehab project down in terms of its depth. I"m not as pessimistic though.

        That said, next month, it might not hurt to assemble a list someplace with all of USRD's FAs by promotion date, and note any FARs or post-FA ACRs that have been done. Then we could decide how to give them a brush up. Imzadi 1979 → 00:16, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

        • In re Pulaski: Can we not revert to the last revision before said indeffed editor touched it, then run through the diff and restore whatever positive changes were made since then? —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 09:17, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Help request

Hello all! I'm working on an article about a proposed highway here in Alaska, and I was wondering if WP:USRD could provide any guidance as to what you'd like to see on that kind of topic. Are there any featured articles for proposed (or never-built) American highways? How about good articles? I'm looking for an example to follow, and if there's not one, knowing that would be a help, too, since that way I know I don't have to worry about precedent.

You all are the experts here, so I'd love any help you can provide. JKBrooks85 (talk) 05:59, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I have two examples along with some general advice:

• Proposed and under construction: M-231 (Michigan highway). rated Future-Class
• Proposed and then cancelled: County Road 595 (Marquette County, Michigan), rated GA-Class

In short, my basic advice is to write the article like any other highway article, making it as completed as possible based on the sources available. Add |header_type=UC to the infobox (which makes the headers an orange color). Write the RD section in the future tense ("The road will...") and use the appropriate past and future tenses in the History section. Imzadi 1979 → 06:21, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I looked, and it appears you're working on User:JKBrooks85/Lynn Canal Highway, to expand and replace Lynn Canal Highway. Have you seen WP:USRD/NEW, our New editor orientation? It has some good information about the basic anatomy of a highway article.

Anyway, a few more specific comments:

• The lead as you've written it looks to be way too long. Most road articles are short enough that they only need 3 paragraphs maximum for a lead. I usually recommend writing the lead section of an article last after each body section has been written. That way you'll know that every piece of information is in the body, and you can just pull a summary together.
• The Location and Proposed alignment sections can be combined into a single Route description. Use the section to describe the route the highway is supposed to take. A good RD also describes the landscapes through which the roadway passes. To get a feel for that, take a look at any of the FAs for USRD.
• Proposed benefits sounds a lot like the Supporters section to me, since the supporters of the road will be touting its benefits. So those concepts really go together in my mind. The Opposition section, along with the section on the Supporters, should really be kept together for NPOV-based reasons.
  • A combined section on the reactions pro and con to a highway can be integrated into the history, noting it as part of the historical development of the roadway. M-6 (Michigan highway) puts all of the various pro-/con- reactions to that highway into their historical context. U.S. Route 31 in Michigan has a section about an as-yet-unbuilt segment of freeway that handles the various reactions in the Future section. CR 595 that I mentioned above has its various opposition handled in the subsections of the history.
  • Any section dealing with opinions, pro or con, will need good sourcing.
• A "road junction list" may not be possible based on the status of the roadway. If the alignment is pretty well set, you can probably create on in a table form, like the M-231 article has, to comply with MOS:RJL. If the details are too fuzzy yet, try making a list similar to what U.S. Route 10 has that just gives the various roads it will intersect along with general locations (substitute Boroughs for States), and once details firm up, then rebuilt it as a table. Imzadi 1979 → 06:46, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

@Imzadi1979: Thanks for this! I'm glad to have some guides to go by. The tricky thing with this article is that it's not just talking about a single road -- it's covering multiple proposed roads over the course of 108 years that all bear the same name. About the only thing they have in common is their goal and their general geographic area. There's an existing article on the proposed highway, so I forked that over to my sandbox in order to play with it -- you caught me with some extra information in there from the original article, so what you saw in the sandbox isn't representative of the article's final form. Still, I'm glad to get the feedback. My ultimate goal is to get the article up to featured status, so I'm sure you'll be hearing more from me! JKBrooks85 (talk) 06:59, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

The CR 595 article I linked above covers its immediate past predecessor proposal, the Woodland Road. M-6 covers the various alignments proposed (one of which would have been the mainline for I-96). So the "tricky thing" isn't so tricky. Just cover each of the past proposals in the history and put them in the appropriate context. Imzadi 1979 → 07:02, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 December 29#Category:Multi-State Routes --NE2 05:41, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Portal DYK

Just a reminder we need some DYK suggestions for Portal:U.S. Roads, see Portal:U.S. Roads/Did you know/Recommend. Dough4872 02:18, 31 December 2014 (UTC)