Talk:Controlled-access highway

Requested move 21 January 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Consensus not to move. While consensus can change, not much argumentation was put forward in the proposal to sway anybody, so there's no point keeping this open. Closing early per WP:SNOW. No such user (talk) 07:47, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

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Controlled-access highway → Motorway – We do not need this very cumbersome name for the article. When a shorter name is possible why not use that one? 122.61.73.44 (talk) 05:28, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

A very significant portion of the world does not use the term "motorway" at all, hence why it was moved to this term many years ago. This is a perennial request and it should be withdrawn by the nominator. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 07:07, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. The current title was a compromise under the MOS:COMMONALITY guideline, among others, after there was consensus to merge both Freeway and Motorway into one article (see also Talk:Freeway#Merger proposal and Talk:Controlled-access highway/Archive 1#Query - "Controlled-access highway"). There is a very significant portion of the world does not use the term "motorway", and another significant portion of the world that does not use "freeway". Zzyzx11 (talk) 13:14, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. User:Zzyzx11 is absolutely correct. Controlled-access highway is a mouthful, but it works well as a compromise term because its meaning is unambiguous, it is in common use in the traffic field, and it avoids the regional differences between freeway, expressway, and motorway. --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:58, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. The article is titled as Controlled-access highway as a compromise term instead of freeway or motorway or (in some parts of the United States) expressway. Since there are many different names for this type of road depending on country or even part of country, we should not show favoritism for one name and instead use a compromise name. Dough4872 19:24, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose as proposed, I'm in England and the term "motorway" is a term for a freeway/expressway (terms I've never heard used here) but as noted this isn't used in all countries however I agree the title might be problematic since it seems to suggests its about dual carriageways and a few motorways in England are single carriageway such as the Walton Summit motorway and the A6144[1]. However the current title may be the common name even if not technically correct though. Note that we do have articles such as List of motorways in the United Kingdom. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:46, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose - guess I'll be formal. The terms "motorway" and "freeway" are regional and ambiguous. A lot of road variations fall under the term of motorway and/or freeway, but are not referred to as such. The same vice-versa; a lot of roads referred to as "motorways" or "freeways" do not meet the localised definitions of those terms. A controlled-access highway, on the other hand, is any road where there is no obligation to provide access to adjoining properties (hence "control of access"), so it encompasses every one of those variations. Every interstate, motorway, freeway, expressway, and divided highway is also a controlled-access highway. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 20:40, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose – This is an Association football-like situation. Everyone around the world calls it a different thing, so we should use a neutral term. Needforspeed888 (talk) 21:26, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

There is a lot of irrelevant material in this article that is about highways in general, not controlled-access highways

There is a lot of irrelevant unsourced material in the article that needs to be either deleted or moved to Highway systems by country. The material is irrelevant because it relates to highways in general, not the actual subject of the article, controlled-access highways.

I don't have the time right now to fix this but I'm identifying the issue so people can't complain later when I start to take out the garbage.

I think the underlying problem is that there are a lot of foreign editors with a very shaky command of English who don't actually understand what is a "highway" as that term is used in English (with all its subtext and other miscellaneous baggage) and then they are unable to properly understand more complex concepts like motorways, freeways, expressways, etc. that require a sound understanding of what is a highway. So they're making bizarre edits willy-nilly and creating chaos in the highway-related articles.

That drew my attention to a bigger problem. Why isn't it obvious that we have an article on Highway systems by country? Then I saw the problem: the navbox at the bottom of the article is hidden by default. That needs to be changed. --Coolcaesar (talk) 05:47, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

More brainstorming on how to fix this mess

I was thinking more about this. Then I realized why so many people don't seem to understand the fundamental concept of access control, which is the very core of the definition of the controlled-access highway. In many developing countries, many people are too poor to have much experience with driving a motor vehicle, let alone experience with driving on different types of highways such as true controlled-access highways. Also, most people don't have enough experience with accident investigation. It's only by studying car crashes that one comes to understand why access control is important for reducing traffic conflicts.

Here is my brainstorming on how I plan to fix this mess when I get around to it.

First, I propose to expand the disambiguation at the top of the article to point to the broader topic of Highway systems by country.

Second, here are the segments of the article that have irrelevant content on the broader concept of highways that ought to be in Highway systems by country and therefore either needs to be deleted (as redundant because there's already similar content in that article) or transferred (because it belongs there and isn't there yet):

• Africa
  • Ethiopia. Transfer entire section, but keep mention of Addis-Ababa Expressway as first in the country.
  • Kenya. Transfer entire section and replace with mention of Nairobi Expressway.
  • Mozambique. Transfer entire section.
  • Nigeria. Transfer entire section and add onto existing Nigeria section.
• Americas
  • Mexico. Transfer entire section and add onto existing Mexico section (which is just a link) and replace with brief explanation of Mexican autopistas.
• Asia
  • Afghanistan. Transfer entire section.
  • Armenia. Transfer entire section.
  • Azerbaijan. Transfer entire section.
  • Bangladesh. Transfer entire section.
  • Georgia. Transfer entire section.
  • Lebanon. Transfer but keep last sentence about Beirut-Tripoli highway.
  • Saudi Arabia. Delete. Mostly duplicates existing content.
  • Uzbekistan. Transfer entire section.
• Europe
  • Albania. Delete and replace with explanation of how the two highest levels of the roadway numbering system correspond to motorways and expressways.
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina. Delete. Mostly duplicates existing content. Replace with one-line mention of A1 motorway.

Any objections? --Coolcaesar (talk) 18:23, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

These type of broad coverage road articles always tend to attract a fair amount of "examples". To me it's equivalent to a "Trivia" or "In popular culture" section. I think the pictures (which could probably also use some trimming) are good enough for exemplifying the topic. And hey, if you're up for it at some point, Interchange (road) and the 4 or 5 content forks of it are in a similar boat... I wanted to reduce the duplication across articles by condensing 10 into 1, but all it takes is one editor or IP to come along at any point in time and hit undo on those redirects, and the garbage dump is back open for business. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 18:37, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're getting at with respect to the articles on the concepts of the interchange, intersection, junction, etc. Those articles look fine to me. Those related concepts and all the different kinds of interchanges, intersections, and junctions are far too complex to be handled in one article. --Coolcaesar (talk) 23:06, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Not sure how they look fine... Roundabout interchange is completely unsourced and 2/3 of the article is original research examples. Stack interchange only has 4 reliable sources, and only about a dozen sentences explaining the topic followed by an endless list of examples (mostly original research). Partial cloverleaf interchange is entirely original research and has WAY to much undue weight on Canadian examples. Cloverleaf interchange is the only one that has something worth salvaging, but it too is woefully filled with original research and roadgeek terminology that belongs on a Cities: Skylines forum. All of them suffer from either too many examples, unsourced/OR examples, and/or undue weight on examples from a small portion of the world. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 15:57, 16 February 2023 (UTC)