Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Archive 22

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Archive 20

Ten years of USRD (and our 2015 goals)

Well, it's hard to believe, but 2015 will mark 10 years of the USRD project. To this end, there are three conversations that I want to start at this time.

Long-term vision

Our last major vision planning was in 2012, when we gained some new editors, deployed KMLs and Lua, expanded to other WMF wikis, and consolidated into one nationwide project.

One thing that comes to mind is that we need new editors. We need people to do both the stub->start and KML improvements, to do the heavy lifting of writing FAs, to do reviewing at all venues (GAN, ACR, FAC, and now FLC), and to maintain our template infrastructure and our project space pages locally and on other wikis. A lot of our more "experienced" editors are going to be hitting the 10 year mark this next year, and we need to raise up the next generation of road editors.

Speaking for myself, I haven't been around as much as I wanted to be this year, both due to real-life matters, and due to other Wikimedia responsibilities. While I am reevaluating what other Wikimedia responsibilities I will continue with next year, I know that I won't be around as much as I used to be as I continue into my mid-twenties (as is the story of many editors who started when they were teenagers, finished college, and are now coming into this next stage of their lives). Some others of us are starting to come into similar situations as well.

So, all this to say... as we come up on 10 years, where do we want to be as a project 3-5 years from now? --Rs chen 7754 04:45, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I say we need to continue to improve the quality of our articles with more GAs and FAs and less stubs. In addition, we should make sure to create any missing road articles and continue to fill gaps in coverage. Also, we should continue to give the lists and overview articles attention to bring them up to high-quality (which is evidenced by our FL goal this year). Dough 48 72 02:29, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I've played guinea pig on this, but Michigan State Trunkline Highway System and List of Interstate Highways in Michigan give good templates for taking articles on systems and lists on subsystems through the process. Hopefully soon, Michigan Heritage Route will give a template of a combined article/list as well as a template for dealing with scenic byways. At least in that respect, I would encourage other editors to start tackling the equivalent articles for their states.

Another thing we should do is start mentoring existing editors as well as recruiting potential new editors. I'm thinking we should commit to creating workshops. These could be something in depth based on Scott5114's "how to write a road article FA" page. We should break the stages of writing a quality road article into separate workshops, and then go in depth with each topic. They could run each quarter in the newsletter. Maybe issue 1's workshop is "how to start an article by writing the RD and creating the RJL." The next topic could then be "how to write the history section" along with "best practices in referencing". The last topic could be related to navigating the various assessment processes and polishing an article. We could do a separate workshops related to finding sources. In short, we have years of collective knowledge that we should put together in easily digestible form for new editors to consult. Imzadi 1979 → 03:39, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I like the idea of setting aside a feature in the newsletter as a tool to encourage new editors or mentor current editors to improve project articles. Dough 48 72 04:12, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

A lot of our articles on more important roads are lacking. Obviously US 66, but even I-95, I-5, etc. The problem is, there's no easy fix for this. Writing that sort of article is hard; Interstate 8 took me a year off-and-on, and I'm still not done with it. --Rs chen 7754 05:48, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Yeah I agree we should give our national-detail articles on Interstates and U.S. Routes more attention. The key to doing this though would be a bottom-up approach in creating and/or improving the state-detail articles first and then do the national article. I know we are trying this approach with the US 66 goal, but we should look into working on the other roads as well such as I-95, I-80, and US 1. Giving more variety in national-detail articles to work on may better encourage long-time and new editors alike in improving the state-detail pages and then getting to the national article. Dough 48 72 01:32, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Rather than pay lip service like Dough, on national articles we should tag every state in the banner even if there is a state-detail article. That way, our precious WikiWork scores can be preserved by actually giving a shit about the national articles. By and large, if there is a S-D article, those states are represented poorly in the national article. I'm guilty of it and I don't think anyone else who's been around here for a while can honestly say they're not. –Fredddie ™ 01:42, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

The key to improving a national detail article is to split up the work by state, as most editors are comfortable editing in a certain part of the country. This way, we will not burden a single editor to have to know the resources and history for 10 or 15 different states for the longer Interstates and U.S. Routes. We should try to recruit editors from across the country so every region is represented by an editor who is willing to work on road articles in a certain state or states. Dough 48 72 02:54, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't disagree; however, that's not happening. Tagging the national articles for every state would create the sense of urgency that's needed. –Fredddie ™ 03:09, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

This might be a good concept, but I'm not sure it'd work in practice. This is for two reasons.

We obviously don't have editors for all of the lower 48 states. It might be lazy of us to not want to work outside our home states/regions, but the plain truth is that not many of our primary editors do. So, while we could each work on the part of the national articles that concern our states, it wouldn't do much because most of the national articles would probably end up with unfinished sections (mostly History, I'd expect). If there are states for which we don't have editors, and our editors aren't willing to step outside our comfort zones and work on the parts of the articles from outside our home states, then we won't get anything accomplished.
I feel like we would respond to the sense of urgency in a different way than originally intended. By that I mean that instead of working on the national articles, we'd probably just put more work into articles in our own states. This would just artificially raise the WikiWork of states which don't have active editors because nobody would work on these articles in response to the WikiWork being raised after the taggings.

That's my 2¢. I don't think it's a bad idea, but I don't think many of us would be up to working outside our comfort zones a lot; I know I wouldn't. T C N7JM 04:10, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, I did also mean the national articles, but even most of our state-detail articles for IH and USH routes are generally pretty horrible. --Rs chen 7754 05:43, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Shifting the national articles into the WikiWork of the state task forces, where they currently are not counted because of state-detail articles, won't change much of anything. WW figures will change, and nothing else will happen. I lack the ability to do all but the basic, online-only research into highways in most other states, and I'm not alone in that situation. (Many editors lack access to some of the databases I can use, so they're in even more limited situations.) The national articles on the Interstates and US Highways that pass through Michigan would deal with 27 other states' segments because each interstate highway is administered separately from state to state. I don't have the time nor money to invest that that type of research on my own, which is why we have the rest of the WikiProject to assist. Most of our research material will be specific to a single state, no matter what we do. That's why we need to cultivate and recruit interested editors for a wider range of states. The purported "sense of urgency" will not develop if the WW numbers are adjusted. Imzadi 1979 → 07:36, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Refocusing

Coming back to this discussion after a few days... I feel like there's this tension between what we "should" be working on and what we actually are interested in working on. The reason I feel that the US 66 goal is failing is because while it's our most popular article, nobody really is interested in tackling the monolith; we'd rather do articles in our own states because that's what we know.

So the question is, how do we overcome this? Is there a way to reconcile the two and find a happy medium? --Rs chen 7754 04:31, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I say that we need to do nationwide recruiting and make sure all 50 states have at least one interested editor. Therefore, the editors can improve the state highway and state-detail Interstate and U.S. Route articles in their respective state(s) and help contribute to improving the national-level article with the detail from the state(s) they are interested in. I feel that will probably be our best approach to improving the national-level articles as no single editor can handle the resources from multiple states across the country for some of the longer routes. Dough 48 72 05:54, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Let's say we do some active recruiting and get 35 new editors at once, which is not an unreasonable number in order to have one editor for every state. Most of those new editors are going to need some sort of training, probably six months worth. That's a significant investment of time and energy from the rest of us just to get these new editors up to snuff. This also assumes everybody will get along, which is not even the case now with USRD editors. Anyway, this is a lengthy reply to a non-answer of Rschen's question.

@Rschen7754: I think you said the right word to describe US 66 - monolith. Right now we have nine monolithic articles and Kansas, which is so short compared to the rest. I think it would be easier if we broke down the US 66 articles by tasks. First we all do the KMLs since they're easy. Then someone could create maps. Then we do the junction lists. Then route descriptions. Then histories. Then summarize everything into the main US 66 article. If enough of us work on everything, we could probably bypass ACR and go straight to FAC since those of us who review there had been working on it. –Fredddie ™ 12:43, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

But are the KMLs even easy? The one for U.S. Route 80 in California was annoying. --Rs chen 7754 14:10, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I was talking relative ease; we certainly have no shortage of editors who can make KMLs. But you do make a valid point, having a large pool of KML creators does not necessarily mean we have a large pool of people who can correctly interpret old maps and photographs in order to make accurate KMLs. –Fredddie ™ 16:03, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

You said most of those editors would need some sort of training, I would like to be trained, most of the time I want to help, but don't really know how. TheWombatGuru (talk) 19:40, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

The easiest way to be trained is to just write something, describe going from Point A to Point B. It doesn't have to be an entire route description or history section, a paragraph is fine. Just be descriptive and succinct at the same time. Once you feel you have something, ask someone on this page to look it over. A good number of us who watch this page have GAN and/or FAC experience, so we kinda know what reviewers are looking for. –Fredddie ™ 19:57, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

WP:HWY/IRC is a good way to get instantaneous feedback as well. --Rs chen 7754 03:36, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

2014 goals

Another question that should be asked is how to handle the remainder of our 2014 goals. So far, we have not made much progress on either US 66 or the featured lists, and are a significant ways off from finishing the B-class goal, with only 2 months remaining. What should we do about this? --Rs chen 7754 04:45, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Due to the stalled progress this year with many editors being inactive or barely active, maybe extend these goals into 2015. We could make a last-minute push to get the B-class goal done (like we did with some of our stub reduction goals in the past), but the US 66 and FL goals are unrealistically attainable at this point as no editors seem to be willing to improve the US 66 articles and improving lists and getting them through FLC takes some time that 2 months will not be enough for. Dough 48 72 02:29, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I do wonder if we should just cut our losses and replace the 2014 goals with the 2015 goals once they are ready to go, so we don't lose that much productivity. Many of them will be the same anyway... --Rs chen 7754 06:02, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I tried to improve some US 66 articles. I rewrote the lead of U.S. Route 66 in California, and I've also started converting the Route description into prose. Could someone give their opinion on my writing style? I've not really done any writing in this project, so feedback would be welcome. TheWombatGuru (talk) 21:15, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I converted it entirely to prose, do you think it could become C-class? It has the big three, and the route description has the good format now. TheWombatGuru (talk) 22:14, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it is C-class now. It probably needs a lot more stuff for B-class though. The best place to start is finding sources and adding the relevant information, and citing it. Of course, the sources have to be reliable (WP:RS). Usually most of our stuff comes from newspaper articles and maps, but in the case of US 66 there are several books written about it, so you may want to check a library. --Rs chen 7754 03:57, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

I popped onto US Route 66 to add a few citations, and can probably manage a few more. You might want to consider asking the Today's article for improvement project for help if it's a simple question of grabbing lots of sources and doing donkey work. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 16:58, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

A couple hundred US66 landmarks are on the US National Register of Historic Places, maintained by the National Parks Service. There is usually documentation of the "historic context" which served as the basis to get these places on the historic register which is WP:RS. K7L (talk) 04:19, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

2015 goals

With both of the above subsections in mind, what should be our goals for 2015? --Rs chen 7754 04:45, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Have some ambition? –Fredddie ™ 01:44, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I say maybe finish our goals for 2014 (which we barely made any progress on) in addition to recruiting new editors. Dough 48 72 02:29, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

We should roll the US 66 goal over, but refocus it slightly. If we can recruit new editors, and mentor them, we could and should shine some attention on the US 66 suite of articles. If we gain some traction on the highway articles, we might attract some attention on the non-road related articles. Maybe we could organize a "Wiki Loves the Mother Road" cross-wikiproject event to improve photography and content of the various articles. That might require some prizes, so maybe someone could liaison with AASHTO or various DOTs or tourism departments to get some swag. Imzadi 1979 → 03:39, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I would like to help out with the road section of Wikipedia. I am collecting images for New Mexico roads. I have a goal of making start pages for all New Mexico State routes. Unfortunately, I haven't done any hardcore editing. Does anyone have a guide on how to do basic editing...specifically for roads? I also could help with route 66 as I live an hour south of it (I-40) in New Mexico... I just need some help getting started and knowing best practices for editing and what is needed for quality articles. I have programming experience...if there is a list of markup commands somewhere...that would be most helpful. Swithich (talk) 21:48, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Welcome! Be sure to check out the USRD new editor guide. After that, just pick an article and mimic the style. We have a core group of editors who are fairly vigilant, so we'll let you know if something is amiss. –Fredddie ™ 22:51, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I feel that we should at least adjust the 2014 goals / add something new rather than rolling everything over completely untouched; it would be a hard sell. --Rs chen 7754 05:49, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

I feel like I have to agree on the ambition problem. Some of us haven't been intentionally inactive (computer fail) but there seems to be a lot less interest in the last 4 months or so. Mitch32^{(The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.)} 18:06, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I think it's been a combination of burnout and a "perfect storm" of real-life commitments that have kept many of our primary editors away. --Rs chen 7754 18:23, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I remember before summer happened I was very determined on creating KMLs for all the articles in Nebraska. Turns out it doesn't take very long to get burned out, even of simpler tasks like that. T C N7JM 14:23, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

What about something like this? Some sort of usual content-related goals, but there are constraints as to the editors. For example, say the goal was getting 100 GAs, we would say that 10% had to be from a "new editor". --Rs chen 7754 21:38, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I like the idea, but my question is, how are we going to define a "new editor"? Dough 48 72 01:32, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

My problem with this is exactly how much do we push it? How many "new editors" do we even have? If we push 10% of 100 GAs from new un-established editors, we'll be complaining in a year's time about their burnout. Mitch32^{(The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.)} 01:44, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree that "new editor" is really murky. Would an established MILHIST editor who wanted to edit Alaska Highway count as a new editor? –Fredddie ™ 01:49, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about this one. Along with the vagueness problems mentioned above, we don't seem to recruit very many new editors (hell, I can think of just two or three in the 2+ years since I joined), and even if we do, there's no guarantee their focus is on content work. My focus was (and still is) almost solely on KMLs and the occasional GA/ACR review...when I'm active, that is. T C N7JM 14:23, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I think that we should keep the US 66 goal, but reform it or subdivide it so that it's more appealing to work on. Like, maybe we work on the KMLs, RJLs, and RDs and bring everything up to C-class one year and finish the job the next, or divide it by states, or something like that. Right now, we have an impossible task that nobody wants to do because 1) one person can't do it all and 2) if one person works on California, let's say, there's no guarantee that the other states will be done by anybody and on December 31, the goal still fails. --Rs chen 7754 03:44, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I think a US 66 goal broken down into manageable pieces is a good idea for next year. However, I still think we should also have a general article improvement goal such as reducing stubs or getting a certain number of articles to B-class (like we did this year). In addition, we should also give attention to the lists as well as fixing up other national-detail Interstate and U.S. Route articles. Dough 48 72 03:51, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what to do about the featured lists. ACR is completely stuck, and even in our good times we can barely get 12 articles through there. FLC also tends to be super slow as well. If that goal continues into 2015, it needs to be adjusted. --Rs chen 7754 04:06, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Instead of aiming for featured lists a simpler goal may be to make sure all lists are using the routelist row templates. Dough 48 72 04:51, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

That's technically an objective, and I think it needs to be on that list. Speaking of our objectives, where are we on those? -happy 5214 11:25, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

How about this as a goal: Getting at least one article to FA-class in every state, File:Map_of_USRD_by_best_article.svg shows us that there are still states without an FA-class article. Or maybe a featured topic goal? TheWombatGuru (talk) 21:44, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

The day we get a South Carolina FA...—CycloneIsaac (Talk) 22:50, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

It would be easier to get a Missouri or Nebraska FA. That way, there would be one huge blob of FA blue instead of two. –Fredddie ™ 00:27, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

There's also the idea that comes up with WP:USRD/CONN and File:USRD FA map.png: get the various FAs to intereconnect on the map. (Of note is that Michigan and Ontario connect via Interstate 69 in Michigan and Ontario Highway 402 now, and we should also note that the map is missing the most recent FAs.) Imzadi 1979 → 01:47, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

I like the idea of trying to interconnect FAs by either states or highways. Perhaps a simpler idea for the former may be to make sure every state has at least one GA. Dough 48 72 02:36, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

As far as the FL goal, I don't think 12 FLs is very attainable, because let's face it: neither ACR nor FLC can handle that strain. I would rather do something like converting everything to templates, or a certain percentage. As far as the concerns regarding it being an objective, we did something similar for 2012 as a goal and it worked really well. --Rs chen 7754 06:04, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I think a template conversion drive goal is more realistic and attainable than a FL drive. Dough 48 72 03:04, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

We have about 940 GAs; what if we made a goal to get 1000 GAs by the end of 2015? Or is that too low, considering that we've done over 100 in a year before? --Rs chen 7754 03:06, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

60 GA's isn't that hard to attain, depending on how many editors send articles to GAN and how fast they get reviewed there. We could make it more challenging by reducing the time to get the goal to, say, 6 months. Dough 48 72 03:08, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Maybe 100 GAs and 10 ACRs? I'm trying to use the number 10 in it somehow. --Rs chen 7754 03:34, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

We could try that. I'm just worried about the pace of ACR as we do not have enough reviewers and those that we have would be stretched if we clog the venue with articles. Dough 48 72 03:41, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Just an idea: How about getting the class of all articles, or a specified number, in the list of popular pages to at least C, these are the pages people are most interested in, so it would be nice to make them into nice articles. TheWombatGuru (talk) 14:17, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

That's possible as well, though there are the other issues with hard articles as stated above. --Rs chen 7754 19:59, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I like this idea. However, one complication is that the content of WP:USRD/PP is updated every so often (once a month?), so some articles on the list when we start the year will not be on the list in February--there'd have to be some way of dealing with the changes, or narrowing down the list... -- LJ ↗ 09:02, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe we could fix it at the (insert number) most popular articles throughout 2014. If it makes any difference, I was experimenting with some advanced WikiWork metrics a while back. They can be found here. I'm always looking for ways to improve the metrics to better show where we should concentrate our limited editor efforts. -happy 5214 11:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps c:COM:USRD and d:WD:USRD should have their own set of goals, as not everyone at USRD works at those two projects... --Rs chen 7754 19:59, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with giving COM:USRD some goals, specifically in regard to maps and shields. One goal is to make sure all shields are properly licensed. Dough 48 72 01:14, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

For Wikidata it might be hard; software developments may change our priorities. Maybe a goal for every 3 months or something like that... --Rs chen 7754 04:46, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

What about a stub drive? Now, I know it's not as exciting as it used to be, but it *does* get new editors involved. And I know that the stubs remaining aren't as easy as the ones already done... but, it's been over 2 years since the last stub drive, and we've gained a few hundred stubs, at least. --Rs chen 7754 04:46, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Since there are less (and harder) stubs left in fewer parts of the country, maybe a WikiWork drive would work better. That way articles can be improved across all assessment classes in all states. Dough 48 72 05:21, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I also like this. Would we be looking for an overall project WikiWork reduction, or maybe some combination of project & modest reduction in state/task force WW numbers? -- LJ ↗ 09:02, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

We could go either way. We could try to get the overall USRD WikiWork below a certain level or try to get a certain number of states' WikiWork below a certain level. Dough 48 72 01:21, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Anyway, we should probably start deciding what the goals will be this week... in a few days I'll try and figure out what the top 4-5 are and then we can narrow it down. --Rs chen 7754 02:21, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I think it would help if there were some 3rd level headers inserted. This whole thing is a bit tl;dr now. –Fredddie ™ 03:16, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

2015 goals: narrowing it down

Okay, here were the ideas that received some level of support. Thoughts? In a few days I'll come back and propose a set of goals and we can do some final discussion, so that we have goals before the newsletter comes out... --Rs chen 7754 06:32, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

US 66, but splitting it into more motivating subgoals and only doing some in 2015

I agree US 66 should get some attention in improvement, but I think we should combine it with the popular pages goal listed below. Dough 48 72 01:26, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I think I support combining it with all popular pages more than I support it on its own. T C N7JM 19:52, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Concur with combining into popular pages goal. -- LJ ↗ 01:40, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Concur with popular pages - per Ljthefro TheWombatGuru (talk) 22:02, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Support breaking US 66 goal down into manageable parts and not popular pages in general. –Fredddie ™ 22:28, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Conversion to routelist templates

Not much support for this, and with the holidays approaching, we need to narrow it down... --Rs chen 7754 04:32, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I fully agree we should try to get all our lists converted to the routelist templates next year, even taking a few to FLC (though we need not make a goal to get a certain amount of FLs). Dough 48 72 01:26, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I feel like this could be more of an objective than a hard goal. I am neutral on this one. T C N7JM 19:57, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

This definitely needs to be done (as does about 280 junction list conversions). However, I don't really see it as a project goal. -- LJ ↗ 01:40, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Neutral - It needs to be done but not as an official goal. TheWombatGuru (talk) 22:02, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps a better approach for this goal would be to have complete lists and implement the Michigan Plan, but I fear there's not a great way to quantify this. --Rs chen 7754 06:51, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I like this approach in that we need to better organize and complete our list and overview articles. We have WP:USRD/S&L which serves as a checklist of what has articles, what doesn't have articles, and what needs to be converted to templates. Getting the overview articles to GA or FA and the lists to FL should not be required as part of the goal however. Dough 48 72 01:26, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Somehow I don't think the routelist templates will work for Kentucky. --NE2 04:59, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Connecting our FAs and/or GAs

Closing this one since it has no support. --Rs chen 7754 05:09, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

This sounds like a cool idea, but I don't know if it should necessarily take priority as a main goal. It can always remain as an interesting statistic we keep track of and can be a "unofficial" goal. Dough 48 72 01:26, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Procedurally oppose per Dough; while it would be fun, it is significantly less important than the others. --Rs chen 7754 02:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
I oppose this as a goal, but have nothing against users trying to bring certain articles to GA/FA for the purpose of doing this. Still helps! T C N7JM 19:43, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

100 GAs and 10 ACRs

Only a neutral and mostly opposes, closing this one as well. --Rs chen 7754 06:48, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I like this goal and I think we can realistically attain it as long as we have enough people that can review at ACR. Dough 48 72 01:26, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I think we should either do this one or the WikiWork one, but not both. --Rs chen 7754 02:49, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

If I had to pick between the two I say we keep the WikiWork goal since that does not involve formal review processes and that might be simpler for newer editors to do as it simply involves improving the assessment quality of articles, not necessarily requiring a formal review. Dough 48 72 03:25, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I like this, but with slowdowns that tend to occur with review processes, I'm not sure if this is the right goal at this time. -- LJ ↗ 01:40, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

After thinking about this, and considering the ACR discussions we've been having, I prefer the WikiWork goal. --Rs chen 7754 17:28, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Neutral - This is a nice goal, but new editors can't really help with it, and that's what we need imo. TheWombatGuru (talk) 22:02, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Oppose. This assumes full participation at both venues. –Fredddie ™ 22:28, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Focusing on popular pages

I agree we should give our articles on our more important highways (such as I-80, I-95, US 1, and US 66) along with list and highway system articles more attention. The US 66 goal discussed above should be rolled into the popular pages goal, with the concepts proposed for the US 66 goal expanded to include other important highways as to provide a more national drive for improving important roads. Dough 48 72 01:26, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Support I think we should take a snapshot of the November page (since that has the least fluctuation due to the summer travel season) and say that we will make a quantifiable improvement to articles on the list. --Rs chen 7754 02:48, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Regarding this goal, I don't think using WP:USRD/PP is the best idea since some of the articles like M-102 (Michigan highway) are only popular because of pop culture not necessarily having to do with the road itself. I would rather the "popular pages" goal focus on the cross-country Interstates and U.S. Routes and highway system articles and lists as those are truly the most important articles to our project and quite frankly should get the attention. Dough 48 72 03:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, then why not call it what it is? And what about routes that don't fit into those categories, like California State Route 1? --Rs chen 7754 03:47, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I say we shift the focus from "popular pages" to "important articles", since I feel the latter represents our flagship articles rather than ones that are significant because of pop culture. Dough 48 72 04:07, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, what is "important"? --Rs chen 7754 04:09, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I would say the articles in Category:Top-importance U.S. road transport articles are definitely important along with major Interstate highways (ending in 0 or 5) and major U.S. Routes (ending in 0 or 1 along with select others like US 6 and US 66). In addition, auto trails like Lincoln Highway would be considered fairly important to our project as well. Dough 48 72 04:13, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I think our popular pages should be our most important, no matter what causes their popularity. Regardless of how they got popular, they still get the most page views, and they should probably be worked on first. Besides, the definition of important could vary from person to person. T C N7JM 19:48, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I'd support this, but I'm not exactly sure what the goal is here. T C N7JM 19:48, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
I'd tentatively support, with a more defined framework. -- LJ ↗ 01:40, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Concur with US 66 - These are the pages that are read by most people, so it's important to improve these because people will probably want to keep on reading if they start at a good written article. TheWombatGuru (talk) 22:02, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
The problem with this is often the popular pages do not follow the pattern that users are comfortable with following. This is why no work on US 66 has been done; much of US 66's coverage in media focuses on buildings and landmarks along the route, a topic which is outside the comfort zone of most USRD members. Other articles fall in a geographic area which is not the wheelhouse of any editor. I am all in favor of focusing on popular pages, but we need to solve these root problems before we have a realistic chance of making any progress on this point. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 22:09, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
- Extra thought: Perhaps we could mitigate the geographic problem by having a goal of bringing the 5 most popular pages for each task force as of November 2014 to at least B-class status. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 22:12, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
  - Well, it wouldn't necessarily be "all" of the popular pages, it could be half or so... --Rs chen 7754 06:53, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Oppose for 2015 per Scott5114's first bullet point. –Fredddie ™ 22:28, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
Comment - This goal will not work using WP:USRD/PP because those articles are generally starkly different to write because of pop culture influence and the focus on attractions as a major part of the route. I think refactoring the goal in improving major Interstate and U.S. Route articles will work better as those are easier to write and follow our basic "3-section" formula. The only problem with this idea is we need to have editors willing to work in states they are not necessarily familiar with or otherwise recruit editors who are comfortable with those states, as most of these routes span multiple states. Dough 48 72 01:23, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
- Another possible issue is that most of the ones on the list are in states on the coasts (in the most populated areas of the country) while the Midwest is largely ignored. --Rs chen 7754 06:02, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
  - While I personally think we should not pursue this goal this year, working on the national Interstate and U.S. Highway articles would work twofold, since a good chunk of them are on the PP list already. The other reason is that they mostly suck , so any attention is good. We have an embarrassing number of county road lists on the PP list, but that's neither here nor there. –Fredddie ™ 13:11, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
Comment—I'm on the fence here. In general, our project does need to eventually get the US 66 article cleaned up. We can't dispute that. I like the idea of trying to get the top 5 for each state improved.
I like the idea of trying to clean up all of the various national-detail articles the best though. As has been said, many of them are on the PP list, and they all kinda suck. It shouldn't be hard to get the RDs and RJLs hammered into shape. The RJL for a national IH/USH article that has subarticles is just a variation on a bulleted list, so they're even easier to do than a full RJL table. History sections might be more difficult since that would really require the ability to summarize the most major details out of the state-detail articles, or the option to research the major changes for the whole route. That said, as long as we could pinpoint when the highway was created, any major extensions or truncations, that should be enough for a national History. Imzadi 1979 → 00:54, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
- What if we de-started (brought to C-class or better) all of the IH and USH articles on all primary routes? (usually 2-digit routes, plus the oddballs like 101) --Rs chen 7754 04:02, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
  - That could work as that would assure all our important I and US route articles have a complete structure with a RD, History, and junction list table or bulleted list of junctions. Dough 48 72 04:23, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
- Or how about this: IH and USH have separately calculated WikiWorks - so we just aim to get those to a specific number. For IH, maybe 3.75-3.8 (currently at 4.0), and for USH, 3.9-4.0 (currently at 4.168). The state-detail articles are pretty important too, and are generally not very good quality right now. --Rs chen 7754 06:25, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
  - We need to create a page or spreadsheet which shows the status of each state detail article, organized by route. (So all of the assessments of the s/ds of US 1, then the s/ds of US 2...) Find the routes with the greatest number of highly assessed s/d pages, and anyone can summarize those into a national article, even someone who doesn't live nearby. Boom. You have your IH/USH improvement. —Scott5114 ↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 09:13, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
  - We do have User:TCN7JM/2-DISDAL which shows the assessments of the national and state-detail primary Interstate articles along with the completeness of the big three sections. The list may be outdated and incomplete but does serve as a good model of how we should keep track of the quality of our primary Interstate and U.S. Route articles. We should move that list into project space and complete and update it in addition to doing a similar list for the primary U.S. Routes. Dough 48 72 23:17, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
    - Bump; any other thoughts? (User:TCN7JM, could we move this page?) --Rs chen 7754 06:13, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
      - Yes, but please keep the redirect. T C N7JM 13:27, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Reaching a certain WikiWork

Clear support for 1000 or 1010 (1010 was what we wrote in the newsletter). --Rs chen 7754 17:02, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion 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.

This sounds like a good metric-based goal that can work to provide for overall improvement of articles across all assessment classes in all states. Dough 48 72 01:26, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Between this one and the 100 GAs and 10 ACRs one, I like this one better, as it rewards other improvement within the project that doesn't necessarily amount to a GA or an A-Class article. What WikiWork were we thinking, though? Is 4.350 realistic? T C N7JM 20:03, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I think 4.35 might be able to work as a projectwide goal. Another idea, which could go in conjunction with the projectwide goal, may be to try to get a certain number of states below a certain WikiWork. For example, we could try to get 5 states below 4.0 or some other arbitrary number. Dough 48 72 01:24, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Support This seems like a solid goal. Without running any numbers, 4.35 almost seems too easy--but I'm probably wrong on that. With this kind of goal, I'd probably at least make a personal goal for reduction on Nevada articles for myself to keep motivated. -- LJ ↗ 01:40, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

So far this year, we've dropped from 4.400 on January 1 to 4.384. Then again, our activity has been way down this year, so that drop of 0.016 is probably lower than normal. T C N7JM 01:47, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I would say 4.3 to 4.35, and I support this one. --Rs chen 7754 05:10, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Support - It's definitely important to improve the wikiwork, and new editors can easily help with this goal. TheWombatGuru (talk) 22:02, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Support How about 4.333? –Fredddie ™ 22:28, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
4.333 is too easy; however, 4.250 might be too challenging. –Fredddie ™ 22:42, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
4.300? Mitch32^{(The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.)} 23:20, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
4.314? --Rs chen 7754 02:50, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
We could even turn this on its head. Rather than go for a certain WW, we could aim to reduce our WW by 1000/1500/2000 classes. –Fredddie ™ 03:31, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
1000 classes would contain the number 10, and would bring us to ~4.296 - that gets my vote. --Rs chen 7754 08:00, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
Yeah let's go for 1000 classes. Dough 48 72 01:28, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
Support 1,010 classes—that allows us to get classes through FAC, ACR, GAN or stub expansion, so editors from all over the project can contribute in their various ways. The number also plays off our 10th anniversary nicely. Imzadi 1979 → 00:32, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
- Equal preference with 1000 classes, for me. --Rs chen 7754 06:26, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

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.

"Missing" state-detail pages

These currently extant routes redirect to the main article, but other states on the same route do not.

Collapsing the list so it's not quite so huge

U.S. Route 29 in Florida

Interstate 76 in New Jersey

U.S. Route 220 in New York (hah)

Interstate 84 in Pennsylvania

U.S. Route 44 in Rhode Island

U.S. Route 219 in Virginia

--NE2 16:05, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

US 191 goes through Idaho? Aha, past tense. –Fredddie ™ 20:40, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Oops. --NE2 21:20, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Indiana resource

I just read about https://newspapers.library.in.gov/, which is a newspaper archive covering the years 1840 to 1922. If anybody wants to sift through it, I'm sure there are articles on the formation, implementation, etc. of the original state highway system, the details of which could be incorporated into a History section on List of State Roads in Indiana. [Was going to post at that article's talk page but figured it'd be more visible here] Mapsax (talk) 18:10, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Rest areas in exit lists

I noticed that two welcome center were added to the Interstate 95 in Pennsylvania exit list. I thought it was against policy to include rest areas and welcome centers in exit lists unless they were service plazas located along toll roads. I know Pennsylvania Turnpike has its service plazas included in the exit list. I was wondering whether or not we should include rest areas and welcome centers in the exit lists of non-tolled freeways. Dough 48 72 02:19, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I have same issue in Interstate 95 in South Carolina; I've tried removing it, but it comes back... and I gave up. --WashuOtaku (talk) 03:22, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

If you can cite a policy, please do. Personally, I'd put it in the route description. But maybe we should ping the user who added it to I-95 PA (DanTD) and ask him. –Fredddie ™ 04:13, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

WP:RJL states that service areas (which seems to imply the rest areas on toll roads that have food and gas) should be included in exit lists, with the inclusion limited to notable uses if there are a lot. However, RJL seems to be vague about rest areas and welcome centers. Dough 48 72 04:23, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

RJL is not a policy (your word, not mine). –Fredddie ™ 04:28, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Whatever the term is, we should come up with a way in whether or not rest areas should be included in exit lists, regardless of service.s offered. Dough 48 72 04:35, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't entirely sure what the policy was on this, but I saw it in Interstate 75 in Florida, and I thought I'd swipe it for Interstate 95 in Pennsylvania since they were the only two rest areas along I-95 within the state. I've also seen them on Delaware Turnpike and Interstate 95 in Maryland. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 04:40, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

The Interstate 95 in Delaware article includes the Delaware Welcome Center in the exit list because it is a service plaza on a toll road. The Interstate 95 in Maryland article does not include the two service plazas on the JFK Highway or the rest areas in Howard County in the exit list but does have a subsection describing them. RJL calls for toll roads to have subsections for service areas but does not call for subsections for rest areas in non-toll road articles. We should probably come up with an addition to RJL on whether or not we should have subsections and/or exit list inclusion for rest areas and welcome centers on non-toll roads. Dough 48 72 04:55, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

If I can "vote" here, I'm all for removing regular rest areas from toll-free highways. I can go with service areas on toll roads. Welcome centers, I'd drop as well. Imzadi 1979 → 05:33, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Interstate 80 in Iowa#Services shows how you can work rest areas into an article. –Fredddie ™ 05:40, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I think that sets a good example of how rest areas and welcome centers can be covered in a road article as we should not neglect mentioning them at all. However, it may be overkill to include rest areas in an exit list as there may be a large number of them on a particular stretch of highway that it can be overburdening. Service areas on toll roads, however, should be included in both the Services section and exit list due to the special nature of them. Dough 48 72 05:44, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I have used that Iowa page as an example and revised both I-95 in SC and NC. I also included weigh stations because that too is a service for commercial vehicles. --WashuOtaku (talk) 21:47, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with including them, and have seen no valid arguments against them here. There are few enough that they won't overwhelm the list unless there are even fewer interchanges. {{jctrestarea}} (a redirect to jctbridge) works perfectly. --NE2 06:59, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe it's because I'm from the West Coast, but I don't see an issue with adding rest areas either; most of the CA IH articles have them. --Rs chen 7754 05:35, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I prefer that we not put rest areas in exit lists. If we do put them in exit lists, we should limit them to service areas (food and fuel). Also, because the exit list has a quantitative function, can we require that they only be included if we have a mileage point for the service area? V C 13:14, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Only if we require that we can't add a newly-opened interchange until it gets added to the mileage sources... (in other words, hell no) --NE2 13:39, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm seeing mixed opinions on this manner. Do you think we should take a straw poll to decide how rest areas should be handled in prose and exit list and whatever gets the most votes be implemented into WP:USRD/STDS? Dough 48 72 22:09, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Great, another thing to edit war over. --NE2 22:28, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

If we incorporate a standard regarding rest areas there would be no need for edit warring, which is actually more of a threat right now with no standard. Dough 48 72 22:40, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Except for the IPs and random editors who add random stuff to our infoboxes (5-10 jct limit anyone?) and RJLs already. --Rs chen 7754 22:44, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, here is a straw poll of options:

Subsection for rest areas and inclusion of rest areas in exit lists

Meh, I see no harm with mentioning the rest areas as they are an essential feature of the road. Dough 48 72 22:56, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
Duh, they fit perfectly in the exit list. If there's nothing to say about them, there's no need for a separate section. --NE2 07:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
See my rationale below Dave (talk) 03:07, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Subsection for rest areas and no inclusion of rest areas in exit lists

If I have to choose one of these options, it would be this one. Not because I proffered this exact scenario earlier, but because most Interstate rest areas are unremarkable. Here in Iowa, the eastbound and westbound rest areas are not across from each other, so there would be 18 additional entries on I-80's exit list, which is not optimal. Also, I disagree with Dough's assessment that they are essential features of the roadway. –Fredddie ™ 23:17, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
If it is to be noted, best have its own subsection than litter in the exit list, especially where rest areas on freeways don't line-up at the same mile marker. --WashuOtaku (talk) 00:35, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
I prefer that articles talk about unremarkable Interstate rest areas in their own section (if there is enough worthwhile information) or as part of the Route description rather than distract from more important elements contained in an exit list. V C 01:42, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
I am not opposed to the first option, but I lean towards this one. Mitch32^{(I have seen great intolerance shown in support of tolerance)} 18:34, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

No subsection for rest areas and inclusion of rest areas in exit lists

Not much to write about most rest areas, and percentagewise, it's not that much to add to the RJL. --Rs chen 7754 00:45, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Interesting that rest area opponents call attention to highways in the eastern parts of the country. Along rural Interstates in the West, gas stations and convenience stores can be few and far between and often closed at night. People traveling along rural Interstates in the West's more desolate areas tend to develop a new appreciation for rest areas when they really need to go to the bathroom. I can see why Easterners would consider them unimportant, but the "cluttering" argument doesn't work for me compared to all the non-notable urban city streets that are always listed. I like welcome centers if for no better reason than the free maps. They're usually located near state lines meaning that they would likely be listed twice at most on any state-detail exit list. Fortguy (talk) 04:30, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

No subsection for rest areas and no inclusion of rest areas in exit lists
Other (please specify)

Feel free to add any more options I may have missed. Dough 48 72 22:56, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I could support either of the above 3 options depending on the situation. I think it would be futile to attempt to not put service areas in the junction list and prose sections, regardless of my personal opinion they are not notable enough for prose (having a McDonald's on a turnpike is not a notable thing IMHO). Also most rest areas are simple structures that would not pass any threshold of notability by themselves. Yet, they are critical to making a highway "user friendly" and their mention in an exit list could provide value for a handful of scenarios (I'm thinking of a person preparing for a road trip with a medical condition for example). With that said, there are a minority of rest areas that were built to take advantage of a scenic or historical situation, some to the point that their location is too close to another rest or service area to provide any other value. But yet, these rest areas would pass a notability test (and some even have independent articles), as they are part of whatever historical or scenic place they are serving. These should be mentioned in both prose and list form IMHO. Some examples for discussion:

Tie Fork Rest Area - A simple rest area but with quite a history
Interstate 70 in Utah - Rest/View areas are thoroughly covered, and make up the majority of the exits on this stretch through uninhabited terrain. Dave (talk) 03:07, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Since consensus seems to be mixed, other than mentioning that rest areas should be covered in some form, do you think we should do a runoff and vote for the top two options? Dough 48 72 18:19, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

That's not how consensus works. --NE2 18:30, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I figured that this was about how the poll was going to go... I don't think there's consensus for anything right now. --Rs chen 7754 14:44, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

The only consensus that has emerged is that rest areas should be covered somehow, whether in a subsection and/or exit list, and not neglected completely. Dough 48 72 19:15, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Downtown Connector

it would be great if someone could double check that this is the correct fix for the duplicate args. Frietjes (talk) 19:23, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Looks good to me. –Fredddie ™ 23:51, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

MS 548 & MS 844

These two article were both created and promoted to GA status within the past week (they were listed as "Engineering and technology good article" for GA nomination). They are 0.3mi and 6.5mi respectively and both articles are very short. It doesn't seem like they meet the notability guidelines, but there would be a conflict of interest if I nominated them for deletion, so perhaps someone here can have a look and judge these. AHeneen (talk) 14:06, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Time and again state highways are notable per WP:USRD/NT and WP:ROADOUTCOMES. However, some shorter state highways can be merged into a list, such as List of state highways in Maryland shorter than one mile (2–699). MS 844 may be a candidate to merge into a list if Mississippi has enough highways that are less than one mile in length. Dough 48 72 14:22, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Err...I meant to say that they don't meet the criteria for a stand-alone article and need to be in a list. However, these are secondary state roads and Wikipedia:USRD/NT says: "Secondary state highways and county highways that are part of a statewide system...may or may not be sufficiently notable to merit a unique article. Highways that have very little to say about them (i.e. those that are extremely short and have no historical significance) are better suited to a list.'" And says: "Most numbered roadways are acceptable if they can be described beyond the route itself." These articles basically just describe a short route with a history section that says the highway appeared on a map in XXXX and was paved in XXXX. There's nothing notable about them. AHeneen (talk) 14:55, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

"MS [number] is not included as a part of the National Highway System (NHS), a network of highways identified as being most important for the economy, mobility and defense of the nation." Whoa, really? Bloody padding.

There's definitely a completeness issue - just because it's not on state maps from 1967 to 1998 doesn't mean it didn't exist. --NE2 17:08, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

As an aside, there is no more worthless sentence in a road article than the National Highway System sentence. Especially if it's not in the system as is the case here. –Fredddie ™ 18:08, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

IMHO, what's going on here is well-meaning editors would like to get a GA notch on the belt (because of a contest, or just desire to make a name in Wikipedia) so they pick the low hanging fruit, which for road articles means a short highway in a single state. Sadly in Wikipedia as in business as in most things metrics drive behavior. Although I see the motivation value in the article rankings and contests I'd like to see them improved to encourage the right behavior. Although it would be impossible to have a sliding scale at wikipedia wide efforts (such as GAC etc.) for USRD contests I'd like to see a sliding scale. IMO getting U.S. Route 66 up to B class is worth far more to the project than getting a lowly 2mi state route up to GA class. Dave (talk) 18:25, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

@Moabdave: I take a bit of issue with your comments. I've tried to keep my work well rounded, and I know others do the same. My first GAs and FAs were on M-35 (significant history in the connection with Henry Ford) and M-28 (longest highway of its type in the state). I've also ended up writing articles on some very short highways as a means to the end of providing a complete treatment of the system, like Interstate 375 (Michigan) or the Capitol Loop. I don't participate in WikiCup or USRDCup, etc. Rather, my goal has been to get every article on a highway in Michigan up to GA level, to take all of the lists to FL, and to take as many articles as warrant to the FA level. I agree that US 66 should have a better article that it does, but I don't live near the highway nor do I have much of a personal interest in it. The shorter articles are easier to write (duh!), and they provide a good opportunity for newer editors to cut their teeth on learning wikitext formatting, MOS guidelines and proper research/citation techniques. However, too many editors have failed to transition to working on longer articles as well, sometimes being driven off by this attitude that shorter highways make bad writing topics, even though we still need those articles for well-rounded coverage. Imzadi 1979 → 21:49, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

No offense intended. I didn't mean to imply we shouldn't be working to improve coverage of minor highways, only that I'd prefer the systems of merit and recognition give a bigger prize to higher priority articles. As an added point, I'd also prefer to discourage "drive by" GAC reviews.Dave (talk) 02:58, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't have much more to add than what Imzadi said. My approach has been to alternate between one short article and one long article. I am moving from the south to the north in the state of California, and my goal is to cover every article, both the short ones and the long ones. That being said, California is "blessed" with an overabundance of sources, so even a short route can have significant info (California State Route 282 for example). --Rs chen 7754 03:26, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

@AHeneen: I take a slightly different opinion here than some of my colleagues. Using my home state as an example, we have Michigan State Trunkline Highway System, an indisputably notable topic unto itself. However, per WP:SIZE, that article cannot include all of the information on the system, so we spin off List of Interstate Highways in Michigan. Even then, we cannot include all of the information a proper treatment of each Interstate Highway in the state would require, so we spin off Interstate 69 in Michigan and its brethren. The same goes for List of U.S. Highways in Michigan and U.S. Route 2 in Michigan, List of state trunklines in Michigan and M-1 (Michigan highway), and Pure Michigan Byway. So far, I think we'd all be in agreement that each of these articles and lists form a proper hierarchy from the system down to the individual highway, and that each example is more than notable and therefore worthy of inclusion in the encyclopedia.

Here's where I start to differ in my opinion. We have cases in Michigan of highways that have very little history. They weren't controversial (like M-6), they haven't existed for almost a century with various reroutings, extensions or truncations (like M-28), they aren't especially scenic (like M-22), nor do they have cultural or historical significance (like M-1). Maybe it's a case where the highway just isn't that long, or it's located in a rural area, so we get cases like M-67. There's too much content on M-67 to up-merge it into the list, as we would lose the entire route description and most of the history section to avoid undue weight in the table. It would take a fundamental shift in consensus to merge that article into some sort of list of some kind, and if we deleted this article, we'd leave a hole in our complete coverage of the State Trunkline Highway System.

Lastly, AHeneen, your two Mississippi examples are not secondary state highways, not as the quoted guideline uses the term nor as the articles are currently written. Some states, like Montana, have different signage to indicate that a highway is secondary. Texas has several classifications that would qualify as secondary, such as their Farm/Ranch to Market Roads, their State Highway Loops/Spurs, their Park Roads or their Recreational Roads, all of which are distinct from their primary State Highways. From the way the two Mississippi articles are written, they're just short state highways, without any primary–secondary distinction applied by the state. When this distinction is not applied by the state, we've defaulted to the "state highway = keep" outcome at AfD; an outcome that doesn't preclude merging them someplace, but you'll need to nominate that alternate location. Imzadi 1979 → 21:49, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't object to the articles' existence (though 844 is in some ways a secondary highway, and most routes in that range should probably be part of a list). --NE2 23:41, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

From what I know, Mississippi has a large number of higher-numbered state highways that are short and unsigned. I think it may make sense to at least merge the ones shorter than a mile into a list entitled List of state highways in Mississippi shorter than one mile or even be more extreme and create a list for ALL routes in a certain number range that are minor. Dough 48 72 01:52, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm generally in favor of separate articles on highways, but 844 is short ~~and unsigned~~, and that article is proof that there's not much to say about it. I'd be in favor of merging all of the unsigned/short/700-900 highways in Mississippi into one list lest we end up with 50 articles that look like that. Though that still requires that someone actually do the work of making the list; a very similar discussion happened back in August and List of unsigned state highways in Mississippi has had an AfD-inspired merge tag on it since, without the merge taking place. (And before anyone says it, I'm not volunteering.) TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 03:09, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Where did you get that it's unsigned? Most of the high-numbered routes have had signs posted in the past decade or so. What makes the most sense to me is a list of routes from 700 up, most of which are short spurs or connections. Here's a list of the highways (the link in the article isn't direct). --NE2 04:31, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Oops, my mistake. That's what I get for misreading the unsigned highways article; come to think of it, a good number of the "unsigned" highways in that list aren't actually unsigned either. Further proof that that article needs to be merged ASAP, really. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 04:39, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I think we can possibly make a List of state highways in Mississippi (700-999) article for all the routes 700 and above as most of them are short and have little to say about them. Dough 48 72 04:57, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I understand the issue with size and the need to split content as an article grows too long (my last edit before starting this discussion was explaining WP:Summary style and WP:Size on an article I've been very involved in). However, these two articles should be part of a list. I disagree with what @Imzadi1979: has said above, this discussion does not necessarily apply to all short highways. The Michigan highways given as an example have history and, as noted, would consume an excessive amount of space is merged into the relevant lists. However, these two MS highways have little more to say about them than a description of the route. I don't have time to search for a good source, but List of state highways in Mississippi says "Mississippi highways 301 through 614 are secondary highways" and I don't see how rural 6.5mi & 0.33mi highways can be considered anything other than a secondary highway. WP:USRD/NT says regarding primary state highways "there are some instances where it may be better to combine articles, even when the highways are notable enough for a unique article" (these seem like good cases) and that secondary state highways "that have very little to say about them (i.e. those that are extremely short and have no historical significance) are better suited to a list" (these article say little more than describe the route). However, that is just this project's guidance and still needs to meet WP:GNG. AHeneen (talk) 22:18, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

There actually is more history: Talk:Mississippi Highway 548#History --NE2 23:46, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Irrespective of the notability issue, I don't think either article meets the GA criteria (see orange tags now added to the articles) and will put them up for WP:GAR if not improved within the next few days. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:13, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
- MS 548 definitely has missing details that should be added or else it should be sent to GAR; it can probably sustain its own article though. MS 844 is short enough that it should probably be merged into a list of Mississippi roads under one mile or between 700 and 999 along with other similar routes. Dough 48 72 22:06, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Both articles are now at GA Review. See Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Mississippi Highway 548/1 & Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Mississippi Highway 844/1 --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:09, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

NHS mentions

Would there be consensus for mass removal of the bare statement that a route is not on the NHS? --NE2 19:12, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

No, and I would oppose any mass removals. With the MAP21 additions, many articles may need to be updated to note that the highways have since been added to the NHS in some additional capacity. Imzadi 1979 → 21:49, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
- So you think it's useful to say that a route is not part of the NHS? Mind if I add the same for other systems, like scenic highways? --NE2 22:10, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
Outright removal? As much as I don't like the sentence, no, but I would strongly encourage editors to not use it going forward. –Fredddie ™ 23:47, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
I say there's no reason not to get rid of it. T C N7JM 23:47, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
I am in favor of removing the bare statement from the articles of routes that have no NHS segments. However, once we have consensus to do it, removal is low priority; we can do it gradually or do a bot run at some point. For articles of routes that do have NHS segments (including MAP-21 and intermodal connectors), we should describe which segments of a route are NHS; the bare affirmative statement is not sufficient. V C 00:35, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
VC basically sums up what I was too lazy to type out in full. T C N7JM 00:41, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
I don't see anything wrong with mentioning whether or not a route has sections on the NHS. Dough 48 72 01:52, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
I'm not really sure about this - I've seen Caltrans documents do the same [1][2]. --Rs chen 7754 02:26, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
Those documents are supposed to be as specific as possible. The route description is supposed to be a summary of the progression of the route. I'm not sure this is helped by adding what the route isn't. NE2 brings up a good point that we could add other systems it isn't a part of (which the documents seem to do), but we don't. T C N7JM 03:46, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
Well, California does mention other systems... but my point is that Caltrans seems to think it's worth it to include in their documents. --Rs chen 7754 03:51, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
You're contradicting yourself. "It mentions other systems we don't care about but it also mentions this one system we care about, so we need to include it." T C N7JM 03:54, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
The California articles, at least, mention the California Freeway and Expressway System and the State Scenic Highway System, and sometimes other systems. That being said, I've never seen that in other states. --Rs chen 7754 04:01, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
Okay. My main issue here is still that adding what systems the route isn't in doesn't really help to describe the route -- at least not in my opinion -- which is what our standards say the route description is supposed to be. T C N7JM 04:22, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
Exactly. It makes sense to say what is is a part of, not what it isn't (unless there's some reason that it should be). --NE2 04:31, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
Well, it not being part of NHS means that the federal gov't didn't think it was a very significant route... which is a bit different from saying that a certain highway has no connection to the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail. --Rs chen 7754 04:17, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
It not being an evacuation route means the state (or FEMA?) didn't think it was very useful for evacuation. It not being part of the scenic system means the state didn't think it was very scenic. It not being a National Scenic Byway means the feds didn't think it was very scenic. It not being part of the Whoop-de-doo Winter Maintenance Plowing Network means the county didn't think it was very important for winter travel. --NE2 04:31, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Yes, but the main everyday purpose of a road is to transport goods and people. --Rs chen 7754 04:37, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I ran the numbers on the MS 844 route description. The NHS sentence makes up almost 30% of the entire section. It's one thing to sneak the sentence into a >50KB-long article, but it's another to significantly pad an article with a single sentence. Maybe that's the litmus test. If you can only write enough about something that you have to add the NHS sentence, then it shouldn't have its own article. –Fredddie ™ 02:48, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Could I just pop my head in the door and politely request you define acronyms before you use them, as for me, NHS means something very specific that has national recognition under that name, and hence reading this automatically trips my brain into thinking you're talking about ambulances. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 09:52, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

You're on a thread of the U.S. Roads WikiProject talk page. Doesn't take that much logic to figure out which NHS on the NHS disambiguation page we're talking about. T C N7JM 09:57, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Well I'm sorry my intelligence isn't up to your required level of human supremacy, but as I mentioned the other day from Uncle Dave, the casual reader of a linked thread is not a moron, they're your wife! Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:02, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what casual reader – not that we have many besides you – would think "highway" and "ambulance" are synonymous. Not saying you're stupid, just lazy for failing to do basic research. T C N7JM 10:09, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: if you read the entire thread, you'll see it was defined. Plus, the context of the discussion makes your comment look silly, don't you think? Some of us may be jealous of your nationalized health care, but you'd find discussions of that on IRC, not on this page. –Fredddie ™ 12:47, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

The nominator of Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Ohio State Route 85/2 had a point

Just because something appears on the 1932 map but not the 1931 map does not mean it was created in 1932. This is a very common error. At best you can say it was created in 1931 or 1932 (if the maps are dated January 1, it might be acceptable to assume the state wouldn't create anything on New Year's Day, so it was created in 1931 - yet they might approve something effective January 1). --NE2 00:00, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you're going with this... is this supposed to be a PSA? Otherwise, {{sofixit}} exists for a reason... --Rs chen 7754 02:23, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

It's related to the above discussion. How do people approve so-called "good articles" that have blatant issues like this? --NE2 04:32, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

A sentence that mentions a road is not part of a system that makes up 30 percent of the Route description is a blatant issue. This common misuse of map years is not a blatant issue and is tangential to this discussion. Please start a separate discussion about map years with a clear title. V C 13:14, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

A falsehood is more blatant than a useless truth. --NE2 05:16, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

This discussion was already written about. See the essay, Using maps and similar sources in Wikipedia articles#Original research. --hmich176 17:01, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Banner abbreviations in Jct

Similar to how named highways are no longer abbreviated in {{Jct}}, I'd like to propose that we drop the banner abbreviations for bannered routes. It's quite simple:

US 30 Bus. → US 30 Business

Bus. US 131 → Business US 131

US 72 Alt. → US-72 Alternate

Bus. MN 371 → MN 371 Business

And so on and so forth. For off-Interstate business routes, I think we should drop the ambiguity as well.

I-10 BL → I-10 Business Loop

I-90 BS → I-90 Business Spur

I think it's easier to read and has the added benefit of being more natural for screen readers. –Fredddie ™ 01:56, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Not United States Highway 30 Business? --NE2 02:01, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

United States Federal Highway 30 Business, if you insist. –Fredddie ™ 02:11, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with the current system now, the abbreviations help when you get crazy concurrencies. As for Insterstate Business Spur/Loop; I've never actually heard anyone say Spur/Loop, just Business. --WashuOtaku (talk) 02:19, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Support abbreviations—per the limited space in the tables and infoboxes. Additionally, if the parent highway is going to be abbreviated, then the banner should be as well. As for screen readers, they read the link in addition to the linked text, so users of that technology will get the expanded version. (Also, even if the softward didn't read both, the full name should be used in the prose on first mention along with the abbreviation giving the user the context.)

Support changing the order—the plate appears above the marker, and since we naturally read top-to-bottom, the banner should appear ahead of the parent highway. Texas's naming convention with the letter suffix basically requires this order as well; "Bus. US 90-Y" works, but a "US 90-Y Bus." would not work at all. It would also be beneficial to to standardize this on a national level as I've espoused in the past. (This should not be interpreted as a desire to change how the articles are currently titled.) For single-marker styles, like the off-Interstate business routes or the Minnesota example, the banner name still appears at the top of the marker.

Neutral on formatting—either "BUS US 131" or "Bus. US 131" works by me, and we should standardize that as well.

Imzadi 1979 → 02:39, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

What does BUS stand for? Business Usiness Siness? --NE2 03:15, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Comment — I prefer the system-number-banner order. Just because the banner is above the route marker does not mean everyone reads it top to bottom. Putting the banner last also is more intuitive because the articles are named in the system-number-banner order. I am ambivalent on abbreviating in {{Jct}} because though I prefer the spelled out version, there is limited horizontal space in the infobox. V C 03:38, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Support abbreviations to save space in the infobox and major intersections table. The order of the abbreviation before or after the route number and the formatting should vary depending on state. Dough 48 72 03:55, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
How often are bannered routes used in the infobox? I suspect we could eliminate a few instances. I don't buy that argument when it comes to the RJL. –Fredddie ™ 04:31, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
Bannered routes could be included in the infobox if it is the terminus of a route. Also, some states sometimes abbreviate the type on the banner (think "ALT" for Alternate). Dough 48 72 04:34, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
Endpoints are one thing, but what about the junction parameter? Would the infobox on Georgia State Route 16 be any better or worse if we pruned out the bannered routes? –Fredddie ™ 04:42, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
Yes but in some cases the bannered routes may be notable enough to warrant inclusion in the infobox. In the example you listed, US 27 Alt. is a 98 mile long alternate route that connects multiple counties and towns. However, short business loops and spurs are probably not notable enough for an infobox, unless it is one of the only junctions for a very short route. Dough 48 72 04:47, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
US 27 Alternate is entirely redundant to SR 16, so it's not really important at all with regards to the infobox. Just scratching the surface of SR 16 shows me that there are some junctions with "rounding errors" SR 34 Bypass comes nowhere near the US 29/SR 16 junction. –Fredddie ™ 05:31, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
Neutral - I don't know enough about bannered routes to have anything worth saying. --Rs chen 7754 06:07, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Interstate 26 in Tennessee

I was wondering if there should be a separate article for Interstate 26 in Tennessee? There is for the other two states it travels through (North Carolina and South Carolina). ACase0000 (talk) 16:02, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I would say those two state-detail articles should not exist. It should be one big article. –Fredddie ™ 16:04, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Then the article would too cluttered up. ACase0000 (talk) 16:11, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

@Fredddie: Why do other Interstate's get separate state-detail articles and you think 26 doesn't deserve it, Why? ACase0000 (talk) 16:16, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Read Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_U.S._Roads/Archive_18#3_state_rule (it's kinda long). Also, you don't need to ping me on a page I'm already watching. –Fredddie ™ 16:29, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

The article was broken out by other editors that no longer appear to be active. I have thought about breaking-out Tennessee as well, but that would leave the main page a basic shell or with information that repeats the same stuff; never mind the fact the articles could easily function as one article, I just left things alone. --WashuOtaku (talk) 18:45, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

It should be merged with U.S. Route 23 in Tennessee. --NE2 22:00, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

If you can cover all three states well in the main I-26 article without overburdening it, then there should be no state-detail articles. Otherwise, you can split it into state-detail articles. Dough 48 72 22:19, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I kind of agree with you @NE2: One Because they travel the exact same route. ACase0000 (talk) 04:25, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Fredddie Sorry :) ACase0000 (talk) 04:32, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not in favor of a US Highway and Interstate combo article. There will be differences in history and routing, not to mention someone in the future will come and break it up and then it gets on here and it's US 15-501 all over again. --WashuOtaku (talk) 06:26, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Sometimes it may be prudent to have Interstate-US combo articles when both highways are entirely overlapped. I know U.S. Route 87 in Colorado redirects to Interstate 25 in Colorado since I-25 and US 87 are overlapped the entire length in Colorado. However if such an overlap article was created I-26 should take precedence in the article title over US 23. But as I discussed above if all the information can be covered in the main I-26 article there is no need for state-detail pages. Dough 48 72 15:54, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I am in favor of splitting out a Interstate 26 in Tennessee article. I think there is enough information about the Tennessee portion, and that state's portion is notable enough to support a separate article. However, if consensus is to consolidate into one Interstate 26 article, I am fine with that. My least desirable outcome is keeping the status quo of two state-detail articles out of the three states.

U.S. Route 23 in Tennessee redirects to U.S. Route 23, and it should stay that way. However, a main template linking to Interstate 26 or Interstate 26 in Tennessee (whichever is consensus) should be added in the U.S. Route 23 article's Tennessee section. V C 17:29, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Interstate history

I've compiled User:NE2/Interstate history from various sources to list when Interstates were created or deleted. --NE2 07:01, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Farm to Market Road 231

Found this new creation - notable enough to keep? Delete-worthy? Bencherlite ^Talk 20:45, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Bencherlite: it's an article that will be merged away at some point into a list. They're notable for coverage in the encyclopedia as a secondary component of the Texas State Highway System, but as secondary highways they don't need their own individual articles. We plan on merging most of the Farm to Market Roads in Texas into lists, so nothing needs to be done at the moment until someone gets around to the FMs in the 200s. Imzadi 1979 → 23:13, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Farm-to-Market Roads (again)

It feels like (and is almost literally) ages ago that we as a project discussed the future of the Farm-to-Market Road articles. In that discussion, we seemed to agree that the FM articles should be merged into lists unless their articles could reach GA or higher, but we didn't really come to consensus on how that should be done. This page was started to keep track of the creation of these lists, and a few of us signed up to work on the lists groups of 100. That was twenty months ago, and I just recently got around to finishing one of the groups of 100 I signed up for. Here it is.

I was glad I finally finished something onwiki for once, but then it occurred to me that we never actually came to consensus on what to do with the FM articles/lists. What are we going to do with this? The main list is completed, but what is going to be added in addition to the list? What should go in the lead? Another question to consider: is this how we want to put the FMs into lists? I personally think so, otherwise I wouldn't have spent so much time on it, but what do others think? Should we routelist them as my list does or should we RCS them? Opinions? T C N7JM 03:15, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

There needs to be a place to put more detailed history at the very least. --NE2 03:26, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm leaning towards using the routelist templates. But then again, I barely have the attention span to write this. Is there any possibility that the lists can be titled "List of Farm to Market Roads in Texas/<range>" or are subpages like that frowned upon? I'd like to have the navigation at the top of the page. –Fredddie ™ 03:54, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

The mainspace doesn't support subpages. -happy 5214 04:38, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the FM and RM roads, I would prefer for a RCS list, with separate articles where routes have enough information to be split out. I would be opposed to a routelist list as a lot of the descriptive and historical information would have to be cut out and would leave a gap in our coverage. Dough 48 72 04:52, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Parentheses are always an option, aren't they? T C N7JM 14:44, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I already said I prefer using the routelist templates, but I'll detail why. For me, the main reason is time constraints. Doing the routelist method would, obviously, be faster than using the RCS. It took me hours of work just to finish 100-some entries out of over 3000 in a routelist, and I imagine using the RCS would take exponentially longer. Also, it took a year and a half for any editor to finally try and finish anything with the FMs, so unless more editors start working on them, it'll take forever just to get the routelists finished, let alone the RCS lists. I mean, ideally it'd be nice to have all the history for every Farm-to-Market/Ranch-to-Market road in Texas, but let's be realistic here. T C N7JM 14:43, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

There is no deadline. I would rather see the time taken to do RCS lists that cover the routes well than a quick routelist table that leaves out many details important to the routes due to space constraints. This could mean doing one list for a certain range at a time, finish that, and then move on to the next one. I know the process of completing and splitting List of former Maryland state highways began last March and is still ongoing, with no target date for completion. Dough 48 72 01:27, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Sure, there is. You wouldn't see the time taken because you'd be dead by the time it's complete. Do you want to RCS the Texas FMs? T C N7JM 01:35, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Nobody said the lists had to be made up of 100 GA-quality parts. Reducing everything to a routelist would destroy significant amounts of low-to-medium quality, but improvable, content. The RCS was built for systems like the FMs and RMs. -happy 5214 02:08, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

We can just create a bunch of empty headers... that's how most of WP:CACR wound up. (See County routes in California) --Rs chen 7754 02:18, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

That's also how many 'bannered' U.S. Highways still are. --NE2 03:39, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Reducing? Reducing what? What we currently have is next to nothing, and putting just the FMs that have articles into RCS format would be completely arbitrary as articles for these routes were created seemingly at random. It would also make the title of each subsection misleading as there would only be information on, in the case of my list, five routes instead of 100. I wouldn't be so opposed to trying to get everything into RCS format if it wouldn't take so long and I wasn't the only one working on it, but right now it seems like that's the case. T C N7JM 02:31, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

It's all the information we have on routes between X and Y, right? --NE2 03:39, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I think that for now we can just merge the routes that have articles and leave empty headers for what doesn't have articles that can be filled in by any willing user at a future date. Dough 48 72 03:51, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I do not think we need to even have empty headers. Anyone who is going to add FM 2906 will be able to figure out that it goes between FM 2903 and FM 2908 in the 2900–2999 list. Think of this project as creating a framework for building Rome rather than actually building Rome. V C 04:01, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

But be careful about merging. FM 1764 is a bloody freeway, and others may be more important than the average FM road. --NE2 05:19, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, common sense will be applied when merging the routes. Those that have a lot to say about them or that are otherwise notable enough for a standalone article may keep their own articles with a summary and a hatnote in the RCS list. Dough 48 72 06:51, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Organization

I see three options for organizing the FM routes:

A main article with one huge routelist with 3000+ routes; and 30+ RCS lists by the hundreds. All stubs and other short articles are merged into the RCS lists.
A main article with links to 30+ routelists by the hundreds. One-sentence stubs (that is, articles with just endpoints, length, and creation date, like Farm to Market Road 231) are merged into the routelists. The remaining stubs and short articles are kept as is.
A main article with links to 30+ RCS lists by the hundreds. All stubs and other short articles are merged into the RCS lists.
A main article with links to 30+ subarticles. Each subarticle contains a routelist followed by an RCS list for those FMs with more than one sentence of information. All stubs and short articles are merged into the subarticles.

If there are any other options, please list them here. V C 00:57, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I feel like option 1 wouldn't work--that many routes in a routelist will probably have awful load times with that many template calls. I think option 3 is probably the best for maintaining current levels of coverage for the articles that do exist. -- LJ ↗ 07:35, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Split the diff: lists split by hundreds, each with an overview routelist section at the beginning and ~100 sections for each route in that range. -happy 5214 08:54, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

If it weren't for the technical limitations, I would go with option 1. Of the two remaining options VC presented, I like option 3 best as that preserves the FM/RM routes with either separate articles or coverage in the RCS lists. I do not like option 2 as that still leaves a lot of short articles and relegates some of them to reduced coverage in the routelist templates. I also do like happy5214's idea of "splitting the difference" and splitting the articles by 100s with an overview routelist followed by the RCS sections covering the routes in more detail. Dough 48 72 17:16, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I like option 2 the best as we would finish the project faster. However, if we must have RCS sections, option 4 is my choice. –Fredddie ™ 05:00, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I worked on the draft of the 2900–2999 list tonight because I was intriged by option 4. I found that we may need fewer RCS entries than I originally thought. We may even find a way of incorporating the essential information from the TXDOT Highway Designation Files for routes with intermediate changes (designated in year X, extended in year Y, truncated in year Z, etc.) over their lifespan into the routelist entries. V C 05:18, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I am still opposed to the idea of covering the FM/RM roads solely in the routelist templates as the RCS lists better present the information without having to cut out details. Unlike county routes, which can generally be covered fine in a routelist, these are state roads and therefore should have a little more than just coverage in a row in a routelist. Using time constraints is not an excuse as I discussed above there is no deadline to finish this and we can just merge what we have for now. Dough 48 72 05:43, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

(Dough, I think you've contradicted yourself...) This option 4 would seem to work. I envisioned every route on the page would be in the routelist, regardless of whether it had an RCS-style entry or not--I wouldn't necessarily say this is needed, but routelist entries without RCS entries will probably prompt eventual removal of the former with future creations of the latter. -- LJ ↗ 06:37, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Metro area navboxes on RCS-style lists

A few metro navboxes have appeared on List of Farm to Market Roads in Texas (1–99). Is this something we want to happen, or should they be removed? —Scott5114 ↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 13:31, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I hate those boxes period, so no comment. --NE2 13:32, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I think those should be removed from every U.S. road article and deleted. --Rs chen 7754 14:35, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Rschen these boxes are clunky and do nothing but pollute the What Links Here function, rendering it useless. Delete them all. Dough 48 72 15:55, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I also despise those navboxen, but especially so in RCS lists. Eliminate them. V C 19:53, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I think the mini-nav boxes have legitimate uses, but have been overused, and the above link is a good example. If there is so little prose to say about a route that the mini-nav boxes are causing stacking issues, or causing the article to be filled with whitespace to avoid stacking (which is the case with about half the uses on that page), that's a clear cut argument to take out the nav boxes. Although there are some routes on that list page that do have enough prose to support a mini-nav box, I think it should be all or none. We all know that if half the routes in the last have nav-boxes and half don't, someone will add them back in on the rest sooner or later.Dave (talk) 20:29, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Wrong type of box. We're talking about the metro area ones like on FM 28. --NE2 20:56, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not mistaken, I stand by my comments.Dave (talk) 02:52, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Moabdave: this discussion is about navboxes, not the uses of {{infobox road small}} within each section on individual highways. Imzadi 1979 → 03:18, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Now I see it, my apologies to both. Yes the boxes of "freeways in [city]" have limited to no value IMHO and are redundant to categories. Dave (talk) 19:04, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I think those navboxes in general should be removed from articles. The "Transportation in <county> County, <state>" categories, if consistently used, would provide better granularity to allow readers to find other articles on highways in any related area without the visual clutter at the bottom of the article. In terms of RCS-style lists, these categories should be placed on the redirected titles instead of the master list so that each category gets a specific list of the highways by name. Imzadi 1979 → 03:18, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

wanted

U.S. Route 20 in Idaho

U.S. Route 30 in Idaho

U.S. Route 62 in Texas

U.S. Route 2 in Montana

U.S. Route 40 in Kansas

U.S. Route 20 in Wyoming

U.S. Route 30 in Wyoming

U.S. Route 51 in Illinois

U.S. Route 61 in Missouri

U.S. Route 70 in Tennessee

U.S. Route 71 in Minnesota

U.S. Route 60 in New Mexico

U.S. Route 70 in New Mexico

U.S. Route 85 in New Mexico — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.120.164.90 (talk) 14:47, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Already handled better here. --NE2 15:53, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I like how these are all really long routes. I think US 20 Idaho is the short one at 350 miles. –Fredddie ™ 23:27, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

US 61 in Missouri and US 62 in Kentucky are about the same — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.120.164.90 (talk) 19:52, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

U.S. Route 58 bannered routes

Would anybody be bothered if I removed three redirected Bannered routes of U.S. Route 58 from the Wikipedia:Requested articles/Applied arts and sciences/Transport? In fact, I see a lot of requests there that won't work as anything else but redirects to lists of bannered routes. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 20:51, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Go ahead and remove them. Bannered routes are generally not notable enough for individual articles and should be covered in RCS lists. Dough 48 72 21:19, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Done. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 21:29, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Not so fast on the archiving. We should discuss this a little more in depth. –Fredddie ™ 01:47, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

As I was saying, the requested articles page has a shitload of bannered route red links. What should we do? I have some ideas:

Delete them all except for the "Bannered routes of US X" pages?
Delete them all including the "Bannered route of US X" pages?
Leave them as a reminder to create sections on the Bannered route pages?
Leave them be to be created?

I'm leaning to #1, but I can be swayed. –Fredddie ™ 01:51, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

As you could possibly imagine, I'm leaning strongly toward #3 or possibly #4. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 02:28, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I say we go with #3 but possibly leave a note that the individual bannered routes should redirect to the list unless they can sustain their own articles. This way it can kinda serve as a "completion list" for what bannered routes should be added to the lists. Dough 48 72 03:53, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Do #2. There are better ways to create a "completion list." V C 03:55, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Maybe we should start a completion list for the bannered routes within project space and then remove them from the Requested Articles page with a link to the completion list. Dough 48 72 04:04, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

A completion list is not a bad idea at all. –Fredddie ™ 04:41, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

The completion list should not include the "Bannered routes of US X" articles. The list of those particular articles assumes that every U.S. Highway with bannered routes should have such a list article, but that is not the case if the number of bannered routes is small enough that they can go in the main article or in state-detail articles. V C 00:48, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, we should determine a break-even point in which the bannered routes, both current and former, should be covered in the main article versus an independent list. I know for routes with only a couple current and former bannered routes like U.S. Route 113 and U.S. Route 222, there is no need for an independent list as coverage in the article is fine. However, once we get to four or more current and former bannered routes, that probably warrants splitting into a list. So we should probably omit the "Bannered routes of US X" list article for those US routes that have less than four current and former bannered routes. Dough 48 72 04:22, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

VC: I disagree, partly. I think the "Bannered routes of US X" lists should be included in the completion list. Presumably, most of the route links in the completion list will be redirects, yes? So why should we exclude the lists because some could be redirects? –Fredddie ™ 05:20, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Fredddie, a redirect can be plausible as the person looking for the bannered route list would be redirected to the section of the main article that has the bannered routes. There is no harm in having Bannered routes of U.S. Route 113 redirect to the appropriate section in the US 113 article as the reader looking for the route's bannered routes will be redirected to the right place. Dough 48 72 05:23, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Continuing on that thought, we could format the page like this:

Bannered routes of U.S. Route 1
- U.S. Route 1 Business (Foo, Florida)
- U.S. Route 1 Alternate (Bar, Georgia)
- et cetera

As an added bonus, the bannered route lists would break up the text somewhat regularly making the completion list easier to read and follow overall. –Fredddie ™ 05:27, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I think that format is perfect. Dough 48 72 05:30, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I support Fredddie's idea. V C 19:55, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I created the page (here: Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/U.S. Routes/Completion list/Bannered routes) with the redlinks from the Requested article page. I haven't done any formatting nor have I added the bluelinks we have now. –Fredddie ™ 04:54, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Some of these seem suspect to me. There's a helluva lot of former US 395 Alt routes (2 with routings through parts of Nevada that I've never seen any evidence of). Should we notate this somehow? -- LJ ↗ 06:45, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

If we find any routes that we cannot verify through reliable sources, then we should remove them. Dough 48 72 01:17, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Not from an internal completion list, if we have an unreliable source (e.g. http://www.us-highways.com/usban.htm) that we believe. --NE2 10:26, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I've started on a detailed list: User:NE2/auxiliary --NE2 19:52, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Bannered routes of U.S. Route 5 is probably something to be avoided: not enough information to even place the supposed current routes on a map. --NE2 21:23, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

User:NE2/auxiliary now has all current ones I could verify and a smattering of former routes. --NE2 03:08, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Disputing four "bannered" routes of US 66

None of these appear on old official maps. Here are the last pre-redirect versions:

These two had to exist before 1945, when the official map gets a Joplin inset that shows these as US 71 Bus. and US 66 proper. But in 1936 they were US 66 proper and Route W.

The only possibility for these is 1963, when the Springfield inset has some unlabeled routes (though neither goes "south to rejoin Business US 66 at the city square").

Does anyone have sources for them? --NE2 23:10, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

US 12 in Indiana

There is discussion here for whether or not to include this interchange in the junction list, as it's a private interchange for ArcelorMittal. @Traviswa: is concerned that, because it's private, it shouldn't be included lest someone take the junction list at face value and trespass on it but I feel that it should be included just like any other exit, and maybe indicated in the list that it's private. Is there a precedent for this? Including it seems congruent to MOS:RJL's "every grade separated interchange, without exception" rule. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 17:08, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I replied in more detail there, but there is precedent: Baltimore-Washington Parkway includes an NSA-only interchange. --NE2 17:38, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Discussion tangentially touching on road articles and abbreviations

Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Delete inappropriate dab entries? - ongoing dispute

I'm not going to WP:BEANS there, but the mention of Florida State Road 3 on FL 3, for example, is on the MOS enforcers' hit list. --NE2 16:15, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

U.S. Route 25W

Hello! I was wondering why U.S. Route 25W doesn't have its own article? I am willing to create it if you guys here will help me out. --ACase0000 (talk) 15:55, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

WP:BOLD. Just make sure to follow WP:USRD/STDS when writing the article. You may want to check out one of our several FA's for what a model article should look like. Dough 48 72 16:12, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Dough4872!! --ACase0000 (talk) 16:38, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

You're welcome. If you have any questions in writing the article, don't be afraid to ask. Dough 48 72 16:49, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I am going to start the page in my userspace area/sandbox When I get it ready I will post it here. :-) --ACase0000 (talk) 07:31, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Illinois Route 31

Can someone take a look at the most recent edits on the Illinois Route 31 page? I think there may have been some original research and too many personal opinions added by the editor. I copy-edited the page, but I just don't feel right about the content. Thanks. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 03:42, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

That whole Future section needs some work to be cleaned up. I tried a little, but I'll need to approach it after I get an appropriate night's sleep when I can tackle it with a fresher perspective. A lot of what is there needs to be rewritten in a more encyclopedic tone. I agree that there are reasons not to feel right about the content. Imzadi 1979 → 12:26, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Arkansas abbreviation part 2

This is a followup to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Archive 21#Arkansas abbreviation. @Brandonrush: Here's an example from each district of AR or (older) ARK. It's hard to prove a negative, but in my virtual travels around the Pig State I've never seen any sign with Hwy. (which is the more common abbreviation on the AHTD site, so it's probably used internally).

To be clear: I'm proposing a change in abbreviation from "Hwy. X" to "AR X", handled by changing templates and running AWB. --NE2 03:22, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I changed Module:Road data/strings/USA/AR. Is there any central location where these abbreviations are listed (should we add a column to WP:USST)? --NE2 02:21, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I think there was a discussion about abbreviations a few years ago, but IIRC there was more reluctance to edit WP:USST than to add an abbreviation column. –Fredddie ™ 02:31, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

An abbreviation column would be a good thing, and I think that we should discuss harmonizing some of the abbreviations (like use only "US 1" or only "US-1") nationally). Imzadi 1979 → 02:55, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

P.S. I think you both meant WP:USSH, not WP:USST. Imzadi 1979 → 12:30, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I do agree we should add an abbreviation column to USSH so editors know what abbreviations to use for each state. We could standardize the U.S. Route abbreviations to be "US X" but I would be fine leaving it to vary how it is used in each state. Maybe we should also audit each state and make sure we are using the proper abbreviations for state routes. Dough 48 72 15:28, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Let's not argue over spaces vs. dashes in the bikeshed at this time. --NE2 15:46, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

For the record, I found one instance of "AR HWY 41". --NE2 15:46, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Interstate 864

Someone made an Interstate 864 page. Can someone take a look and give it a USRD makeover or delete it? Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 23:32, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

~~The content is available in the history if anyone thinks there's anything salvageable in it (which would require sourcing, of course).~~ However, the content as written was pretty awful, so I've restored the redirect. --Kinu ^t/_c 23:46, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

It's a copy-paste from http://www.kurumi.com/roads/3di/ix64.html. --NE2 23:54, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Seems to be the same person as Special:Contributions/98.244.141.100 (note the "Battle Line Rivalry" overlap). --NE2 23:57, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Good catch (on both counts); I've removed the copy-paste job per WP:REVDEL. --Kinu ^t/_c 00:10, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Bogus redirects to List of Arkansas state highways

As you can see on http://dispenser.homenet.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py?page=List_of_Arkansas_state_highways, there are a bunch of redirects to a nonexistent "State highway spurs" section. (PS: someone cocked up the "Centralized discussion" box up top by adding deletion templates.) --NE2 23:46, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

They just need to be fixed to redirect to #AR0<three-digit route number>, which will link to the correct line of the table. Seems like something an AWB run could fix. –Fredddie ™ 23:49, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Except that there's no place to put details such as history. --NE2 01:23, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Redirects are cheap, not permanent. –Fredddie ™ 01:28, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I-8 on the FA map

Why isn't I-8 on the FA map yet? --Molandfreak (talk, contribs, email) 20:00, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

That map hasn't been updated in over a year, and several other highways are missing from it as well. Have some patience, and when volunteers who handle that can update it, they will. Imzadi 1979 → 21:49, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I could do it; is there a shapefile (.shp) or KML file of the contiguous states with the coastlines trimmed out so that I could at least mimic the original map when making the file? —Mr. Matté (^Talk/_Contrib) 23:21, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I'd use the 20m option and delete off Alaska and Hawaii. –Fredddie ™ 23:27, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Done File:USRD FA map.png Thanks Freddie. —Mr. Matté (^Talk/_Contrib) 01:20, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

First call for newsletter content

I'd like to be able to bring an issue of our newsletter to publication by the end of the month. If you have anything that you'd like to write up for it, please visit WP:USRD/NR. I'm going with a deadline on February 26, but please don't wait until the last minute. Thanks, Imzadi 1979 → 13:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Map database - Pennsylvania

Greetings, all! I just updated the Pennsylvania subsection of the map database with a bunch of new maps I acquired. I converted the list into two tables - split between the PennDOH era and PennDOT era, for the ease of listing PA maps. I added a few notes on PA maps as well.

--hmich176 00:31, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

User:Rschen7754/USRD GA audit list complete

I have finished the GA audit list, and no more routes will be added. If any of your GAs are on this list, please fix the issues soon. Eventually, GARs will take place to resolve the articles that are not fixed. --Rs chen 7754 23:12, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I've already gone ahead and replaced the unreliable source on Washington State Route 221. Sounder Bruce 23:26, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure that a press release would be adequate to source this particular fact - would others be able to weigh in? --Rs chen 7754 23:42, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I would think not. If it's a Guinness World Record, I'd cite Guinness before anything else. –Fredddie ™ 23:44, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Location categories

Why are the location categories being removed from the articles that I put them on? Shouldn't we put categories for the locations that a road travels through? Even if it is just the road-specific ones, why are the transportation ones being removed? Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 12:26, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Replies:

The "Transportation in the Valdosta metropolitan area" category contains four "Transportation in X County, Georgia" categories as sub-categories. Those sub-categories are on the articles in question, so the metro area "parent" category does not belong on the articles too. We have a principle that we use the most specific categories for articles and omit ones that are higher up on the hierarchy. Take a look at WP:SUBCAT for more information.
As a general policy, I've removed any categories related to a geographical area any more specific than the county level from articles. That level of jurisdiction (the county) is sufficient without overwhelming the bottom of the article with hundreds of possible locations on longer articles.
The exception to number 2 is when there is something like Category:Transportation in Grand Rapids, Michigan, or in other words a "Transportation in 'city'" or "Roads in 'city'" category.

It is a balancing act to provide our readers with the appropriate level of detail without overwhelming them with too much information. Imzadi 1979 → 12:38, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Discussion of `{{cite map}}` template conversion

There is a discussion about the {{cite map}} template ongoing at Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 7#cite map. It is likely that the discussion will result in formatting changes (including some improvements and additional flexibility) to the template, which is used in about 18,000 articles. Your feedback, as frequent users of this template, will be welcome and needed if these changes are to be implemented with the least amount of negative side effects.

Please link to this discussion from Talk pages of other projects that use {{cite map}} frequently. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:04, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Please don't reply here, but I thought that I'd give people a heads up on what's been discussed so far.

First off, the template is being converted over to Lua. Other citation templates, like {{cite book}}, are already on Lua so this is a natural progression of things. It will speed up rendering/preview times for our articles, especially those with lots of map citations. In the process, I've suggested some changes, the first of which will result in the biggest formatting change while the others are just tweaks. All of these are designed to improve the template and make it more consistent with other CS1 citations.

The template will no longer put the publisher where the author would go. Instead, it will appear after the place of publication in the middle of the citation between the scale/series/cartography information and the volume/issue/page/inset/section information. This will make map citations consistent with the rest of the CS1 style, and consistent with how major universities suggest maps be cited in APA, MLA or Chicago style. (CS1 is based on APA, btw.) This has been a criticism from others at FAC years ago, and something that should have been changed long ago because the current behavior is quite inconsistent with the rest of the citation template suite. (Editors can always duplicate the name of the publisher into an author parameter to mimic the current behavior.)
When citing a map in an atlas/book, or a map published in a journal, the “(Map).” notation will appear after the title of the map that’s in quotation marks. If it is a citation to a sheet map, that notation will still appear after the italicized title.
The template will be able to cite a wire |agency= (rare) or the contributions of |others= (probably only useful for translated versions of maps).
The template will handle the display of volume/issue/page numbers for journals in addition to volume/page for books. (That hasn’t been done just yet, but is coming.)
The template will also differentiate between a single map section and map sections. For this, we’re tentatively using §, the section mark, which for sections becomes §§. Sections will also follow the inset name to keep things progressing from largest to smallest unit: volume → (issue) → page(s) → inset →section(s).
The |via= parameter will also work so that we can note that a map was accessed via a third-party source, like Google Books.
There are other features that the Lua-converted templates have. There is a |mode=cs2 option to make CS1 templates output like the CS2-style {{citation}}. Additionally, the templates will check if dates are formatted improperly based on the MOS and flag them for correction. The template will also flag if unsupported parameters are added instead of just skipping them.

Everything is just in the sandbox at the moment, and nothing has been implemented. It is just a discussion about updating some parts of the formatting while it's easy to do so in the Lua transition. Changes to the module are only made at regular intervals, so even once the changes are finalized, they won't be implemented immediately. Imzadi 1979 → 18:01, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Montana secondaries

Seems like we're starting a collection of these, so we'd probably better have this discussion sooner rather than later. Are these really important enough to have articles? If not, what can we do about them? An RCS-style list like we're doing with Texas FMs is appealing—any reason why we shouldn't follow that model? —Scott5114 ↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 10:27, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I would lean to the routelist model simply because by and large, there isn't any content to put into the RCS list. If there is content in the future, we can go the RCS route. –Fredddie ™ 12:14, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

We have sources for history, so a table with no room for history would be silly. --NE2 15:06, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I say if we have history sources, we RCS them. T C N7JM 16:06, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with the RCS idea. However, if we went the table route, we have another option. For the sake of argument, we have two highways. S-1 and S-2. S-1 has a lot of history that would be lost if we collapsed it to just a row in a table. On the other hand, S-2 does not. So instead of merging S-1 someplace, we leave it as a separate article. The S-1 row in the table then has a wikilink to that article. For S-2, we totally collapse it into the table without a wikilink, including whatever we need to add in the notes column for that row. Then the S-2 article title is redirected to point directly to the S-2 row in the table.

I've done something similar with a few of the highways on the List of state trunklines in Michigan; they're unlinked and the redirects point to the specific rows of the table. Imzadi 1979 → 17:14, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I definitely think we should do a RCS list for the Montana secondary routes as these routes are notable enough for coverage but probably not notable enough for individual articles in most cases. However, if a certain route has enough to say about it, it can be split into a separate article. Dough 48 72 20:56, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I would agree with that as well (as for any other secondary state highways), though I wasn't aware that there were that many articles for Montana secondary state highways to where this was becoming a problem. --Rs chen 7754 02:00, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Hm, 11 articles... not too out of control now, but probably best to create the RCS before we have 110 of these. --Rs chen 7754 03:09, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

There were only two articles when 2015 started. –Fredddie ™ 03:10, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

That's the thing I'm concerned with. We have so few articles that we'd be creating a lot more content than we'd be merging. If we RCS'd them, we'd just have a dozen or so articles we'd be merging into the lists; the rest of the content would have yet to be written. I don't think writing RCS blurbs for a bunch of Montana secondaries is a high priority for the project right now, so this isn't something I think a lot of work should go into at the moment. Could we perhaps leave the lists incomplete so that the articles are gone before the problem multiplies but we can still focus on higher priorities? T C N7JM 16:28, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Since there seems to be broad consensus for this, I went ahead and merged what we've got to List of Montana Secondary Highways. Could probably use some minor cleanup to remove overlinks, etc. In the future if we keep getting them we can split this page into hundred ranges like we've got the FMs set up with. —Scott5114 ↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 22:12, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Looks like Imzadi took care of that. Some of the old articles had KMLs, though, and I'm not sure how to transfer those. —Scott5114 ↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 22:20, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't know how to deal with the KMLs either, but I was wondering if the RJLs should have been merged in as well. Other RCS-style lists have them, so it would be appropriate for that one to include them too. Imzadi 1979 → 22:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

KML file (edit • help)

Template:Attached KML/Montana Secondary Highway 323

KML is not from Wikidata

Can't you just link the KMLs with the from= field, like so? (Would it be feasible to add this into the mini-infobox?) --NE2 23:16, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I generally don't merge the RJLs because they take up a lot of room (drawing away from the compactness of each entry) and often don't include any junctions but the termini in situations in where an article is being merged to this sort of list. (If a route is long enough that an RJL would contain useful information, usually it will be left out of such a merge.) In this case, the RJLs were particularly useless because they were providing mileage to local roads that nobody outside of Kalispell would have ever heard of. —Scott5114 ↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 20:33, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to Scott and Imzadi for taking care of this. --Rs chen 7754 02:52, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

RCS guidelines

It may not be a bad idea to hammer out some guidelines while we're on the subject of RCS. –Fredddie ™ 22:52, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

KMLs - whatever we decide above.
Each route should be the same level heading. There are some FM routes that have reused numbers, so long as they're not directly related, they should have their own 2nd level heading.
No RJLs?
The location should be general, not specific. In the FM lists, we're listing counties. For short spur routes into towns, we should just list the town.

If you have more ideas for guidelines, please add them. –Fredddie ™ 23:11, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually, not all of the IRSs list counties. Some of them that go through a bunch of counties just list a general region of the state. Should we continue to do that? If so, should there be a specific breaking point at which we list the region instead of a list of counties? T C N7JM 23:18, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Here is my opinion for RCS lists. We should do KMLs for each route and have them into one file. Each route should have one header of the same level. The RCS should include RJLs in order to provide for the completeness of having the big three that would be in a full article, though there should be no route description or history headers and the major intersections header should not be a third level subheader (see Interstate 196#Business routes for what the header should look like). Regarding the location in the mini-infobox, we should use the termini cities or the county or counties for longer routes or the single town or city that a shorter route serves. These policies should apply for both standalone RCS lists and for RCS style coverage of roads (think bannered routes) in an individual road article. Dough 48 72 01:44, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

What's the point of even doing RCS if each section is complete enough to be its own article? –Fredddie ™ 01:59, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Some short or unimportant roads may not have enough descriptive information or history and a relatively short major intersections table to sustain a separate article but can simply be covered in one or two paragraphs in a RCS list with that information with the major intersections table below it. If the route's only major intersections are its termini we can possibly omit the table. Dough 48 72 03:52, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

I am in favor of a composite KML for all routes in an RCS list, similar to the one in List of state highways in Maryland shorter than one mile (700–799).
I agree with each route having an H2 heading. If there have been multiple instances of the same number, the header can differentiate by years.
No RJLs in RCS lists. No RJLs for RCS coverage of bannered routes in an individual route article. If the route was significant enough to warrant an RJL, it is significant enough to have its own article.
The location or locations in the small infobox should be specific and include both endpoints if the route passes through or near more than one location. If a route starts or ends in the middle of nowhere, then use the county.
If the only information we have about a route is the information that appears in a routelist, then I think it should not even have an RCS entry, but how reasonable that is depends on the scheme we use for a particular set of routes. V C 03:05, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

There may be reasons to include a RJL for some (not all) entries, but I'd have to think about this more. --Rs chen 7754 03:40, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

My thoughts:

No RJLs
I'm not really sure how I want locations to work yet. It seems no matter what we do with them, there will be some inconsistencies, so I will take a look at opinions others provide.
Each route should get its own independent KML file, which should go at the bottom of {{infobox road small}}, assuming that works. @Scott5114: suggested this idea elsewhere earlier today, and I really like it.
Each route should get its own Level 2 heading, which should be the abbreviated version of the route. I'd assume the infobox in the lead would use the abbreviation first, so we could do this. For designations used more than once, the header for the former route should include, in parentheses, the year the route was first designated. The header for the current route should have no parentheses.

</thoughts> T C N7JM 04:39, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually, another thought while it's on my mind. What should we do with the TOC? The vertical one looks really bad on long lists like the FM list Fredddie and I were working on. Should we switch to a horizontal one or just dump it entirely? T C N7JM 04:43, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Dump the TOC. V C 05:05, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

RJLs in RCSs

How about a couple of brief principles on whether or not a RJL should be included in a section of a RCS list?

Termini-only RJLs are usually omitted.
1. If most of the sections have RJLs as a result of point #2, then termini-only RJLs may be added so that the RCS list doesn't look like we've only done an incomplete job of curating the content.
RJLs with other junctions, especially those involving intersections with higher classifications of highway, may be included.
1. If the resulting section has enough content that it could be polished up and taken to WP:GAN, then the section should be a summary of a separate article . In that case, the heading would have a {{main}} tag, and no RJL would be used.

The general practice will be to omit the RJLs, but in some situations a case can be made to include one. Imzadi 1979 → 20:12, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I think I like this idea. It omits the most meaningless RJLs while still including RJLs that aren't as meaningless, but aren't so long that they look like eyesores in the lists, which consist of mostly prose. If the longest RJLs get their own articles, I don't think we should have a problem here. T C N7JM 20:15, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I have discussed this with Imzadi1979 on IRC before and have gone along with the idea to include RJLs in RCS lists unless they are termini-only and to include termini-only RJLs if they are in a grouping that has other ones with multiple junctions. I can support this idea. Dough 48 72 01:40, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I need to be convinced that we need RJLs in RCS entries at all. Can you all provide me with some examples where this is a good idea and why it is a good idea? The principles above suggest RJLs would be common in RCS lists, which I totally disagree with. V C 19:56, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

From what I understand, the RCS is meant to be a condensed version of what you'd find in a standalone USRD article, and you'd find an RJL in a USRD article. My original concern was that the longer ones would be aesthetically unpleasant, but if most of the longer ones get their own articles, I'd be fine with it. Why do you think RJLs should be absent from RCS lists? T C N7JM 20:03, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

My main concern is the space it takes up and how it greatly unbalances each RCS entry. A three-intersection RJL takes up five table rows (including the header and footer rows). Table rows have almost twice as much vertical space as an ordinary line of text. In most cases, the table will take up more space than the prose preceding it. This for a table that shows information that can be explained more concisely in the prose. The only information from a table that is not included in the prose is the distance; does anyone really need to know that a Farm to Market Road's only intermediate intersection is 4.691 miles from its start? If the purpose of an RCS list is to display information about a set of routes concisely, having an RJL defeats that purpose. V C 21:55, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

The only purpose of an RCS list is to keep the deletionists at bay. --NE2 22:04, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

PS: if you need examples, Farm to Market Road 390 and Virginia State Route 59 (1940-1949). --NE2 22:06, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

List of numbered roads in Indiana

I feel this should be moved to something else because it's not a list, but not sure what it should be moved to... --Rs chen 7754 05:41, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Also List of numbered highways in Kentucky --Rs chen 7754 05:46, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Per WP:BOLD, I moved both articles by dropping the "List of" for now. They can be moved again once the official title of the system is found. In all reality, we should go through and find the official title for all state highway systems so we should know what the overview articles should be titled. Dough 48 72 05:54, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

There's probably more where that came from, as I'm finding at d:User:Rschen7754/Michigan Plan. --Rs chen 7754 05:56, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I have been planning to work on List of numbered highways in Pennsylvania, which I will move upon finding the name (I'm looking for it right now; if I can't find it, I'll drop the "List of" part of the title). I plan to do some editing on List of State Routes in Pennsylvania as well as creating an article for the Sproul Road Bill, which currently redirects to the state routes list. --hmich176 10:10, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

@Dough4872: Just a thought...I don't know if we can move the title of these articles to the official title of the system, because the Numbered roads in x state articles currently includes the Interstate Highway System and the US Numbered Highway System in the article. We would have to remove those two systems if we move the title to the official name of the state route system. Also, I can't find an official title for the Pennsylvania state routes system. The closest I've seen, so far, is "State Owned, PennDOT Owned Highway System." --hmich176 11:04, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, who's to say there is an "official title" for the system? --NE2 11:06, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Based on your findings for PA, maybe just come with something close like Pennsylvania State Highway System or Pennsylvania Highway System. Maybe it would be better to standardize all the titles for the overview articles to "Numbered roads in state", for example Michigan State Trunkline Highway System would be moved to Numbered roads in Michigan. Dough 48 72 13:23, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

That would be Pennsylvania state highway system. --NE2 14:13, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The problem with moving Michigan State Trunkline Highway System to Numbered roads in Michigan is that the former generally excludes county roads and forest highways, and totally excludes the various mile road systems. Yes, the article does mention them to put them in context with the state highway system, but overall it treats them as separate topics. Such a name change would involve a major change in the scope of the article with a lot of messy work for no real benefit as the state highway system forms its own natural topic and already has enough content to fill an article.

That isn't to say we couldn't create a "Numbered roads in Michigan" stub or set index page that serves as a quick location to point readers to the article on the state highway system, the article on the county-designated highways, any lists that might be one day created on individual county road systems or a list of the forest highways in Michigan, but that page isn't the article on the state highway system.

As for the issue hmich176 mentions, we actually have to fall back to WP:COMMONNAME on those two national systems. Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways is already a redirect to the article which is already titled with the shorter, and more common name. United States Numbered Highway System would be a slightly better article title over United States Numbered Highways, if only to get the word "system" into the title, and it currently is a redirect as well.

I don't see anything wrong with using "<State> State Highway System" for a default article title except in cases like Michigan there an official name only slightly expands that general title. In "route states", if the state legislature used "<State> State Route System" as the title in the law, that's another good option, with the same caveat. It's also worth noting that in Michigan's case, the name "Michigan" is not part of the official name, but the article title has it on the same principle behind the WP:USSH naming convention for individual highway titles. Imzadi 1979 → 14:18, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I can go along with using "Statename State Route/Road/Highway System" as the article title for the overview articles as it is more formal looking and implies only numbered state, US, and Interstate routes that are generally state-maintained are covered as part of the system and not numbered county, township, or forest routes. Dough 48 72 01:35, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

I've continued looking into this and I found this on a reference in one of the PA-related articles. This is a fact sheet about the Location Reference System which PennDOT has used since 1987. It defines that there are four hierarchies within the State Route system - the fourth being quadrant routes. Also, based on that document, I believe the best name for the Pennsylvania article would be Pennsylvania State Route System, rather than Pennsylvania state highway system. If we were to ignore the quadrant routes for the article, then the best name for the article would be Pennsylvania Traffic Routes System, because the Traffic Routes System only includes the top three in the hierarchy. --hmich176 02:48, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Regarding that, I would prefer Pennsylvania State Route System to be the title of the system article and it can emcompass all four hierarchies of road generally maintained by PennDOT. The "traffic routes" (Interstate, US, signed state routes) have individual articles while the quadrant routes are covered in lists by-county much like county routes are. Dough 48 72 03:35, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. I figured I would toss that out there as an option. I'm going to be bold and move the page to Pennsylvania State Route System. --hmich176 14:43, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to throw my two cents at this. I think "<state> State Highway System" (always Highway, never Road or Route) is the best nomenclature in general. That is, unless the state has a specific name for the system (such as Iowa Primary Highway System, Michigan State Trunkline Highway System, or Wisconsin State Trunk Highway System). As for Pennsylvania, I think it should be Pennsylvania Traffic Route System because it limits the scope of the article to the top three levels. That does not preclude us from including something on the quadrant routes and below in the article, but it would limit us from going in depth; a {{Main}} link and a paragraph would be sufficient. I have done something like that in the Iowa article, where there is a section for secondary highways, even though the scope is primary highways. –Fredddie ™ 01:54, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Give that there should be an article on quadrant routes in general, a {{main}} tag with a summary in the article is quite appropriate. Just as the article on Michigan's state highway system doesn't need to cover the Pure Michigan Byways in depth, and the PA article can let another article handle the QRs. Imzadi 1979 → 02:00, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I see no reason why the quadrant routes cannot be covered in a section in the Pennsylvania State Route System article as they are state-maintained much like the "traffic routes" below 1000. Also, I should note that the traffic routes are still state routes and have the same "SR X" little white signs as the quadrant routes. "Pennsylvania Traffic Route System" does not sound like a good title because it cherry-picks the quadrant routes out from the other state routes and also the state routes are seldom referred to as traffic routes by the general public. We do have {{Pennsylvania Quadrant Routes}} which groups the lists by counties, which largely still needs to be completed for all 67 counties. Dough 48 72 02:45, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I was going to create sections about each class within the Location Referencing System, and discuss the history of the Pennsylvania State Route System in greater detail. I honestly don't see how there would be substantial detail about quadrant routes...a few paragraphs at most is what I was envisioning. --hmich176 09:45, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

NHS, again

Has the NHS URL changed? --Rs chen 7754 17:21, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

It goes down every once in a while. Thanks, Obama! --NE2 17:30, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

The new link is http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/national_highway_system/ instead of http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/nhs/ . The site is temporarily down it seems, but yes, the URL changed a while ago, Rschen7754. Imzadi 1979 → 17:46, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

KML announcement / call for help

I am happy to announce that the addition of KMLs to all USRD B-Class articles, a project I started last year, is nearly complete. As such, I politely request that if an article is improved to B-Class, a KML is added to it as quickly as possible.

The one B-Class KML remaining is a doozy: U.S. Route 66 in Illinois. There isn't really one specific routing; the route was modified a whole bunch while it still existed. Along with that, the road that US 66 used to follow no longer exists or is closed in some cases, so it's not really something you can find on a map anymore. Do you guys have any suggestions on how this KML should be tackled? Thanks. T C N7JM 20:32, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Ouch. In addition to the actual realignments, there are the routes that are now signed as Historic 66, some of which were never actually 66. The latter are probably on OSM. I could probably help with the former (if someone does the grunt work I can check it over and add any missing realignments I can locate). --NE2 20:54, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

There was a discussion of what year to choose for a Route description for US 66 a while back. First, you need to decide on a year to base the routing on; I think the consensus or likely consensus was 1956 or as close to that year as possible. The next step is to figure out a way of tracing the 1956 route. There is a way to overlay USGS maps in Google Earth, but I am unable to get it to work at the moment. You could trace the maps circa 1956 for the KML. V C 01:56, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I'll do it from IDOT GIS data. One thing I just noticed: most of old US 66 in IL is still state maintained! --NE2 04:11, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

KML file (edit • help)

Template:Attached KML/U.S. Route 66 in Illinois

KML is not from Wikidata

Well, fuck. I made the KML, but the Goog will no longer overlay it, and Bing separates multipart lines (for example the spur to the Chain of Rocks Bridge). I have no idea how to fix multipart lines (i.e. the coordinates run from B to C, then A to B). --NE2 23:13, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, Google started giving me a redirect loop last night. @Fredddie: You fixed this once. Care to give it another shot? T C N7JM 23:22, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I manually fixed the multipart lines. That was really annoying, but now it works on Bing. The Goog of course no longer works, but that's congress. --NE2 01:48, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Wonderful. Thanks for taking care of this one. T C N7JM 17:25, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Pennsylvania quadrant routes

I feel like now is a good time to bring these up in more detail considering we've recently been discussing what to do with roads of questionable note in Montana and Texas. I was patrolling recent changes a little while ago and found that List of quadrant routes in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, was created. I talked to User:Mitchazenia about it on IRC and he told me that quite a few of these lists exist.

I'm not sure we've ever had a discussion on these (if we have, please direct me there), but I wonder what should be done with the Pennsylvania quadrant routes. Pretty much the only ones that are...actually routes are the 1000s-4000s, which are all that most of the lists that existed before today (with one exception) cover. Even then, some of these route designations are nothing more than overpasses or bridges. After the 4000s, the notability gets even more questionable. All of the 8000s are interchanges, and the 9000s consist of, among other things, rest areas and truck escape ramps.

Personally, I'm not sure these routes deserve to be covered in lists. A lot of the routes wouldn't even make sense to include in a routelist, much less an RCS-style list like we're doing with the FM/RM roads in Texas. I think an article on the system might be enough. What say you guys? T C N7JM 21:30, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

There's at least a bit of history available for each route if you're willing to look through old maps for the legislative route number and then find when it was added by state law. (I agree with you that 8000+ should not be listed.) PS: @Jmpenzone: the correct abbreviation is SR X, not QR X. --NE2 22:15, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I think the quadrant routes can be covered in the routelist templates in lists by county much like county routes are intended to be. Most quadrant routes do not have enough information or notability for a standalone article or RCS list, and those that do may retain separate articles (such as State Route 1002 (Lehigh County, Pennsylvania)). However, we should not completely neglect coverage of them as the quadrant routes are state-maintained and part of a numbered highway system. Think of it as a secondary state route system. Regarding the issue about quadrant routes that are extremely short, such as the one solely consisting of bridges, rest areas, or truck escape ramps, the length and function should not prevent them from being included in lists, as Maryland has similar scenarios of extremely short routes that are covered in RCS format in the <1 mile list, such as Maryland Route 991, which consists solely of a drawbridge. Dough 48 72 23:47, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

They're not even strictly a secondary system. Until 1987, everything had a legislative number, with traffic routes also receiving a (different) signed number. (Oregon is the only state that still does something like this.) In 1987, the traffic routes retained their signed numbers, while the other legislative routes got four-digit numbers by quadrant. As far as I know, the quadrant routes do not receive less funding (like secondary routes in e.g. Virginia do) than similar minor traffic routes. --NE2 00:53, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Maryland is a poor analogy for the Pennsylvania quadrant routes. Even those really short routes like MD 991 are all part of the state primary highway system. Better examples for comparison are the secondary highways in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. V C 01:48, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The quadrant routes are effectively a secondary route numbering system that have the same maintenance and funding as the primary traffic routes. Therefore, the list option is the best because not covering them at all creates a gap in our coverage as state roads are notable enough for coverage but individual articles are unneeded for most quadrant routes because they are secondary to the traffic routes and there is generally little to say about them. For the record, I know Maryland is different in that all MDSHA roads are in the primary system whether they are a long intercounty route or a short service road or bridge. The point of mentioning Maryland was to show that short state roads should not be dropped from our coverage due to their length. Regarding Pennsylvania, the short quadrant routes that consist of a bridge or are designated for rest area roads or truck escape ramps would most certainly not get their own article and would be relegated to coverage in the list. But omitting state roads from the list coverage would leave a gap in our coverage, regardless of length. Dough 48 72 02:06, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

@NE2 – Technically doesn't NY's system of using the internal numbers still count as a system of legislative routes? As for the quadrant route issue. I love Quadrant Routes as much as the next roadgeek (and people used to think I made up the word...) but do we seriously need 67 lists on routes that PennDOT's actually been reducing to bridges in many areas? The most coverage they deserve is in the former traffic routes. Mitch32^{(I have seen great intolerance shown in support of tolerance)} 23:59, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

No, since New York's state highway numbers are more like inventory numbers for short pieces of highway. Pennsylvania's legislative routes could have been marked instead of the traffic routes and formed a reasonable though flawed system. New York's state highway numbers would not make sense as touring routes. --NE2 00:05, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

To be fair, they are legislative routes, as the state law references roads by that. Mitch32^{(I have seen great intolerance shown in support of tolerance)} 00:07, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

That's not a valid argument; many states pass laws referring to individual state highways by number. Stop nitpicking my nitpicking. --NE2 00:35, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

All I asked was whether or not they are still a system and just confirming based on what I know. I gave my argument to the discussion in question earlier.Mitch32^{(I have seen great intolerance shown in support of tolerance)} 01:48, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I think this needs to be clarified...quadrant routes are not all State Routes 1001-9499; quadrant routes are classified only as the routes numbered 1001-4999. PennDOT's hierarchy is 1) Interstates, 2) US Routes, 3) PA Routes, 4) Quadrant Routes. This specifically excludes the bottom seven classes, because they are all inventory classes. This is why you don't see them on a map such as this. SRs above 4999 should not be included on a list of quadrant routes. --hmich176 10:51, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I can possibly go with excluding the 8000 and 9000 routes that consist of interchange ramps, rest areas, and truck escape ramps. However, we should probably include the 6000 routes as they consist of former alignments of traffic routes that were relocated. For example SR 6100 and SR 6222 in Lehigh County consist of the former alignments of PA 100 and US 222 respectively through Trexlertown. Therefore, I say the lists include the QRs from 1000 to 4999 and the relocated traffic routes in the 6000s. Dough 48 72 15:47, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

They should be titled 'list of state routes', with links to the traffic routes. --NE2 15:57, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm onboard with including the 6000s. I'll work on the Dauphin County list. --hmich176 20:47, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

@Hmich176: You can use the {{routelist row}} series of templates to generate the tables. Dough 48 72 01:34, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Not if there's history and such to add. --NE2 01:49, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Another note, you should probably indicate the local names of the quadrant routes. Dough 48 72 02:08, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

@Dough4872: I plan to use the {{routelist row}} templates. I'm creating a draft page and then I'll transfer it over when it's complete. It'll be a complete overhaul with local road names and such. If there is history and such to add, I would suggest creating an article for the route. --hmich176 07:30, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Can I suggest that we just not make lists of quadrant routes? There are 67 counties in Pennsylvania, which means there will be 67 lists of quadrant routes. It seems like an awful lot of work for such minor, minor roads. New York's coverage of county roads is probably the best example of similarly wasted energies that I see, but I think even then PA's quadrant routes would dwarf NY county roads. I still think the best course of action is a paragraph or two on the state highway system article and calling it good. –Fredddie ™ 11:59, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

As someone who drives on quadrant routes daily, there seems little purpose to list them. Almost all are non-notable. Even long ones are back roads in rural (sometimes unpopulated) areas that have fewer than a dozen cars a day. Granted, in suburban Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Scranton, etc., some may be through streets, but not many. Also, in a number of counties, the routes have not even been named yet. What information would you put about them? (e.g., SR 1001 – Wyoming: 8.6 miles, Tunkhannock and Lemon Twps, runs from US 6 to Lake Carey.) Can you imagine a list of thousands of such minor roads? → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 12:29, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with both Fredddie and Michael J and feel that we at least should cover quadrant routes and relocated traffic routes in routelist lists as they are state-maintained roads and are part of a numbering system. I do not think they deserve RCS coverage or individual articles in most cases as there is generally little to say about them. However, there is nothing wrong with creating 67 routelists and calling it a day. Dough 48 72 15:02, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

A great place to talk about relocated traffic routes is on the traffic route's article, specifically the history section. Seriously though, an article that explains the system with selected examples and a summary paragraph in the state highway system article is all we need. –Fredddie ™ 23:17, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

If we can have by-county lists on CRs like we do in NJ and NY and can have RCS coverage for the FM's in TX, then I do not see a reason why the quadrant routes in PA can't be covered in a list format as the serve the same function as a secondary route numbering system. Not covering them at all leaves a gap in our coverage of state highways. Dough 48 72 00:21, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

One question: Are there enough secondary sources to create a list, if we decide to do so? There is a list of the named quadrant routes in PennDOT District 4-0 here. (Not all of the districts have created such a list.) But this would be a primary source, true? → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 00:44, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Most of the verifiability would come from PennDOT, which is a primary source. However, some of the more notable quadrant routes may be covered in secondary sources, mainly by their road name. As mentioned above, the more notable quadrant routes with much to say about them may retain separate articles. However, this should not preclude the quadrant routes and relocated traffic routes from being covered in a simple routelist table format. As for interchange ramps, rest area roads, and truck escape ramps which are assigned numbers by PennDOT, we do not need to include those in the lists as they have little individual significance besides a contribution to a more notable road. Dough 48 72 01:11, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

OK, I see. Well, there you have the lists for six of the 67 counties! → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 01:33, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Well I see no problem with creating lists for all 67 counties, as we should not cherry-pick out the counties with more important QRs based mainly on being more urbanized. If FL, NJ, and NY can have CR lists by county and have no problem brought up then there should be no reason why PA can't have quadrant route lists by county as the QRs in PA are of similar importance as the CRs in the other three states. Dough 48 72 01:38, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

@Michael J: PennDOT has produced a straight line diagram which indexes all SRs within a county (I linked an example). Lists do exist for all 67 counties. --hmich176 10:23, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

@Hmich176: The PennDOT Type 10 county maps can also provide information about the names of the SRs. → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 22:11, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

@Michael J: Yes, those do, but pages two and/or three (depending on the number of routes in each county) of each county's PDF lists them in order, which is much easier for research purposes. Much like the SLD list, Type 10 county maps show all SRs including the 8000 and 9000 inventory types of SRs. Type 3 (which I link to earlier in the discussion) county maps only show SRs 0001-4999 and 6001-6999 (SRs which replaced routes which were moved to a different road). In terms of which map would be better for our uses - the Type 3 maps are better in our case - it does not display the SR classes which are inventory classes. --hmich176 02:40, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

@Hmich176: what I'm trying to avoid is a situation where you get burned out while completing one list and the other 66 lists either aren't created or are half-assed by someone else. –Fredddie ™ 03:06, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Currently, 19 of the 67 quadrant route lists are made. The Dauphin County list is being redone to serve as a model of what the other 66 lists should look like. Over time, the other 18 existing lists will be redone while the remaining 48 lists will be created using the standard set forth by Dauphin County. Remember WP:DEADLINE, these lists will be created/improved but there is no dire rush to get it done. I am willing to spend time working on these lists. But I feel that someday all 67 lists should be made using the standard being applied for Dauphin County. Dough 48 72 04:13, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Where can the existing lists be found, @Dough4872:? In case I want to work on them or create additional ones? → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 02:31, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

{{Pennsylvania Quadrant Routes}} has links to the existing lists along with the ones that need to be created. Dough 48 72 02:33, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

If you're interested in adding pre-1987 legislative route numbers, [3] has every county except Philly. --NE2 03:29, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

@NE2: These PennDOT county PDF documents are county lists of each LRS segment of SRs and what their corresponding former LR numbers were. --hmich176 07:03, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Whoa, that's new. Thanks. (And holy crap, it even has a lot of the legislative history.) --NE2 07:31, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok, well since I live in Wyoming County and that list does not yet exist, I will work on that one (if no one objects). Maybe not immediately today, but starting sometime this week. I will do it in my workspace first, then move it when it has enough, → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 12:40, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

There are a few who would still object, yes. I am one of them. That said, I'd still like to get a consensus on what to do with the lists and – if the consensus is to do them – how to do them. If you are to do that list, it'd be beneficial to wait until we get everything worked out first. T C N7JM 19:00, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I think the model hmich176 is using for the Dauphin County list should probably set the model for what the other 66 counties should look like. Dough 48 72 00:10, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, @TCN7JM: It does no harm for me to work on a list for a certain county, using an existing one as a model. It will stay in my userspace until it is ready. → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 00:51, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

And that's fine. I am just warning you that if we find a different way of doing them is better, you would have to modify the list to fit that instead. T C N7JM 00:54, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I added history to List of quadrant routes in Adams County, Pennsylvania to show how it can be done. --NE2 02:07, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Here is a list I created in my userspace. This is a list for Montour County I made this evening. It's fairly barebones at this point, but it has the termini, length and local names of the SRs for routes 1001-4999. For SR 1002, I also included Legislative Route history, to show how I'd include the history. However, I don't know that it's necessary to provide that level of history - I think it gets into indiscriminate territory. I'll leave that up to whatever consenus decides, but I'm not a fan of the look of the table. --hmich176 01:02, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't think you understand what indiscriminate means...

Also: I see several issues with the table, probably partly caused by the reliance on templates:

The majority of routes were created in 1987, so the 'formed' column is rather useless. The creation date would fit better in notes for the few routes created after 1987.

What's the point of making it sortable if it's split by quadrant?

"Turned back to municipality" is not very useful - these routes did have names and termini.

Presumably the skipped numbers (e.g. 1001, 2004) existed - does the 1990 map show them? --NE2 02:40, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

"Montour County has the fewest state routes of all 67 counties in Pennsylvania" blatantly needs a reference.

--NE2 02:40, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I think the model for Montour County using the templates works, however I do agree with a couple of the nitpicks by NE2. The former routes should not be identified as simply "Turned back to municipality" except in the notes; the other columns should list the termini and local road names. Also, any skipped numbers that were former routes should be added. Dough 48 72 02:56, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

@Dough4872: I agree; I started working on a separate section that has a wikitable format instead of the templates. The appropriate information will be plugged in as the information is found. Unfortunately, PennDOT didn't include context where these nullified SRs had been, except for the township it was in.

@NE2: Would you be able to review the sheet you linked to? Unfortunately, I will not have the best availability to research that in further detail for the balance of the next two weeks. If you could list former SRs that should be plugged in, I'd appreciate that. I did look at that map several months ago, and from what I recall, at least SR 1001 and SR 2004 had not existed in 1990. Many thanks. --hmich176 00:20, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Historical maps should be used to find where the nullified SRs were. Dough 48 72 00:40, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

I compiled a list at User talk:Hmich176/Pennsylvania State Route System/List of State Routes in Montour County, Pennsylvania. I also couldn't find 1001, 2004, 2015, or 2018, though I have an educated guess for 2015. --NE2 03:39, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

PS: Montour has far from the fewest. Check out Cameron. --NE2 11:11, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Straw poll

What do you think should be done with Pennsylvania quadrant routes?

No lists at all

T C N7JM
–Fredddie ™
V C
Imzadi 1979 →
67 lists are too many on really inconsequential roads. Former routes can do the job.Mitch32^{(I have seen great intolerance shown in support of tolerance)} 23:19, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
67 is too many? Or are you saying we should list them using their former legislative numbers? --NE2 00:54, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
I meant kept to coverage in the former state road designations. Mitch32^{(I have seen great intolerance shown in support of tolerance)} 01:13, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
They're all current state routes... --NE2 18:15, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ (EDIT) I'm just saying I don't believe the list is necessary based on notability. However, it still could be useful.

Lists with routelist templates

Weakly. --Rs chen 7754 17:45, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
Or without templates. --NE2 18:50, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
Dough 48 72 19:33, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
Unless precedence changes (requiring a discussion on a national level), I support there being SR lists by PA county, as there are CR lists by NJ county or FL county. The lists should be made with or without the routelist template. --hmich176 10:23, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Rockland County Scenario lists

...

Unsure

Either routelist or RCS. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 21:22, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to get a gauge on what we want to do here, then move forward, rather than just have a lot of unfocused discussion which will probably end up leading to nothing. T C N7JM 17:33, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Category clarification

For Interstates and U.S. Highways with state-detail articles, are both the national article and S-D article supposed to be in the "Interstate/U.S. Highways in <state>" categories? –Fredddie ™ 17:35, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

If a state-detail article exists for a given state, the state detail page only and not the national page should be in the category. If there is no state-detail page, then the national page should be in the category. Dough 48 72 17:45, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Dough here. This is similar to how we tag national articles that have/don't have state-detail articles for certain states (for example, U.S. Route 30 is tagged for Idaho, Wyoming and West Virginia because those are the only states for which it doesn't have a state-detail article). T C N7JM 23:24, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I mostly agree, but where the national article should have a state-detail subarticle, I would put the state category (and any other categories) on the redirect rather than the parent national article. Then when the redirect is expanded into an article, the categories are already present. Imzadi 1979 → 03:17, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

OK, there is agreement among us that the state-detail articles should have the categories. So, what categories does that leave for the national articles? We don't like adding the states to the banner and we don't like adding the state categories. I'm really starting to wonder if we shouldn't just turn all the national articles into dabs. –Fredddie ™ 04:22, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

The national articles would still have Category:U.S. Highway System or Category:Interstate Highway System along with the category for the individual route (if there are enough items for an individual category). As mentioned above, Interstate and U.S. Routes without national articles would retain the by-state categories. Despite this, I still see the purpose for national articles for all Interstates and U.S. Routes as they can provide a summary of the entire length of the highway, with the state-detail articles providing more in-depth coverage, and most users may be simply searching for Interstate 95 and just want the basic information about the highway overall, with the option to delve into more detail through the state-detail articles. Dough4872 04:39, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't think that's a fair assessment. The national articles should be summaries of the sub-articles, where there are sub-articles.

We really have two cases. For something like U.S. Route 8, where there are not sub-articles, and won't be, that article should have all of the categories that are appropriate, "U.S. Highways in <state>" and "Transportation in <county> County, <state>" included. For something like U.S. Route 23, it should have Category:U.S. Route 23, and Category:U.S. Highway System (falls under the eponymous exception in WP:SUBCAT) plus things like Category:Dixie Highway that are appropriate. Imzadi 1979 → 04:45, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Map citation templates

This past Saturday, {{cite map}} was transitioned over to Lua. In the transition, some formatting changes were made to how the template outputs information. A few worth highlighting:

The template no longer conflates the name of the publisher as the author. If no |author= is defined, the output with start with the title of the map, and the |publisher= will be listed in the middle of the citation in a more standard location, preceded by |location=<place of publication> if defined.
The word section before the map grid section location has been abbreviated with the section symbol, §. If an editor uses |sections=, the value will be preceded by §§, which is the standard abbreviation for sections.
The template falls into the Citation Style 1 (CS1) family; {{citation}} is the template for CS2. By adding |mode=cs2 to any CS1 template using Lua (which is basically all of them now), the output will look like CS2. Templates like {{Google maps}} should be updated to pass through |mode= to ensure maximum compatibility in articles.
If a map is hosted on a different website from that of its publisher, we can now add |via= to indicate the name of the republisher, whether that's Google Books, Wikimedia Commons or someone else.

Maps have authors, so one should be listed in a complete citation. In a lot of cases, it's actually the same as the publishing company, so |author=Rand McNally and |publisher=Rand McNally would be a correct situation. If it's an official state road map, the first author would be the state agency, but the map could have a second author if Rand McNally, H.M. Gousha or another company did cartography work for the state. This really means that the |cartography= parameter is not necessary in most cases because we can list as many authors as necessary, separate from the name of the publisher.

Map citations should also be updated to use |sections= so that §§ will precede the section numbers. Imzadi 1979 → 08:21, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

State- or source-specific templates available

Bing
- {{Bing maps}}
Delaware
- {{Delaware road map}} for road maps from DelDOT its predecessors
Google
- {{Google maps}}
Illinois
- {{Illinois road map}} for road maps from various Illinois state departments
Indiana
- {{INDOT map}} for ISHC/INDOT road maps
- {{INDOT ref}} for other references, including some maps
Iowa
- {{Cite IowaDOT map}} for road maps from Iowa DOT is predecessors
Maryland
- {{Maryland road map}} for MGS/MSRC/MdSHA road maps
Michigan
- {{cite MDOT map}} for the MSHD/MDSH/MDSHT/MDOT road maps
- {{cite MDOT PRFA}} for MDOT's Physical Reference Finder Application
Mississippi
- {{Mississippi road map}} for MSHD/MSHC/MDOT road maps
Missouri
- {{MoDOT Flex}} for MoDOT's Flex Map Viewer
Ohio
- {{Ohio road map}} for OSHD/ODOHPW/ODOH/ODOT road maps
Oklahoma
- {{Odot control}} for ODOT control section maps
Texas
- {{Texas Mapbook ‎}} for the Texas Mapbook
- {{TxDOT map}} for some maps from TxDOT and its predecessor agencies
Yahoo!
- {{Yahoo maps}}

Any templates above that are rendered in monospace type on a background have been updated to have authors specified, the inclusion of a |sections= parameter and probably the |mode= parameter as well. If there are any other state- or source-specific templates used by USRD, please add them, and please update the list when any have been modified. Imzadi 1979 → 08:28, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

1934 Shell Atlas

FYI, an alternative newspaper for southern Utah has scanned some pages from a 1934 Shell atlas. These scans would be of more interest to Utah highway editors, but they also scanned a page that has Reno, Nevada and one that shows most of US 66's routing through Arizona. Maybe we could contact them about scanning the whole thing? http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/blog/2015/03/20/poking-through-the-ruins-14-1934-shell-highway-map-of-utah/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Moabdave (talk • contribs)

Looks like a pocket map, not an atlas. --NE2 23:16, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

I initially though that. However, the 2nd JPG (the radio stations) shows multiple pages visible, and the 3rd JPG includes Reno, which would not appear in a pocket map of Utah.Dave (talk) 16:07, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

The second image appears to be a folded map. It could be a multi-state map, like this one. --NE2 19:01, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Tennessee State Route 475

Can someone from the project take a look at the map on Tennessee State Route 475? It looks exactly like a map on Interstate-guide.com. Is this plagiarism? If so, can an allowable map be put in its place? Charlotte Allison (Allen/Morriswa) (talk) 22:07, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

That's as blatant as they come, folks. I've tagged it for speedy deletion on Commons and removed it from the article. –Fredddie ™ 22:20, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Different question, is it really cancelled if I-475 was never requested to AASHTO? I only ask because I've been reversing edits to a somewhat similar issue in regards to Business I-85 as cancelled I-685, which was never endorsed by SCDOT nor requested. --WashuOtaku (talk) 02:52, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

If the number gets tossed around the news cycle, but a formal request to AASHTO is never presented, all you need is a mention and a reference to a news article. Shields and infoboxen can come after a proposal is formalized. –Fredddie ™ 03:04, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Converting P:USRD to automatically rotating content

For the last year or so, the U.S. Roads Portal has been neglected by all of us. With monthly article, picture and DYK selections, the portal might be requiring too much regular participation to be viable for a project of our size, so it might be wise to switch it to a new format. Instead of monthly submissions, the portal could instead use a predetermined set of rotating articles, pictures and facts that can be refreshed using {{purge}}, similar to how the Maryland Roads portal is laid out. In doing so, users can nominate and submit content without a set deadline, allowing for spikes in activity to translate to permanent growth and maintenance. Sounder Bruce 01:32, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Based on the current activity level of the project, I think this is probably a good idea for now. Very few people have suggested stuff for the portal over the past two years or so, and it shows no signs of changing. I am usually stuck scrambling to find stuff for the portal at the last minute every month, and am getting to the point of running out of ideas. Dough4872 01:36, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Oppose—we are coming up on nearly 1,000 GAs as a project, all of which should be eligible for for a turn at SA status on the portal. Add to that all of the FAs and As, and that's a lot of content to set up at once for random rotations. Setting it to random rotation will cause the content to stagnate as I predict people won't be apt to add new articles, new photos or new DYKs hooks at regular intervals to keep the content fresh. Imzadi 1979 → 03:28, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Aside from Dough's work on the portal, we are not adding anything new to the portal now. I'm not entirely sure if what Bruce is proposing is what we want to do, but something else needs to be done as the status quo is not working. –Fredddie ™ 03:36, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, we do have a pool of nearly 1,000 GAs, but they are all from the same five states or so. Remember, we need to keep regional balance on the portal as to give all states a fair chance of being represented. As already mentioned, we need other people besides me to help decide what content should appear on the portal. If we are not getting any suggestions, then having it automatically generate the content is probably the best idea. We can preferably pick the A and FA articles to showcase as SAs, the best project pictures for SPs, and multiple assortments of DYK facts. Another idea is to perhaps have some of the aspects nominated every month while having others rotate randomly. P:MDRD does exactly that in having the SA chosen every month and the pictures and DYK change every time the portal is reloaded. Maybe we can still choose the SA by month and have the pictures and DYK rotate ramdomly or perhaps have the SA and SP nominated and have the DYKs rotate randomly. Articles and pictures are not too hard to find but DYK hooks involve a little more creativity. Dough4872 03:50, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I've done the SA and SP for this month but haven't done the DYK out of not having any ideas, having used all the hooks at WP:USRD/DYK. At this point, I feel we can still nominate the SA and SP every month but maybe should look into automating the DYK hooks as I am out of ideas unless other editors suggest stuff. Another idea is to recycle past DYK hooks and mix them up. I would like to see what we can do for the portal DYK this month. Dough4872 02:39, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Input requested regarding Interstate 490 (Ohio)

While not exactly an RfC, I would like some input on an issue brought up by myself regarding information about the Oppritunity Corridor on the Interstate 490 (Ohio) page. If you would like to weigh in on this discussion, please put your input at Talk:Interstate 490 (Ohio)#Oppritunity Corridor. Thank you. Pyrotle {^T/_C} 02:16, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

New Interstate 44?

Why are we jumping the gun on this? Why is there a separate article for Interstate 44 (North Carolina–Virginia)? Why are we favoring one proposed number over the other (44 over 50)? Can't we just merge the article with Interstate 495 (North Carolina) until the final number is settled? --Molandfreak (talk, contribs, email) 03:57, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I support merging I-44 (NC-VA) into the I-495 article. For one, I-495 exists and I-44 (NC-VA) does not yet either in the field or on paper. V C 01:00, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I also agree with merging until we know what the final number for the corridor will be. Dough4872 04:24, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't give a shit, but you might

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2015 April 26#Category:Named state highways in Oregon --NE2 11:56, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Glossary of road terms

I started Draft:Glossary of road transport terms. Feel free to fill in where you see fit. –Fredddie ™ 16:59, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

I-495 (NC) Merger Proposal

Hello, just wanted to let you all know that there has been a proposal to merge Interstate 44 (North Carolina–Virginia) into Interstate 495 (North Carolina). Please share your opinion on this proposal. Thank you. --WashuOtaku (talk) 22:20, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Highway Local Road Names

I was looking at this page specifically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Route_133 and wondering what was the local street name of a particular section of that highway as I believe such roads can change from town to town. If you notice, there's a table with a "notes" section so I'm wondering if adding local road names as a highway passes through various towns would be worthy of consideration. Or if its just *one* road name the whole length, maybe that could be emphasized right at the start. Thanks. -- uronlydreaming — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uronlydreaming (talk • contribs) 06:44, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Local street names of the subject of the article should be inserted into the prose of the Route description. The Notes of the Major intersections table is for information about a particular intersection, not for the route of the subject highway on either side of the intersection. V C 18:02, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Interstate 10 edit war

Help! I changed the junctions in the infobox of Interstate 10 to show the national-level articles instead of state-specific ones. However, at least one anonymous user keeps reverting my change. What can be done about that? Thanks. Charlotte Allison (Allen/Morriswa) (talk) 21:26, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Technically, both of you could be blocked for edit warring. --Rs chen 7754 22:03, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Yet another editor has reverted my edit. Can someone else revert them or put a protection template on the page? My edit is correct, and should not be reverted. Charlotte Allison (Allen/Morriswa) (talk) 22:56, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

"Yet another editor has reverted my edit" is not an excuse to keep edit warring, and neither is "My edit is correct, and should not be reverted". Please attempt to discuss it with them first, and then seek outside assistance if they refuse to cooperate. --Rs chen 7754 23:20, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

It's hard to discuss it with the other person when they use a different IP address for each edit. –Fredddie ™ 23:27, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

It is hard, but it is still possible to try. And I certainly understand the problem of random edit warrior IPs (California went through years of those), but edit warring to the fourth revert is the worst possible option out of the ones available, because it leaves yourself open to being blocked as well, and it is no better than what the IP is doing. --Rs chen 7754 04:19, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

@Morriswa: part of the issue is that the IP appears to disagree with listing the concurrent US Highways along with the Interstates in the infobox, not the difference between the state and national links. You should read the edit summaries when you're reverted to see if they offer clues to a compromise. Imzadi 1979 → 00:25, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Is that what was referring to? Charlotte Allison (Allen/Morriswa) (talk) 00:33, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Interstate 755 "controversy" and Interstate 570

There is a discussion on Talk:Interstate 755 (Mississippi) about what should be done with Interstate 755 (Mississippi) and Interstate 755 (Missouri). Could USRD weigh in on this?

Also, someone made an Interstate 570 page. Is this valid? Charlotte Allison (Allen/Morriswa) (talk) 21:25, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

That someone is clearly yet another sockpuppet of User:2006 December. (I'm about to log off so if another admin could deal with that, I'd appreciate it.) --Kinu ^t/_c 23:13, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Clarification: the "someone" Kinu is talking about is related solely to the creation of Interstate 570 and not to what to do with Interstate 755. Georgia guy (talk) 23:26, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Interstate 755 (Mississippi) was created by this sockpuppet, so it does technically does qualify for deletion under WP:CSD#G5 since the only edits to the article itself have been the addition of categories. However, there is talk page discussion, so I feel that should probably determine the fate of the article. --Kinu ^t/_c 06:31, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

@Kinu: Take a look at the deleted history - any connection to User:Jerman243? --Rs chen 7754 01:11, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Interesting. I think you might have found something there... --Kinu ^t/_c 06:24, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment requested WA SR-410

There was recently a construction accident on Washington State Route 410 where a chunk of concrete fell off a bridge onto the road below, resulting in three deaths. There is some question as to whether this is worth of inclusion in the article. Please comment at Talk:Washington State Route 410#Bridge accident. Thank you, Oiyarbepsy (talk) 00:30, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

AfC submission

Is this list viable? Draft:List of state highways in Polk County, Texas. Cheers, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 13:57, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Done. No, just lists aren't really viable anymore, FoCuSandLeArN. We should be discouraging any more from being created in most cases. Imzadi 1979 → 17:18, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! Good to know. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 13:42, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

mw:Extension:Graph

It's still being developed, but I wonder if this could be useful (see the map on the demo page). --Rs chen 7754 01:10, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Were you thinking assessment charts and maps? Because that's what I'm thinking. –Fredddie ™ 01:54, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Building a reference citation for self-compiled set of official documents from an archive

Last year, I compiled a PDF document of several different documents produced by the Maryland State Highway Administration and its predecessor agencies and available at the Maryland State Archives. The compilation includes handwritten lists of highway projects—handwritten by employees at SHA/SRC, not by me—and opening dates. I would like to be able to use this compilation document as a cited reference; using the compilation document instead of each individual document in the state archives would save the trouble of needing to make references to 30 different documents. Is this something any of you have done before? Even if the answer is no, I would appreciate help working through any problems with this approach and creating a citation template to cite this document or the original constituent documents. The compilation document is linked from Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Maryland/Resources#Road Construction Progress Log Book. V C 17:03, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

I have a few thoughts. As they are separate documents, I think that they should stay separate citations. I don't think we should be in the business of combining separate documents into a compilation if no one else hasn't done so already. You'd have to make up your own title, and that seems like original research to me.

If they're already hosted on the website of the state archives, with reusable links, then you can make a template along the lines of {{AASHTO minutes}} or {{cite MDOT map}} to link to each individual document in the collection and provide a fully formed citation. If they aren't individually linkable, and if copyright isn't a concern, you could upload the individual documents to Commons, like we did with the older AASHTO minutes. Commons would only be an option if a document is:

Older than 1923;
Older then 1978 without a copyright notice; or
Older than 1989 without a copyright notice and any subsequent copyright registration.

Anything from 1989 or later has an automatic copyright without a notice or registration. Based on those general rules, that's how we could upload the old AASHTO minutes, and fortunately they're hosting the 1989 and newer files. Imzadi 1979 → 04:13, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I forgot to mention, one of the biggest issues against using a single PDF is that you'd be asking any readers who wanted to verify information to download a very large PDF file. If each document is separate, that same reader only needs to download the pertinent documents for verification purposes. Imzadi 1979 → 04:14, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

The original documents of the Road Construction Progress Log Book are available online in the state archives: http://guide.mdsa.net/series.cfm?action=viewSeries&ID=S1859. I was wrong about the 30 documents, as I was thinking of another series of documents. This series is split into only three documents in the archives, and the compilation document is 40 MB, so downloading one of the three individual documents would be a minimum of 10 MB. The three documents overlap in their year ranges and look like notebooks that were stored somewhere somewhat disorganized and eventually scanned, so it would make more sense for someone checking the sources to read the compilation that contains the same information within than the three separate documents. I am willing to take out some of the extra features to make it just the construction logs to make it more coherent. The title is derived from titles used in the documents, which is not as bad as simply making up a title. I am not planning on putting this compilation on Commons, so the copyright issue is moot. V C 01:39, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

If you're not uploading it to Commons, where will the file(s) be hosted? I would advise against hosting them on a Dropbox/Google Drive/etc. just for appearance sake. At least hosting it on Commons has a better look to it than someone's personal webhosting space. Imzadi 1979 → 04:31, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

What is wrong with hosting files on personal webhosting space when hosting them on Commons would be a potential copyright violation? V C 01:03, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

To be fair, we do link to lots of scans of maps hosted on personal websites. --Rs chen 7754 01:59, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

If copyright isn't a concern, then why not upload it to Commons? And if copyright is a concern, then it shouldn't be linked at all, per WP:ELNEVER. - Evad37 [talk] 07:44, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Does WP:ELNEVER apply to all Wikipedia spaces or only to article space? V C 01:03, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

While ELNEVER might only apply to articles, WP:COPYLINK (part of a "policy with legal considerations") says the same thing, and applies to Wikipedia in general (not just articles). - Evad37 [talk] 01:51, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata maps

Category:Infobox road maps for Wikidata migration I created this category yesterday so we know how many maps need to be migrated over to Wikidata. Ideally, there should be a bot that can do this for us, right? –Fredddie ™ 22:14, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Some maps are already on Wikidata, but the respective articles still pass |map= to the infobox. Someone should work on completing the status tables over there. -happy 5214 03:52, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

On the other talk pages that I spammed this message to it was recommended to get a bot to do the dirty work for us. –Fredddie ™ 04:01, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

I'd ask around on Wikidata itself - I don't know if Magnus' tools would do it (no bot needed), or if we would have to code it up ourselves. I have the capability to do so, but not the time, unfortunately. --Rs chen 7754 04:23, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

The two sentences in my post were separate statements. I'm not disputing that this is bot work, which it clearly is. But some articles in the category do have maps in WD already (I fixed one a short time ago.), and we do need to finish the roadtables on the state pages regardless of this specific issue. -happy 5214 04:44, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Last call for content for the Spring 2015 issue of The Centerline

As tomorrow (Sunday) is the last day of May, and we are scheduled to publish the Spring 2015 quarterly issue of The Centerline in May, this is the last call for content. I will will publish the newsletter before midnight UTC tomorrow so that it gets a May timestamp on delivery. Please add your submissions in the newsroom. Imzadi 1979 → 02:26, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

User:Rschen7754/USRD GA audit - final call

I'm hoping to get the audit completed soon (well over 2 years after it started). Next weekend I'll start sending articles to GAR, or fixing it myself if possible. If there are some articles that you have fixed but are still on the list, please let me know. --Rs chen 7754 20:03, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Are you going to be announcing which articles you will be sending to GAR ahead of time? For instance, "I will be sending New Jersey Route 10 to GAR in 1 week unless work is done." Are you sending articles one at a time or in groups? V C 03:19, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

One at a time, going from the earlier years to the later ones. I won't be announcing which ones, but the GAR process lasts a week at least, and more if someone is still working on the article. --Rs chen 7754 03:20, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

I will start getting around to my articles in the coming days. Dough4872 16:16, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Accident report

[4] might be of some use for notable accidents where the NTSB investigated. --Rs chen 7754 16:42, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Would this list be useful as a determinant of notability for including accidents in articles, or should we have a higher standard? V C 11:44, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

GAR

New Jersey Route 185, 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. --Rs chen 7754 23:48, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

GAR (2)

New Jersey Route 181, 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. --Rs chen 7754 04:23, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Saginaw Trail, 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. --Rs chen 7754 04:07, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

2015 project space housekeeping, part 1

We last restructured our WikiProject pages in 2012, so it's probably time for some housekeeping, so that the project spaces help us to write content, and so that newcomers can find what they need to more easily.

I plan to go through some more pages later, but here's some thoughts to start with:

One of our departments, Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Planning, has died. Perhaps we should post ideas to it? Or if not, maybe we should merge it with Resources? 6 departments is a lot for a top-level structure, especially with our 50+ task forces.
Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Resources/Map archives and Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Resources/Map database are awfully similar - perhaps they should be merged? Done
Shields: Between Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Shields task force/Research, Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Shields task force/Templates, Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Shields task force/Database, and c:COM:USRD and its subpages, it seems that there is some overlap and redundancy. Perhaps we should reorganize this?
Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Interstate RJL compliance - this should be moved under Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Interstate Highways at least, and probably should be removed from the navigation template.

Thoughts? --Rs chen 7754 04:43, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I wanted to do #3 a year ago when COM:USRD was getting going. But it was vetoed because some of us thought we'd lose control of it somehow. –Fredddie ™ 04:46, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I'll admit that I was probably one of them... though now that I have had more crosswiki experience my views have shifted a bit on that. If we can find a way to keep control of our standards on shields locally, and combine the resource pages over there, that may be the best solution. --Rs chen 7754 04:50, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Looking closer, I think #3 would be better off just starting over on Commons and either mark the ENWP pages as historical or soft redirect to Commons, like I did for the templates. I started clicking through some of the links on the STF/Research page and got mostly 404s. The FHWA compiles a list of state MUTCD links, which is always up to date, so we should utilize that instead of wasting our energy on trying to keep updated. –Fredddie ™ 17:54, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree we should centralize our shield resources on Commons since that's where the shields are and having the resources there can benefit all Wikimedia projects that use the shields. Dough4872 23:47, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

For #2, I agree with merging Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Resources/Map archives and Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Resources/Map database. We can differentiate between official links to state resources and the list of paper or non-public soft copy maps someone has under each state heading. V C 12:06, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

It's kind of crude, but I put the state resource links at the very top of the section and then bumped the personal collections over one bullet like so: –Fredddie ™ 17:20, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

State link

Personal maps

For #4, I suggest merging Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Interstate RJL compliance and Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/National articles. The material overlaps and it is part of the same objective to improve the Interstate Highway System articles. V C 12:06, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I support adding the RJL compliance as a column in the national articles list, though we would need to add all the 3di routes to that list. Dough4872 23:47, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Bump; any more thoughts? --Rs chen 7754 02:18, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

What do you think of migrating MTF to COM:USRD as well? Leave the request pages here, but all the business would go to Commons. –Fredddie ™ 02:11, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

My only concern would be us retaining control over our standards locally, though I don't know how worried we should be about that since we are the most active U.S. Roads project. --Rs chen 7754 02:24, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Honestly, our standards should be in line with the wider standards (WP:WPMAPS), but standards there do not really cover how to make maps when the roads themselves are the subject. –Fredddie ™ 02:31, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Revisiting #4: Perhaps a split and merge could work here. Take the national articles page and divide it into separate pages for the Interstates and US Routes, which would be moved under the respective task force pages. List all the state-detail and 3DI/3DUS articles on each page, and add a column for the RJL compliance. -- LJ ↗ 22:21, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Redirect lists

Idea #5: The Maryland task force has a completion list that lists all (or almost all) of the articles under the task force and most redirects to those articles. This list feeds into a Recent Changes list. I suggest we create this infrastructure for every state and perhaps also infrastructure for national-level articles. It would allow for us to easily see updates by state task force on demand, and it would ease the burden of needing to include every page on our personal watchlists. V C 12:06, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

A significant number of states have this page already. They're typically called Redirect(s) or Completion list. See Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Iowa/Redirects, for example. –Fredddie ™ 16:24, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Part of the idea is surveying which states have these page and which do not, and making plans to create these pages for the states that do not have them. Is there an easy way to do this survey? V C 23:21, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Going through [5] is likely the best course since each state may use different syntax for the page name. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 23:29, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

The states that never had a state highway WikiProject are usually under Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Redirects/. We should try and choose one convention to standardize. --Rs chen 7754 00:57, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

I can go with "WikiProject U.S. Roads/Redirects/[statename]" as the naming convention for the redirect completion lists for all 50 states along with the territories. Moving project pages is cheap. Dough4872 01:13, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, I discovered most of the way through a survey using Floydian's method that the lists of redirect lists are, as Rschen stated, at Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Redirects. However, some states only have redirect lists for state-numbered highways. I am in favor of redundancy, that is, U.S. Highways and Interstate Highways are listed in both national lists and state lists. Some states also have multiple lists, which might impede having a single link to recent changes in all of a state's articles and redirects. V C 01:24, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

I am okay with the state lists having redundancy in listing the Interstate and US routes within the state as it serves to reference all the numbered roads within that state, while the national Interstate and US route lists can reference all the Interstate and US routes in all states. Dough4872 01:36, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

The plurality of states use the convention WikiProject U.S. Roads/Redirects/Statename for their redirect lists. Should we move forward with moving the redirect lists that do not follow that format to that format? V C 23:10, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Whomever does this should probably be an admin, so they can move subpages with it too. --Rs chen 7754 02:21, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, I guess it would be me moving the pages... I plan to do it tomorrow if there are no objections. --Rs chen 7754 04:48, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Done --Rs chen 7754 02:24, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Schuylkill Expressway

An IP is insisting on merging the article into Interstate 76 in Pennsylvania. Any thoughts? --Rs chen 7754 03:11, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

It should be merged because we don't do this for other state segments of interstate highways. Even the Long Island Expressway in ny is redirected to i495. The schuylkill expressway as a name is colloquial and has no official signage, at least in the last 10 years. Besides, the name is hard to spell.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.83.57 (talk • contribs)

A search for Schuylkill Expressway on the PennDOT website turned up something [6], so it might be that the name is colloquial, but it has made its way into official use. A difficult-to-spell name is irrelevant to the content of the article. Isn't I-495 in New York the entire length of the Long Island Expressway? If so it makes sense not to have separate articles. Does LIE have any official signage? Chinissai (talk) 13:28, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Not opposed to merging, per se. As long as the text and references are preserved, the combined text is not too long for one article. If the route had been divided among multiple route numbers, such as say the Ohio Turnpike, it may have been appropriate to maintain separate articles, or if the target article became too long per WP:LENGTH, separate articles may be better. But if neither of those apply (and they don't here), as long as text is preserved per WP:PRESERVE, I have no objections to the merge. --Jayron32 03:19, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
- It seems to be a rename, not a merge, actually - a copy and paste move was done by the IP and I have since rollbacked that. --Rs chen 7754 03:21, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
  - Copying text is fine, so long as edit summaries are used to note which article the text was copied from prior to the merge. If we decide to merge the articles, then it's fine to copy the text. If someone who doesn't know how to do it screws a merge up, the proper way to handle it is not to undo it completely, but to fix the problem by making the attribution in the edit summary for them. --Jayron 32 03:54, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I could go either way on this one. We could keep the status quo and cover the Pennsylvania section of I-76 in the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Schuylkill Expressway articles as those two roads comprise the entire length of the highway in the state, leaving the Interstate 76 in Pennsylvania page as a set index article. However, we could also create an Interstate 76 in Pennsylvania article that would summarize the section of the route along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, with a hatnote to that article for more detail, and serve as the primary coverage place for the Schuylkill Expressway. An exit list can be included for the entire length of the highway within the state. I'm just worried that if we create an Interstate 76 in Pennsylvania article that it will have large redundancy with the Pennsylvania Turnpike article as the vast majority of the highway is along that road. Dough4872 03:22, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Historically speaking, at one time the highway was also associated with pittsburgh's penn Lincoln highway which is now i376. Splitting it up the way it is now loses that historical tie where both pittsburgh and Philadelphia shared the same highway. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.83.123 (talk) 03:42, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

In New York state we have historical articles such as New York State Route 35 (1927 – early 1940s) that could be used as a guide here. Not sure why a tie between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia is important. Chinissai (talk) 13:28, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Not preferring one way or another, but (1) I strongly oppose merging Pennsylvania Turnpike into any other article (not sure if it is even under consideration, however), as the turnpike also contains I-276, and (2) I agree that an article with hatnotes and main-article links will have redundant contents as the existing articles. To avoid redundancy, it would have to be a lot of "Main article: ..." at best. Speaking from the map's perspective, do we have a map or KML for I-76 in PA? It would be nice to have these somewhere. On the exit list of Interstate 76 in Pennsylvania (if expanded), we could redirect that of Penna Turnpike to the appropriate main article, and have only the list for Schuylkill Expressway. See Spaulding Turnpike, which is part of New Hampshire Route 16. Chinissai (talk) 13:28, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

See Interstate 90 in Ohio - majority of article refers to the Ohio Turnpike and the remainder is the portion in the Cleveland area. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.81.116 (talk) 14:07, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, but that isn't relevant here. All of the Ohio Turnpike is not I-90, and all of I-90 is not the Ohio Turnpike, so two articles are needed; the one does not contain the other. In this case, all of the Schuylkill Expressway is designated I-76, so the totality of the information in the Schuylkill Expressway article could be covered in an overview article for I-76 in PA. --Jayron 32 14:22, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

It is relevant. Both the I-80 and I-90 Ohio articles only talk about the free sections. They leave the rest for the Ohio Turnpike article, which is smart. I don't care either way if the non-Turnpike section of I-76 is called Interstate 76 or Schuylkill. If it's Schuylkill, the I-76 page should remain as a DAB, but if it becomes I-76, it should not cover the turnpike sections. –Fredddie ™ 22:09, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Something more radical: How about we remove both of the state-detail articles (Pennsylvania and Ohio) in favor of the articles on the specific named portions of I-76? The I-76 article would use summary style for the Ohio Turnpike, Pennsylvania Turnpike, and Schuylkill Expressway, which together make up 85 percent of the length of the Interstate, and the 60 miles of I-76 west of the Ohio Turnpike and the 3 miles in New Jersey would be covered in depth in the main article. The biggest problem I foresee is how to do the Exit list(s), but a full Exit list likely would not exceed 100 rows. V C 23:22, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm not really in favor of that idea as I-76 spans three states and typically these routes are split into state-detail articles. I am perfectly fine with the status quo in which we have Interstate 76 in Ohio cover the free section and summarize the portion along the Ohio Turnpike, Interstate 76 in Pennsylvania as a set index to Pennsylvania Turnpike and Schuylkill Expressway, and Interstate 76 in New Jersey covered in the main article due to its short length. However, I would not be opposed for state-detail pages existing for all three states, in which the Ohio page would be the same as now, the Pennsylvania page would briefly summarize the Pennsylvania Turnpike portion with a hatnote and serve as the primary coverage place for the Schuylkill Expressway portion with an exit list for the entire length in the state, and the New Jersey state-detail page also being created (it really shouldn't be an issue based on its length, as we have U.S. Route 522 in Maryland). Dough4872 00:24, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Oppose, by default all Interstates that span multiple states have their own designated article for each state, even if different segments in the same state have different names. Also, the PA Turnpike is not carried entirely by I-76. The three articles should be kept the way they are for consistency. MikeM2011 (talk) 14:56, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

I have no strong feelings either way about merging Schuylkill with I-76 but am leaning against. What I will say is that the current organization of the 4 overlapping topics Interstate 76 in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Turnpike, Interstate 276 (Pennsylvania) and Schuylkill Expressway is logical from a historical perspective, but not from a modern perspective. As has been noted above, it's a complex situation, and there is no way (that I'm aware of) to organize this into articles that is both consistent and doesn't have mostly redundant articles. I would change my vote in a heartbeat if someone presents an argument that the status quo is causing too many template breaks, or special case code to handle. Dave (talk) 20:39, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Yahoo Maps

Seems that we need to change any citations to them... [7] --Rs chen 7754 02:09, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

I've marked {{Yahoo maps}} as a deprecated template. In a month when the site goes offline, I will change it so that any remaining transclusions mark the citations with {{dead link}}. In the meantime, I suggest that people switch articles over to other sources so that the template is no longer in use. At some point, we may need to look for articles and pages linking to http://maps.yahoo.com without the citation template as well. Imzadi 1979 → 03:40, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

We have a search page at [8]. --Rs chen 7754 03:49, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Several links I've tried are already not working. They still point to the site, but the map doesn't change to zoom in on the desired locations. Replacement should be expedited. There 463 transclusions at the moment of this posting. Imzadi 1979 → 03:33, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Finishing the GA audit articles from 2010

There's 3 articles remaining in the GA audit dating from 2010. I took a look at fixing them, but they're a bit beyond the amount of time that I have, and the nominators are unable to fix the issues or are inactive. Rather than having to delist, I thought I'd bring them here first:

Interstate 225 - there is a lot of unsourced material, but I suspect that one can clean it up using citations to other sources already there.
Washington State Route 221 - I tried sourcing the Guinness record, but was unable to do so; I suspect that maybe they applied for it and failed.
~~Eisenhower Tunnel - has a deadlink and the source was not archived anywhere.~~

Thanks! --Rs chen 7754 18:34, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to just removing the World Record fact from WA 221 entirely. It isn't that important to the road's history in my opinion. Sounder Bruce 01:49, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Done --Rs chen 7754 20:36, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

poke - Floydian ^τ _¢ 02:40, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Finally that came in handy! Thanks! --Rs chen 7754 02:48, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Roosevelt Boulevard discussion

See Talk:U.S. Route 1 in Pennsylvania#Roosevelt Blvd. Dough4872 23:55, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

GAR

Ohio State Route 300, 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. --Rs chen 7754 04:14, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Copyright Violation Detection - EranBot Project

A new copy-paste detection bot is now in general use on English Wikipedia. Come check it out at the EranBot reporting page. This bot utilizes the Turnitin software (ithenticate), unlike User:CorenSearchBot that relies on a web search API from Yahoo. It checks individual edits rather than just new articles. Please take 15 seconds to visit the EranBot reporting page and check a few of the flagged concerns. Comments welcome regarding potential improvements. These likely copyright violations can be searched by WikiProject categories. Use "control-f" to jump to your area of interest.--Lucas559 (talk) 22:23, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Linking to a topic on talk page for US 6 for more input, as no one has opined there

Talk:U.S. Route 6#US 6/20 is the longest continuous highway Dave (talk) 18:51, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

KML tutorial

As suggested at Template talk:Attached KML, the KML creation tutorial might be better suited in the Help namespace – something like Help:KML tutorial. The range of articles that do or could have an attached KML file is much greater than the scope of USRD, HWY, or any individual wikiproject. What do project members think of this idea? - Evad37 [talk] 02:13, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

As KMLs slowly seep into other projects (I can see it being adopted for tunnels/bridges and railways, for example), I think it belongs in the Help namespace. I'm all for it. Sounder Bruce 02:35, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree, KMLs are useful for other projects besides USRD. Dough4872 02:50, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Texas FM road GAs

The following articles are GAs, but I feel they are of questionable notability:

An earlier discussion (somewhere in the archives) concluded that most Texas FM roads should be handled WP:USRD/RCS style, in most cases (but not if the road has enough information to stand alone). The question here, then, is whether these are notable enough for their own article. --Rs chen 7754 04:43, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

If the notability is questionable and the articles short, then merge them into the RCS lists. Those that have enough information may retain their articles with a hatnote and summary from the RCS lists. Of those five articles, 606, 742, and 2890 can most likely be merged, while 1709 and 1528 may be able to retain their own articles. Dough4872 04:51, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

As their creator, strong oppose any merging of FM 1709. It's a high traffic urban road with a lot of history. I've got a couple dozen news articles from various points throughout its history and a couple of books with decent information. It's definitely notable enough to stand alone, although its not really GA-worthy. While I haven't really looked much into its history, FM 1528 seems like it would be notable. It appears to have played a significant role in the area's history, so I'll oppose. As for the others, it doesn't really matter. There's no harm in merging them, and if they turn out to be notable, I can always expand the articles out again like I have done and am in the process of doing with a few of the Recreational Roads. So I guess I'm neutral, leaning a bit towards merging if the time comes. - A Texas Historian (Impromptu collaboration?) 05:31, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

FM 1709 is on the main National Highway System, so it is definitely notable. None of the other FMs in the above list are on any part of the National Highway System, so they should be merged if they do not have enough information to stand alone and the relevant list exists. V C 01:40, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm fine with not merging 1709, but User:A Texas Historian I'm a bit concerned that you don't think it's GA quality. Is it just that it's missing important information? --Rs chen 7754 02:28, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, quite a bit of it. Its history goes back to the late 19th century, but the article only goes back to the to the 50s, and barely touches on that time. The history section could probably be three times as long. And apart from history, I never added anything about NHS or traffic and the RD definitely needs some work. Can't believe its already been three years since I wrote that. - A Texas Historian (Impromptu collaboration?) 06:48, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

FM 1709 nominated at GAR. --Rs chen 7754 03:14, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways/Assessment/A-Class Review/Pulaski Skyway

This is a formal notification that I have started the above review to make sure the article is up to the latest standards. --Rs chen 7754 18:49, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Interstate 37

I am concerned about this article's GA status. While it is reliably sourced (even though the links are dead, they can be fixed), the history is almost entirely sourced to the National Bridge Inventory, which to me is akin to sourcing to maps. Which is usually allowed for GAs, but GAs entirely sourced to maps are looked on with suspicion. It's usually considered passable if it's a short route with little information in newspapers – but that is certainly not the case for a 2 digit Interstate. Thoughts? --Rs chen 7754 00:21, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

I would take it to GAR. –Fredddie ™ 22:05, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think simply relying on the NBI for the history is enough grounds to take to GAR, but if there is missing key information that can be found in newspapers and books then it should probably be taken there. Dough4872 22:25, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

It's a 2-digit interstate, so there must be. --Rs chen 7754 22:28, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think there "must be" newspaper sources just because this is a 2dI. There should be some, but they may require someone to live in the area to access. We should try to supplement the history with additional sources; even some historical maps or TxDOT's Highway Designation Files so that the history isn't based on a single source that is limited in what it can support. Imzadi 1979 → 06:30, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Talk:New York State Route 117/GA2

I'll skip the usual boilerplate templates from now on, but the above went to GAR. --Rs chen 7754 05:28, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Category:United States metropolitan area highway templates

I feel this is getting out of control. I didn't even know where Valdosta was until I clicked on the template, but apparently we have one for that "metropolitan area". Do we need them for Peoria? Pine Bluff? This is concerning. --Rs chen 7754 06:45, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

In a similar discussion earlier, several of us expressed a desire to eliminate these. It might be time for a TfD to test the waters, like the by-county navboxes of old, and then get rid of the rest. Personally, I dislike them and find them to be little positive and lots of negative value. They pollute the "What links here" listings and they make visual clutter. The "Transportation in X" categories give us a more granular way to link between articles without taking up space in the articles. Imzadi 1979 → 06:49, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I am in conditional agreement, unless a functional standard comes along for templates like these. -- Molandfreak (talk) 06:56, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Imzadi beat me to mentioning that this type of thing would be better suited for categories. T C N7JM 06:56, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Another point that should be considered is the existence of templates like {{Lansing-East Lansing}}. I think that example is even worse because it's mixing 100 other articles together with the dozen highway articles. Imzadi 1979 → 07:01, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Comment: Categories for individual counties have little function when searching for roads in a entire metropolitan statistical area. Molandfreak (talk) 07:08, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

MSAs are based on the county level. In other words, the Grand Rapids-Wyoming Metropolitan Statistical Area comprises Barry, Kent, Montcalm, and Ottawa counties in Michigan, each of which has a "Transportation in X County, Michigan" category. Imzadi 1979 → 07:11, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Don't forget that we have a category intersection tool. –Fredddie ™ 07:14, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I think a distinction should be made between those like {{Highways in the Capital District, New York}} that list all state highways and those like {{Expressways in Greater Orlando}} that have only expressways (and in this case it also serves to group CFX roads, and was originally at {{OOCEA}} (CFX's old name)). --NE2 07:43, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Frankly, I wouldn't oppose the deletion of the freeway-only ones. --NE2 05:46, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

PS: how many fucking boxes would go on Great River Road? --NE2 07:45, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

As I said in the earlier discussion, delete all the metropolitan area templates. I'm okay with categories of transportation by county but the templates are overkill as they are clunky and pollute the "What Links Here" function. The Philadelphia template is getting too big with new additions of nearly every route, major street, and bridge in the combined statistical area. Most of these routes have no relation other than being within an area defined as the Census Bureau as being connected to Philadelphia by commuting ties. Really, what else do Pennsylvania Route 212 and New Jersey Route 49 have in common besides passing through counties that have commuting ties to the city of Philadelphia? The routes themselves are miles apart in different states and have no other common characteristics. Dough 48 72 16:05, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Even worse are templates like {{Reading, Pennsylvania}} where roads are included in a template along with points of interest, educational facilities, sports teams, and radio stations serving the city. Dough 48 72 16:26, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Those can be handled after the TFDs, by linking to the TFD to illustrate consensus for the change. —Scott5114 ↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 23:53, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I should add that in editing thousands of articles, I believe that the city templates are used way too often, in many cases where they do not belong. Additions to the template itself to justify inclusion in more articles at the expense of polluting the link to lists is unacceptable. Use lists where they work better! Vegaswikian (talk) 00:05, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

At least 90 percent of these templates need to go. Which one should we start with? V C 02:05, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Probably most obscure ones first. --Rs chen 7754 05:24, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

{{Twin ports roads}}? {{Wyoming Valley roads}}? And then there's {{Unbuilt New Jersey Highways}} - wat. There's definitely enough difference between most of these that we can't really cite precedent for many. --NE2 05:46, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

What's so wrong about the Twin Ports one? I've never heard of the Wyoming Valley, so perhaps the title "Roads in the Scranton, PA Metro" would have worked better, but Twin Ports is a fairly well known name for that area... --Molandfreak (talk) 00:47, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

The Twin Ports is too small of a metropolitan area to warrant a template of roads that have no relation other than lying with the statistical boundaries of the area. But the templates are also unneeded for larger metro areas like Philadelphia. As discussed above, categories better handle the need to group roads and other transportation infrastructure within a geographic region. Dough 48 72 01:13, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I created the template not because it was a large metro, but for easy navigation between the bridges and highways of a popular tourist area. It is a small metro, but many travel to the area to specifically see some of the transportation infrastructure, so it is just as warranted as any other metropolitan template. --Molandfreak (talk) 01:23, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I've been a member of the U.S. Roads project for almost 10 years, and have never heard of the "Twin Ports". It may be well known in that area, but not in the rest of the country. I also agree with Dough about not needing templates for even the largest metro areas. --Rs chen 7754 01:53, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

The arguments about link pollution and clutter are significantly more persuasive for eliminating these navboxes than arguments about how important the geographic areas they serve are. These navboxes are no more appropriate in Detroit articles than in Duluth articles. V C 03:43, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Delete per above discussion. Famous river crossings in a particular area (which are basically the features that appeal to me about these sort of templates) can be handled in a similar fashion to the Mississippi River crossings. --Molandfreak (talk) 02:08, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Moving forward

Well, it's been a couple weeks since we decided to send most of these off to TfD. Since then, the Valdosta template has been deleted, and it appears as if the Lubbock template will be deleted as well. My question now is, where do we go from here? Do we send a bunch of the templates for smaller metros at once in a group deletion request, or should we send one or two more individually first? Also, at what point in population/importance of metro area do we stop sending the templates to deletion requests? Thoughts? T C N7JM 19:53, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I'd say first we send the templates for the smaller metropolitan areas (like Baton Rouge, Jonesboro, and Wyoming Valley) to TFD as a group based on the precedent of the Valdosta and Lubbock discussions. After those get deleted, we can send the templates for the larger metropolitan areas (like Dallas-Fort Worth, Philadelphia, and Washington) to TFD as a group, again citing past precedent. Once these get deleted, we can remove the roads from city templates such as {{Reading, Pennsylvania}}. Dough 48 72 01:13, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Probably the next step is to do 2-3 at a time, and then do the smaller, and then the larger ones. (If someone would be interested in taking the initiative on that and making the TFDs, it would keep things moving). --Rs chen 7754 03:48, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Sending templates to AfD? I don't think that'd bode too well. T C N7JM 04:23, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Oops! Fixed. Dough 48 72 05:22, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I looked through the remaining templates to see if any of them would make sense to send in the first small group, and I think I found a pretty good starter pack. There are three for random, small metros in Arkansas -- {{Roads of Fort Smith}}, {{Roads of Hot Springs}} and {{Roads in Jonesboro}} -- that are essentially the same template for different metros, and aren't too much different from the one that's already been deleted and the one that will be deleted soon. Would anyone oppose me shipping these three off to TfD once the Lubbock discussion closes? T C N7JM 06:11, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Go for it. Dough 48 72 06:24, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, the Lubbock discussion closed, so I went ahead and started the Arkansas discussion. It is located here. Feel free to comment. T C N7JM 16:15, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I added {{Roads of Pine Bluff}} to the discussion, as I seem to have missed it when I originally opened the discussion. I pinged all involved on that page, but am posting here as another reminder. T C N7JM 15:22, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Georgia templates minus Atlanta on deck. That's {{Athens, Georgia highways}}, {{Augusta, Georgia highways}}, {{Columbus, Georgia highways}}, {{Macon, Georgia highways}} and {{Savannah, Georgia highways}}. Speak now or forever hold your peace. T C N7JM 15:15, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

TfD is backlogged, so it looks like the Arkansas discussion won't be closed for a while. However, I think we have enough precedent regardless, so I've started the Georgia discussion to keep things moving. It's right here. Go ahead and comment if you want. T C N7JM 01:16, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Looks like the Arkansas templates got deleted after all!--Molandfreak (talk, contribs, email) 00:11, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

The next batch is up. My intent with this one was to get precedent for metros that cover more than one state (just to be safe). The discussion is here. Included are {{Quad Cities Roads}}, {{Twin ports roads}}, {{Roads of Northwest Arkansas}} and {{Roads of Texarkana}}. I think this is probably the last smaller batch we'll have to send. After this, I think we should start sending them in larger groups. T C N7JM 04:01, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

So, what's next? I vote {{Unbuilt New Jersey Highways}} and {{Puerto Rico Highways}}, probably the least needed of what's left. --Molandfreak (talk, contribs, email) 00:53, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

The latter example has a different precedent that applies. Any other navbox that attempted to list all of a state's highways was deleted years ago as redundant to the list article(s) on that state's highway system. See WP:USRD/P#State highway system templates for that one. Imzadi 1979 → 00:57, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Ahh shoot, TFD is backlisted again. Any updates on what to send? --Molandfreak (talk, contribs, email) 23:40, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I think we have enough precedent to send the rest of the regional roads ones in one go. Any of those types anyone thinks we shouldn't send? T C N7JM 00:03, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Let's do it, get this over with! --Molandfreak (talk, contribs, email) 04:22, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Send the regional roads ones to the slaughterhouse, but leave the ones about streets, such as {{Streets in Washington, DC}}. Those ones should be deliberated separately because they likely fall under WP:USST rather than WP:USRD. V C 01:33, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Not intentionally prodding, but have any more of these types of templates been sent to WP:TfD in the last month? V C 13:10, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Feel free to send more templates there. Dough4872 13:42, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

I jump-started this process by nominating {{Highways in the Capital District, New York}}, {{Annapolis, Maryland Roads}}, {{Baton Rouge Highways}}, {{Metro Birmingham expressways}}, {{Peoria expressways}}, {{Providence freeways}}, {{Tulsa Area Highways}}, and {{SLC highways}}. This set of templates is being discussed at here. V C 04:40, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

I nominated eight more templates for deletion: {{Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex}}, {{Metro Detroit Freeways}}, {{Denver highways}}, {{Atlanta expressways}}, {{Baltimore Metropolitan Area Roads}}, {{Boston Road Transportation}}, {{Chicagoland expressways}}, and {{Cleveland freeways}}. Opine at the discussion. V C 01:40, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

I plan to send several more templates for deletion this week. However, I wanted to point out the templates that I do not plan to send for deletion. Those four involve streets of a particular city, so the linked content of those navboxen should be under the jurisdiction of WikiProject U.S. Streets. They are {{Streets in Los Angeles}}, {{Streets of Manhattan}}, {{Streets in San Francisco}}, and {{Streets in Washington, DC}}. I did not include {{Dallas Streets}} in this list because it is tiny and includes several state highways. For these four streets templates, I suggest we create a new category, find another appropriate category, or just remove these templates from the metro area highway templates categories. V C 01:09, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Don't forget {{Philadelphia Road Transportation}}, which has a mix of roads, streets, and bridges. Dough4872 01:17, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Don't worry, I will not forget to nominate the Philadelphia template for deletion. V C 23:59, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

This time, I nominated a series of metropolitan freeway templates for deletion: {{Tampa Bay Freeways and Tollways}}, {{Houston freeways}}, {{LA Freeways}}, {{Metro Charlotte expressways}}, {{Milwaukee freeways}}, {{NJ Expressways}}, {{Expressways in Greater Orlando}}, and {{Phoenix-area freeways}}. Contribute to the discussion. V C 01:35, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

I have sent {{Philadelphia Road Transportation}} to TFD, as an IP has been removing the template from several articles over the past day. Discussion is here. Dough4872 01:43, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Notes column on junction lists

It seems to me that there is no standard guide as to what exactly should and should not be put into the notes column on junctions lists. The description on WP:RJL#Standard columns seems open ended, and it is unclear what can be considered standard practice now. Otherwise, you get misunderstandings like this, for example, where User:Imzadi1979 reverted my edits where I removed something that I thought was not standard. And it is unclear if this standard practice should be added uniformly across all the other relevant junctions on that major junctions list. Zzyzx11 (talk) 06:22, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

We've had various editors adding the exit numbers of the intersecting highways in the notes, which gives an additional geographic context for the interchange. This has become, through a silent consensus, a standard practice. It may or may not have been implemented consistently, and if so, the missing details should be added as needed. Otherwise, the standards at MOS:RJL are vague for a reason: to allow flexibility from situation to situation. The notes should, IMHO, be kept concise, and if they can't because of a complex intersection/interchange, the RD needs to detail this so that a concise summary can be used in the notes of the RJL. Imzadi 1979 → 07:29, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I think my main problem was that there was a silent consensus, so it was unclear that this became standard practice. And it did not help matters when some of these editors only modified only 1/4 to 1/3 of the table, and do not check the entire table. That made it look more like an inconsistent, non-standard practice. Zzyzx11 (talk) 07:51, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps a WP:HWY discussion would be prudent for determining, at a minimum, details that should never be included in the RJL notes column and vice-versa the details that should absolutely be included (unless, say, they are significant enough to put in the prose). There should certainly be leniency with regard to this column, but some limitations should be determined to prevent both the gradual coagulation of trivial details/factoids as well as the consequently "implied consensus" of including aforementioned coagulants in RJLs - Floydian ^τ _¢ 06:15, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

I guess this is news to me, because I've never added those notes to any article or required them in any review, nor do I think they are particularly necessary to an article. What concerns me is that theoretically (at least in California) if we have to add exit numbers on intersecting routes, we theoretically have to add citations for them in every GA/FA: [9] (@Zzyzx11: I'm not trying to pick on you, but I think that this is probably worth a discussion going one way or the other before too many articles get changed) --Rs chen 7754 04:36, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Do you have a good solution? Either we can go back and start removing them again (which I was originally doing before User:Imzadi1979 reverted me back in the first place), or do what I am doing now in preempting those editors who'll add them eventually without any citations. I have noticed one unregistered IP in particular, using a dynamic IP address, who has been adding them separately for the past few days. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:43, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

We don't have citations for the exit numbers in the notes on any of the articles in Michigan, and no one's complained, not even at FAC. Remember, we only have to cite five classes of information for a GA, and realistically even for FAs:

direct quotations;
statistics;
published opinion;
counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged; and
contentious material relating to living persons.

While exit numbers are a number, I wouldn't call them a statistic like a milepost/post mile. I say that the citations are overkill and shouldn't have been added. Imzadi 1979 → 04:55, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Ok, I accept the WP:CITEOVERKILL argument. If one does complain and remove it per WP:BURDEN, we can add it when need it. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:28, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Things like exit numbers do not necessary have to be cited, just citable. If someone were to get pedantic, most states' maps, Google Street View, or even driving the route would satisfy WP:V. –Fredddie ™ 21:18, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Eastern terminus of Interstate 86 in New York

Is I 86 supposed to eventually at the Thruway or at I 84? The article says it will end at I 87, but there is no source. I found a sign at the NY 17 cloverleaf with I 84 that was a covered blue shield with the word "end" above it. The mileage markers after it going towards the Thruway show NY 17 on the marker, not I 86. Anyone have any idea what this means? PointsofNoReturn (talk) 23:15, 17 July 2015 (UTC) I did find this link for the entire project. [10] PointsofNoReturn (talk) 23:20, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

There's a temporary end somewhere in the I-84 area, but the eventual end (per federal law?) is I-87. --NE2 00:54, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

That does make sense. The link above seems to confirm that too. Thanks for the help. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 20:51, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

A new draft for your consideration

Draft:WV Route 2 and I-68 Authority has been submitted to AFC, your opinion about the acceptability, or otherwise, of the submission would be appreciated. Please comment on the draft's talk page if you do not wish to do a full AFC review. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:50, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Done, although it seems to be outside of our scope. Imzadi 1979 → 10:26, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

California Highways and Public Works

This message board posting had links to many issues of California Highways and Public Works, some of which may be useful for editors in other states. An early AASHO policy related to numbering U.S. Highways is located in the October 1937 issue on pages 13 and 28, for instance. The issues are hosted on part of Archive.org, so they're likely permanent. Imzadi 1979 → 09:35, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I was trying to get this uploaded to the English Wikisource, but that effort stalled. The links are also on WP:CASH, and an index is linked from there too. --Rs chen 7754 04:40, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I-494/I-694 possible merger

I've been looking at Minnesota's route log lately and I noticed something curious about the I-494/I-694 beltway. Mile Zero is at the Hennepin–Dakota County line near MSP Airport and it travels clockwise. When I-494 reaches I-694, the mileposts do not change, which is similar to how I-35E continues with I-35's mileposts.

I don't really have any details worked out, such as what we'd call the article, so, I'm not necessarily proposing a merger of the two Interstates at this time, but I'd like to gauge support for such a merger. –Fredddie ™ 04:02, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

There are other similar cases where route numbers changes and exit numbers/mile posts do not reset. Some states are not even internally consistent here. Interstate 290 (Massachusetts) starts at mile marker 0 where Interstate 395 (Connecticut–Massachusetts) ends, but picks up I-395s exit numbers. As long as we have two separate route numbers, I see no reason to merge articles; if Minnesota decides to renumber the entire beltway as one number, then perhaps it would be a better idea. --Jayron 32 04:36, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think continuity of mileposts is a reason to merge two routes with different numbers, as they are still distinct highways. Dough4872 03:23, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Don't Merge. There's a reason that 494 and 694 are separate routes. I-494 is an inner-[greatly populated] suburb beltway, while 694 is a legitimate bypass of MSP.--Molandfreak (talk, contribs, email) 04:30, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Does that make I-494 an illegitimate bypass of MSP? –Fredddie ™ 04:39, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Don't Merge While The I-494 route and I-694 route could be merged into one route number, there should still be two articles while there are two route numbers. Going with mileposts or exit numbers would simply convolute this wikiproject's article naming structure. However, I am glad you brought this to discussion, Freddie. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 02:23, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Requested move

Since AA is not picking this up. Talk:Maryland Route 61#Requested move 30 July 2015. Dough4872 13:34, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Lists for deletion

After having created a formal list at List of county routes in Erie County, New York, I have nominated the RCS-style lists for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of county routes in Erie County, New York (1–32). Mitch32^{(The best ideas are common property.)} 17:54, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Really obvious redirect... --NE2 18:09, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Newsletter interview for photogs

If you like taking pictures for USRD or Wikipedia in general, there is a short interview about taking pictures at the Newsletter's newsroom page. The more responses I get the better the piece will be. –Fredddie ™ 13:05, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Category:Interstate 805

Category:Interstate 805, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. RevelationDirect (talk) 00:29, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Category:Three-digit Interstate Highways

Category:Three-digit Interstate Highways, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for renaming to Category:Auxiliary Interstate Highways. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. RevelationDirect (talk) 01:30, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

U.S. 20 Indiana auxiliaries discussion

See here. Comments? Mapsax (talk) 19:37, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

'Withdrawn to facilitate conversation below. RevelationDirect (talk) 17:27, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

New TFD

See Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2015 September 18#Template:Washington metropolitan area roads. Dough4872 03:07, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Newsletter ideas going forward

I'm not necessarily talking about story ideas, but what can we do to freshen up the newsletter, and maybe make it less of a chore to put together? Here are a few things I was thinking about:

Get rid of the tabled page format
Reducing to a maximum of one featured story
Use {{Divbox}} or something like it to break up stories with little DYK-type snippets
Drop the leaderboard unless something major happens (TBH the order hasn't changed in two years)
Selected and new Featured Pictures go into a gallery
Publish a new issue when the feature is ready, even if it's been less than 3 months since the last

I can put together a mockup of the current Newsletter to show you what I'm talking about. –Fredddie ™ 01:21, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

I've brought this up before, but maybe cut back the frequency of the newsletter without changing the format, which IMO is perfectly fine. Since the project has become less active over the past couple years, I think three months may be too frequent to come up with content and that maybe only doing a newsletter every six months for two a year would ensure good stories to be able to be crafted for every newsletter in a timely fashion. Dough4872 01:32, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Or just go to something like Wikidata: [11] --Rs chen 7754 03:38, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

If we did something like that, we should stick to quarterly (4 times a year) rather than a weekly basis. But I think that might be a good idea and take less work than assembling a newsletter. Dough4872 03:49, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Category:Three-digit U.S. Highways

Category:Three-digit U.S. Highways, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for renaming to Category:Auxiliary U.S. Highways. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. RevelationDirect (talk) 01:08, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Clarifying 3-digit U.S. Highway category

Currently we have Category:Three-digit U.S. Highways that runs afoul of WP:SHAREDNAME. In an earlier nomination, we changed Category:Three-digit Interstate Highways to Category:Auxiliary Interstate Highways to reflect why that category is defining. This category should either be renamed to something else to reflect what is actually being grouped in the category or--if there really is nothing in common other than the name--the category should be merged to Category:Bannered and suffixed U.S. Highways or Category:U.S. Highway System.

With Category:Three-digit U.S. Highways, I thought using the same approach would be non-controversial but there is actually a very clear consensus not to rename it to "auxiliary" per this CFD:

CFD Discussion

Category:Three-digit U.S. Highways

Propose Renaming Category:Three-digit U.S. Highways to ~~Category:Auxiliary U.S. Highways~~ Category:U.S. Highway special routes

Nominator's rationale: Per the appearance of WP:SHAREDNAME.

Background:The way the U.S. Highways are numbered, the main trunk highway has 1 or 2 digits (Route 66) and the auxiliary roads have a number before that (166, 266, 366, 566). So there is a connection between the type of road and the numbering, but the numbering isn't what's defining. This is identical to the my earlier nomination creating Category:Auxiliary Interstate Highways. RevelationDirect (talk) 01:01, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Note: Notified SPUI as the category creator and this discussion has been included in WikiProject U.S. Roads. – RevelationDirect (talk) 01:01, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Oppose—unlike the Interstate highways, in the situation of the U.S. Highways, "auxiliary" means not the three-digit children of the two-digit parent, but rather they are the Alternate/Business/Bypass/City/etc "bannered" routes. So U.S. Route 141 is not an auxiliary highway of U.S. Route 41, but U.S. Route 41 Business (Marquette, Michigan) is. Imzadi 1979 → 05:12, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Proposal @Imzadi1979: United States Numbered Highways#Numbering describes these as almost identically to the Interstate naming. If you can work on fixing the accuracy of that section, I'd be happy to withdraw this nomination until we have a more factual basis of discussion. RevelationDirect (talk) 09:50, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

That section is accurate as written. It never calls the three-digit numbers " Auxilliary", RevelationDirect. For you to use that to extend the term to this situation for the category would be engaging in OR. The more common term for the auxiliaries to the US Highways is special routes, which is the term used in the next section of the article. Imzadi 1979 → 10:36, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good. I updated the nomination based on your feedback. RevelationDirect (talk) 11:22, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Oppose. I don't think the nominator understood what Imzadi1979 said. We already have a category, Category:Bannered and suffixed U.S. Highways, for the special routes, so this new category would be redundant to that one. The proper thing to do for Category:Three-digit U.S. Highways category is to upmerge it into the main Category:U.S. Highway System. And then we can sort out any duplication from there. –Fredddie ™ 11:54, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
Oppose - Since "auxiliary" U.S. Routes refers to bannered or suffixed routes rather than three-digit routes. Dough4872 13:11, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
Withdrawn for now. Although this category is problematic, there is not consensus above for how to fix it. Please join the conversation about next steps at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads#Category:Three-digit U.S. Highways. RevelationDirect (talk) 17:25, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Question Let me take two steps back here: Is there a different rename for this category that would describe the roads without relying on their names and wouldn't be redundant with Category:Bannered and suffixed U.S. Highways? RevelationDirect (talk) 17:27, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Comment—Bannered/suffixed would not apply at all, RevelationDirect. Those are things like U.S. Route 41 Business (Marquette, Michigan), which as the regulars here would know has the "BUSINESS" banner plate above the US 41 shield, or U.S. Route 20A (Ohio), which has a letter A suffix on the number. The category, as defined, is for the U.S. Highways with three digits, like U.S. Route 141. Other than a few exceptions, these all form a subdivision of the mainline U.S. Highways which were numbered as branches of their parents. So U.S. Route 66 had five branches, or child routes, numbered 166, 266, 366, 466 and 666. They form a distinct subset based on the origins of the names, but otherwise they're considered mainline highways like their two-digit parents. Imzadi 1979 → 20:16, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation of the difference. RevelationDirect (talk) 00:31, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Now that I've had a little while to think about it, Category:U.S. Highway System should list the same articles that are in {{U.S. Routes}}, which are the two-digit mainlines plus the oddballs like US 412. From there, there would be subcategories for each route that has or had a three-digit branch, i.e. U.S. Route 701 would be in Category:U.S. Route 1. After that, the three-digit category can be removed entirely as it's not a defining feature. –Fredddie ™ 23:12, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I actually thought they were already categorized this way, and think this would make the most sense. Category:U.S. Route 395 is listed in the parent Category:U.S. Route 95 (it is currently in both the 3-digit category and in the main category also), but I guess this is not uniform. The only other suggestion I can come up with is to remove the oddballs and rename this to something like Category:3-digit U.S. highway spurs—the rest of Freddie's suggestion would still be compatible with this. -- LJ ↗ 04:30, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

It was more of a call to action to make sure that all the articles were categorized this way. –Fredddie ™ 04:33, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Would "Category:U.S. Highway spurs work or, in practice, would that overlap with the banner routes? RevelationDirect (talk) 14:08, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm with Fredddie on this one. Unlike Interstates, three-digit U.S. Routes don't share much in common. Some are actually longer than their "parent" routes (cf. U.S. Route 281). Unlike three-digit Interstates, which usually stay in one particular area, three digit U.S. Routes often appear in several states along their journeys (again, US 281). I don't view them as secondary routes like I do with three-digit Interstates. The category is unnecessary and needs to go. -happy 5214 15:27, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

What terminology does AASHTO use? Because we should go with that. Three-digit U.S. Highway is like "3di", it's a roadgeek term d'art and not really an official term from reliable sources. Go to the reliable sources to decide how to deal with this. If AASHTO recognizes the concept of different classes of U.S. highway based as with the Interstate system, use their terminology here. If AASHTO doesn't recognize the distinction, it's an arbitrary distinction and should go altogether. --Jayron 32 05:08, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Personal update

As some of you may now (from IRC chat), I came out as transgender in February 2014. Due to this, my gender dysphoria has hit me so hard lately. In addition, the United States Navy's prohibition of open transgender service (makes me have to be totally a guy at work) until they lift the ban or I get out in March 2016 (whichever comes first), has caused me to become severely depressed. Therefore, I have retreated inside of me and stayed in Facebook too much, and I have neglected my editing "duties".

In other news, on Friday, September 25, I was involved in a car accident. My air bag scraped me and hit my nose. I might be taking more of a back seat to things on here. I really think I will be going for counseling soon. I hope no one is angry with me for revealing these things, or for using this page as a medium to inform y'all. That is exactly what I was trying to do: informing the WikiProject as to what was happening with me. Charlotte Allison (Allen/Morriswa) (talk) 02:36, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

You don't need to explain a decrease in your activity, although we certainly understand the "why" behind the lull your editing. Just take whatever time you need, edit when you can, and come back when things are better. Imzadi 1979 → 03:17, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I appreciate that you trust us enough to share all of this, but it is really not necessary. I don't claim to know how difficult gender transitioning is, especially when you're in the military, but I can imagine the emotional exhaustion it must cause. A car accident causing physical injury certainly doesn't help. But this is, at its core, a talk page for a WikiProject. Instead of posting personal events here that really should be put on Facebook, just simply explain that you will not be able to contribute to USRD as much in the near future. All that said, I sincerely wish you the best as you finally become able to live your life as who you really are, and I hope you can return to active editing whenever you feel ready. -happy 5214 03:44, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I figured I'd get flack for posting this here, but I wanted to make sure the whole Project knew what was going on. Thank you, Imzadi and Happy, for your understanding and good words. My life has gotten so hard lately. I have to survive until March 17, 2016, when I will be out of the Navy. I have been editing a little bit here and there. However, bigger projects, such as continuing to revamp the Georgia state route pages and some of my personal pages, have been put on the "back burner" for now. Facebook seems to be the only outlet and safe haven in the recent time period. I did put the link to my Facebook profile above, if anyone wants to friend me on there. Just send me a message, telling me who you are first. If I don't recognize you, I may delete your request! Sorry. LOL. Charlotte Allison (Allen/Morriswa) (talk) 10:09, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

First Commons USRD FP by an editor in this project

Quite to my surprise, a week ago another user at Commons nominated for featured picture there this picture I took along NY 199 in northeastern Dutchess County almost a year ago, to replace an earlier picture taken at almost the same location with an inferior camera. To my even bigger surprise, it passed unanimously, making it only my second FP at Commons.

Looking around, I see that this is only the third Commons FP of an American road after this and this one. More important to this project, it seems to be the first one taken by an American, and the first by a USRD participating editor. So I guess I feel proud of myself (Yes, I thought it was good enough to nominate for FP myself at some point; just hadn't gotten there yet).

I suppose I'll be nominating it for FP here at some point soon, to go along with the Route 66 pic which shares that honor. Keep an eye out for it there. Daniel Case (talk) 05:01, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

+1 Congratulations! Imzadi 1979 → 20:10, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

It's beautiful! RevelationDirect (talk) 01:31, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you both for the compliments! Daniel Case (talk) 04:27, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Now an FP here as well!

See here. Daniel Case (talk) 04:48, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

@Daniel Case: You should look at WP:CROWN and see if you are eligible for one, as well as being added to the USRD one. I wasn't able to tell from looking at your userpage. --Rs chen 7754 22:24, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

It seems like I would be ... Daniel Case (talk) 22:50, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

@Imzadi1979: ^ --Rs chen 7754 23:34, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

@Daniel Case: it's easy to nominate yourself for the Triple Crown; you just need to list the appropriate number of "sets" of content to the list along with their nomination pages/credits on WP:CROWN/NOM. A set is one DYK, one GA and one piece of Featured Content each. So if you have 50 DYKs, 3 GAs and 1 FA, then you'd only be able to claim one set, but if you had those same 50 DYKs, 30 GAs and 5 FAs, then you could claim 5 sets, and the articles in each set can be different. To be added to the USRD TC, the same thing applies, except that you'd just nominate one DYK, one GA and one FC that are tagged under USRD. Imzadi 1979 → 18:42, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, my bad, it looks like Daniel Case already was on it for NY 22. [12] --Rs chen 7754 22:10, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

GAR - Talk:Pennsylvania Route 652/GA2

See above. --Rs chen 7754 22:53, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Florida Straight-Line Diagram and US Census Bureau locations

G'day everyone, just coming in out of the cold for a little while at least, since the 10th anniversary of WP:USRD has brought the project to the fore in my mind and I'm without a fair number of my other commitments right now. I'm currently visiting the United States, although I fly back to Australia next Monday; but, I hope to reside in the US permanently a year from now. With that said, I've looked over some of the articles I've edited in the Miami area (i.e. the majority of my contributions) and I've noticed a few changes that I'd just like to question for some clarification before I attempt to do any more editing:

Since the web address for Florida Straight-Line Diagrams has changed from where it was when I cited it for mileposts and route descriptions, I've noticed that they've tended to be cited to the overall access website at http://www2.dot.state.fl.us/straight-linesonlinegis/ rather than each individual diagram. Now, while a big problem I've had in the past has been the ability to access the individual diagrams themselves due to IP blocking (I guess it's because I was accessing them from Australia, and was the main reason for me giving up editing at the time), is it generally okay to cite the website instead or should we be citing the individual diagrams? An example of what's occurred can be found at Florida State Road 997, citation 1 [13]; whereas the old system I was using can be found at U.S. Route 1 in Florida, citation 3 [14].
1. In addition to the above, how should they be cited?
In the Exit and Junction lists for my edits, I tried to give as best a location as I could and used any and all CDP's, towns and cities that the junctions or exits were located in, listing all of them when it was on a border or a junction of location. I then find that they've been edited to be simplified – OK, I get this – but when an edit note in the HEFT's history is "not going to puzzle out those fake CDP boundaries and determine which ones the Turnpike actually enters", I wonder if I've actually done the wrong thing or if someone just has a chip on their shoulder. As I cite locations from the US Census Bureau maps and follow the course of the road on those maps, I do take umbrage by the designation of "fake" for the work that I've done. Regardless of my own defensiveness, my questions are:
1. When there are multiple locations (i.e. three or more) at a junction, which ones should be included?
2. Is the U.S. Census Bureau a legitimate source for citing locations or is there a better source to use?

Thanks for your help, folks, and I look forward to editing once more. -DyluckTRocket (talk) 22:17, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Just to comment to the second of your questions at the moment, but CDP boundaries are very fluid and arbitrary, because they're a creation of the Census Bureau for statistical purposes and not an actual municipality. The Census can, and does, change them on a semi-regular basis as I understand it, so that might be why another editor is unwilling to continuously parse whether or not a junction falls within a CDP boundary. I would say that they are an accurate source for location information among other possible government sources.

For Michigan, we have a system of townships to subdivide counties. Highways often run along the boundaries between those townships, so I've listed up to four townships at a time for a single junction. (See the intersection between M-82 and M-120 for that extreme example.) Some might argue that it's being overly pedantic to go to that level of detail, but the RJL table is at its heart a reader-accessible version of a DOT highway inventory log, and it tends to be a case where we follow a level of precision appropriate to geographic locations that we wouldn't use in the prose RD section. Imzadi 1979 → 22:47, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Good to see you're still around! --Rs chen 7754 22:07, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

@DyluckTRocket: Municipalities all have defined boundaries as their legal jurisdiction. In most US states, the county is the lowest government subdivision that covers all land (in most Midwest states, townships are the lowest such subdivision; in Alaska, boroughs function similarly; there are probably rare, isolated exceptions with uninhabited islands, etc.). That means that a lot of land is within a county, but not part of a municipality. This is referred to as "unincorporated [name of county] County".

My understanding is that the name of the municipality is listed when the intersection lies withing the limits of that municipality; multiple municipalities if the intersection is within multiple municipalities. While some Census-Designated Places are well known as place names, they have no definitive boundary and as mentioned in comments above, are arbitrary and subject to frequent change. Highways are easy-to-use and effective boundaries to use when defining a CDP, which is why many intersections are located at the junction of several CDPs. Most counties have a website with GIS data, which includes municipality boundaries. In Miami-Dade County, that information can be found here (second result in a Google search for "miami-dade county gis municipalities"), after selecting "Municipalities" (just marks municipality boundaries) and/or "County & Municipalities Shaded". This then shows that HEFT only has intersections within the following incorporated municipalities in Miami-Dade County: Hialeah Gardens (east half of US27 junction), Doral (ramps @Exit 31 pass into Doral before merging to form 74th St.), Sweetwater (ramps to/from SR836 before joining SR836 mainline), Cutler Bay (NB entrance from US1, entire SR994 junction, part of SW 216th St junction), Homestead (SW 312 St), & Florida City (US1). I am updating the HEFT exits based on the municipalities and I also have a few other comments about exits that I'll place on its talk page. AHeneen (talk) 01:02, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

(@AHeneen:,@NE2:) Thanks for the responses, folks. There seems to be a difference in thought here when it comes to the use of CDP's; but, I've come to my own conclusions and I lean very strongly towards their use. I think it's a cultural thing for me (culture clash with the US, perhaps?) as to my want to define locations more finely thanks to my background. In Australia, nearly every populated place is incorporated as part of a municipality (LGA) of some description below the state level, i.e. the American county and town tiers of government is one and the same in Australia. So, if I were to take the logic of only using municipalities as locations on the RJL, then I would find that it would make it extremely vague. Take an Australian example with the Gateway Motorway: it's an important piece of national infrastructure that, although about 30 miles long, lies entirely within the boundaries of the municipality of the City of Brisbane. Now, another piece of cultural difference between the US and Australia is that practically every urban area is divided into suburbs, similar to districts or neighborhoods in the US. In Queensland, every suburb has gazetted boundaries defined by the State, while localities don't have boundaries; though there are often pushes by particular localities to be recognised and gazetted as suburbs. So, to clarify locations in the RJL in the case of the Gateway Motorway, suburbs are used. Yes, the Gateway Motorway also forms the basis for the boundaries between suburbs and junctions often straddle these boundaries (To be sure, I checked a UBD street directory, which shows this).

So, therefore, for locations in the US, I look for a similar system for identifying locations, which leads me to American municipalities and CDP's. According to the US Census Bureau's own criteria for CDP's (here): "The relative importance of CDPs varies from state-to-state depending on laws governing municipal incorporation and annexation, but also depending on local preferences and attitudes regarding the identification of places". Without having a viewpoint biased by being a local, I've been treating both CDP's and municipalities indiscriminately like Australian suburbs and localities, except I've thought of municipalities as being suburbs and CDP's as being localities with physically defined borders. The vast majority of US states have urban unincorporated areas in them and aren't as lucky as Michigan or New Jersey where everything is apparently incorporated, so there are heaps of places without self-governance. So, while I can understand the "use" of Unincorporated (ABC) County in the location column, my opinion is that it should only really apply where the location has no urban build-up to speak of. If you look at Miami-Dade County in the same map provided above, vast swathes of the urban area lie in the Unincorporated section of the county. Kendall, for example, has over 75,000 people living in it, has a "downtown" at Dadeland, and is apparently recognised as its own place in the greater Miami metro; yet, it remains an unincorporated area. Applying place theory to it from my former town planning studies, Kendall would thus be a notable location. Indeed, it's my understanding that all CDP's are notable enough on Wikipedia to warrant their own articles. Why leave out a population centre from the RJL, simply because it's not incorporated with its own distinct legal self-governing entity? What if the location was incorporated but has devolved - what, then? My view (which co-aligns with the Bureau's CDP criteria) is that while self-governance can help create place-identity, self-governance does not equal place identity. A location on the RJL shows not just where the junction is located but the populated area that the road serves, after all. Additionally, the column says "Location", not "Municipality".

By their very nature, all boundaries are arbitrary; some are just codified into laws. Even when they are codified, they're subject to change. The Queensland Government reworks its suburb boundaries from time to time or makes new ones, but that doesn't reduce the notability or validity of using suburbs as, even if the boundaries change, it remains a good approximation of location. From what I understand, a CDP is a Census-designated place: that is, its location is determined for ten years or so, from US Census to US Census. The maps I use are taken from the data of the 2010 Census and, thus, the CDP's can be verified and the junction's location therefore can be verified by that. Even if those boundaries will change for the 2020 Census, they're going to be current for the next five to six years, whenever the next lot of maps get published. Yes, it'll take a lot of work when the 2020 data is released to parse in any new boundaries and any location name changes; but, it seems from the Census Bureau's language in the criteria that CDP's are gaining more and more in geographic importance and thus will probably have some degree of stability into the future, given that they tend to use geographic features as boundaries. Furthermore, what happens when a municipality's boundaries change - does that invalidate their use as a location?

So, tl;dr, I think place identity is more important than who governs it and I'm only using the boundaries as it eliminates location bias. I would love to see some sort of clear guideline as to CDP usage in WP:RJL as the language is pro-incorporation. -DyluckTRocket (talk) 04:57, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Additionally I'm still confused by the FDOT SLD citations, which have not been addressed. Should I be citing each individual diagram or should I be citing the SLD website? I've tested the website and diagrams on my Australian connection and they seem to work for now. -DyluckTRocket (talk) 04:57, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

I can understand the desire to want to include a place identity with each junction. The only problem is when multiple junctions have 3-4 locations listed. That many locations is fine if that's the jurisdictions those junctions are located in, but excessive when using CDPs which most likely will use a major barrier such as a freeway to use as a boundary. If we were to use CDPs, then why not city neighborhoods? It just seems to me like the actual municipal boundaries (for incorporated communities) are the best "locations" to use. I waited to respond in the hope that someone else from this project would comment. I don't know the appropriate answer for the SLD question is. When I edited the locations in the HEFT article, I used the Miami-Dade County GIS web service as the reference for the location of the highway for the purpose of determining the locations. AHeneen (talk) 19:59, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

I've used a few unincorporated communities as locations in limited circumstances. Basically, if MDOT includes the community on the state map, I'll use it as the location of a junction, especially if the link would be blue (either as a redirect to the appropriate township article, or as a stand-alone article). Imzadi 1979 → 20:28, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

In states where every piece of land is part of a city, borough, town, or township like Pennsylvania or New Jersey, I will use the incorporated municipality the junction is in as the location. In states that have unincorporated areas like Delaware or Maryland, I will use either the CDP, nearest incorporated place, or the name of the post office for the ZIP code the junction is in, if it's in an unincorporated area. Dough4872 21:06, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Yahoo! Maps

As most should know already, Yahoo! shut down their mapping service earlier this year in June. That means every article using {{yahoo maps}} as a source has a dead link that can't be replaced with an archived copy. I've gone through the list of transclusions and eliminated the non-USRD uses, but that still leaves a little over 300 articles where the site is in use, assuming all links are using the template.

Can we get a few editors to pitch in some time to swap out Yahoo! Maps citations for ones using another mapping service? If we all picked a couple of articles a day, we could have everything switched in a week or so. Then we could have the template deleted and move forward without it. Imzadi 1979 → 22:06, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Yahoo_maps is the list of instances. Now you have no excuse for not being able to find it. –Fredddie ™ 22:12, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Non-article transclusions are clear. The rest of the instances not in the article space are mentions; we can let those turn into redlinks. –Fredddie ™ 22:21, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

By the end of the day, I aim to have all of the articles switched over except for those in New York, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania or Rhode Island. In other words, I should have everything outside of the Northeast and part of the Midwest switched. Imzadi 1979 → 12:30, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Junction list problem

There is an issue with the Junction list on Tennessee State Route 319. I have tried to fix it but nothing works. --ACase0000 (talk) 03:15, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. Dough4872 03:17, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank You! Also, Tennessee State Route 153 has a problem with the bridge thing. --ACase0000 (talk) 03:31, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Texas Park Roads

Do we consider these notable enough for their own article? The articles in question are Texas Park Road 2, Texas Park Road 3, and Texas Park Road 30.

@A Texas Historian: Rs chen 7754 22:08, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Pick a road. Is there enough reliable source material out there somewhere to support a substantial Wikipedia article on the road? If yes, write the article. If no, redirect it to a master list of them. Repeat for every road. --Jayron 32 20:18, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

@Jayron32: That may very well be, but as they are GAs, I'd rather not make that decision unilaterally. --Rs chen 7754 20:36, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Most of these roads seem to be short roads serving state parks. I think maybe they should be merged into a RCS list. Dough4872 22:42, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Remember that Good Article status does not guarantee that it is a good article. –Fredddie ™ 23:02, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

I am concerned about the level of redundancy of a RCS list to the table-based List of Park Roads in Texas, yet we need some redundancy to be useful. This also isn't some small system; the table has 62 redlinks in addition to the entries on the 16 existing articles. That's 78* entries, and I think pushing the limit of RCS-ification. (This number doesn't account for the fact that Park Road 1 is really 1A through 1E, in addition to other redundancies from reused or reassigned numbers. ) A pure RCS list would also eliminate the summary table we already have, eliminating the ability to sort the entries by length or date unless we maintained the current list and split the RCS stuff out into another page or two. Just some food for thought before people jump into a course of action. Imzadi 1979 → 00:56, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

If size is an issue, we can split into multiple RCS tables with the routelist serving as the base page linking to the routes that would redirect to the appropriate RCS list. Also, those park roads that have a lot to say about them or have exceptional notability may retain their own articles. Dough4872 01:00, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

If they are GAs then the articles have source material, hypothetically, and the article should exist. If the article has no substantial source material, and was promoted to GA, then whoever did so should be kindly asked to stop promoting GAs until they understand what a good article is. --Jayron 32 12:03, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Ontario Highway 48 GAN

I know this is not USRD, but most of us have the editing skills to work on articles north of the border. Ontario Highway 48 is currently at GAN and is on hold for mostly minor issues. However, the nominator has been inactive for the past two months, and it would help if other editors would be willing to step in and fix the issues. The review is at Talk:Ontario Highway 48/GA1. Dough4872 01:47, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Future exit numbers

Someone's objecting to my inclusion of future exit numbers for Massachusetts. Can someone make it so I can change the column titles current and future or something? --NE2 17:39, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

To clarify what you mean, you appear to be thinking that Massachusetts is changing its exit numbers from 1,2,3,4... to indicating mileage. Is this right?? Georgia guy (talk) 17:59, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm not just thinking it. It's happening: Massachusetts State Highway System#Exit numbering --NE2 18:34, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I'd just make a note in the History/Future section that the change is coming or underway/under bids. We can leave the numbers in the tables as is until they start installing the new numbers. Imzadi 1979 → 18:37, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

The future exit numbers are something that the general public will be interested in. --NE2 18:57, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

And of course you go and revert. Thanks a lot, buddy. --NE2 20:15, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I would just note it for now, it's true there is no reason to rush ahead of the game. You will likely not win the battle, you know how some of us editors are with our regional territories. --WashuOtaku (talk) 22:57, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable source on what the new numbers will be? V C 01:54, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I referenced them. --NE2 03:55, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Maybe we could modify the {{jctint}} series of templates to include a column for future exit numbers if they are reliably soured. Dough4872 04:46, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

With other cases, like Interstate 69 in Indiana, we just waited until the new numbers were put into use. I don't see the point in changing that process now and going to the trouble of changing multiple templates for a situation that will resolve itself in just a few months. Until the exits actually change, those numbers are of limited utility or interest to a general audience. Imzadi 1979 → 10:46, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Old highway segments in Arkansas included on the National Register of Historic Places

So when I was cranking out some KMLs this afternoon, I noticed nine stubs in the Arkansas category that pertain to segments of old highways in Arkansas that are on the National Register of Historic Places. As all of them are no longer maintained by the state, the only claim of notability for each seems to be that it is included on the NRHP. This, to me, seems not enough for each segment to warrant its own article. In my opinion, the nine of them should be combined into a single listicle, if not just deleted outright. What do others think should be done with these pages?

For reference, the articles in question are Old Arkansas 22, Old Arkansas 51, Old US 67 and the Old US 71 segments at Ashdown, Greenland, Jenny Lind, the Little River approach, Ogden and Wilton. While composing this request for comments, I noticed redirects for a few other similar segments: Old Arkansas 2, Old Arkansas 11 and another segment of Old US 67. Yet more of them may be out there unbeknownst to me. Any thoughts on these either? T C N7JM 03:26, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

For the US 71 segments, I'd suggest that they were either combined into a listicle, like Business routes of U.S. Route 10 in Michigan, etc, or merged into U.S. Route 71 in Arkansas outright. As for the others, either they could be in a single listicle, or they should be added to their appropriate parent highway articles, much like M-44 Connector (Michigan highway) and M-44 (Michigan highway). Imzadi 1979 → 03:29, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

I say we just mention all the old segments in the history section of the parent article and note that they are part of the NRHP. We don't need a listicle or separate subsection in the main article to cover these old segments. Dough4872 03:33, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Speaking as both a NRHP and USRD editor, I say that we should merge the segments into the parent highway articles and mention them in the history. The parent highway articles should include information about the segments (and any historically significant former alignment, for that matter). I've done similar things with some of the old Route 66 segments on the Register, and I don't see why the Arkansas segments need to be treated differently unless there's something particularly significant about any of them. (@Magicpiano: you created a lot of both the articles and the redirects - do you have any input?) TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 03:44, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm not a a USRD editor, but I've probably created a non-trivial number of the mentioned stubs. I don't have a particularly strong feeling one way or the other on how these are handled (as evidenced in part by my creating articles on some, and redirecting others). I think the best consistent treatment would be Dough's suggestion to merge them into history sections of a suitable article, since that is where most of their context would be placed anyway. Some of the NRHP nomination forms for these road sections give context that might be useful in elaborating those history sections. Magic♪piano 03:57, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Welcome Centers

Question regarding Welcome Centers and possibly Rest Areas. Got a case where a user in the past added a Welcome Center in an Interstate exit list, do we simply remove them? Also do we note about them anywhere on the article if we so choose? This has probably been asked before, but just need clarification from the current group. Thank you. --WashuOtaku (talk) 14:03, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

The previous discussion we had about the issue is here. From that discussion, we had mixed consensus on how to cover them, whether in the prose and/or the exit list. Dough4872 15:50, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

GA audit done - feedback needed

I've closed the User:Rschen7754/USRD GA audit. The few remaining articles that need to be fixed are issues that are arguably borderline in terms of the audit scope.

Now that it has closed, how do we make sure that our GAs retain their quality, going forward? Especially as we get closer to 1000, and as I'm getting busier in real life, I'm no longer able to conduct such a thorough audit like I did the last few years. --Rs chen 7754 22:35, 7 November 2015 (UTC) (postscript: or really, for any one person to do, even if they are very active, as we get more and more GAs. --Rs chen 7754 22:09, 8 November 2015 (UTC))

Quality is relative. Just need to make sure that people don't start subtracting stuff going forward. --WashuOtaku (talk) 23:22, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

I'd say that as a project we keep watch of the GAs and if issues arise in any of them, try to fix them ourselves or else take to GAR. Dough4872 06:34, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Most of us know how to find problems in GAs and what would need to be done to fix them. If we find an outstanding problem somewhere, we can either fix it ourselves or bring it up here, where multiple people who know how to fix it would see it. T C N7JM 07:07, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Rschen, you're overthinking this and you need to relax. Our 2015 GAs are far and away better than our 2010 GAs, so it's unlikely that a post-audit audit will be necessary at all.

Most importantly, we're better at writing GAs than we were when the audit started.
We're better at coaching newer editors on how to write GAs.
We're better at catching stuff (as a whole, not just in our GAs) right away than we've ever been.
This project is not dependent on one person to lord over the rest of us. There simply are no knobs to hide behind the curtain.

You've put in ~~too much~~ a lot of time into this project; I get it, you want what's best for USRD. But I'm kind of tired of the "what are you going to do without me" vibe that you've been giving off the last 18 months. I don't need an update on your activity levels. Contribute when you have time, don't when you don't. It's really simple. Like I said before, you're overthinking this and you need to relax. USRD is fine. –Fredddie ™ 07:18, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Ignoring the unnecessary personal commentary that would have been better expressed offwiki, the problem is that in the two years since the audit started, more external links have gone down, more IPs have added unsourced commentary, etc. I know that we're better than in years past at catching stuff, but I'm not going to take the foolhardy position that we catch 100% of it. For example, somehow U.S. Route 395 in California picked up a dead link that got missed because it was after I had checked that article in the audit.

I was thinking of some sort of automation like Book talk:Michigan State Trunkline Highway System, which would provide another tool to catch the worst of the issues without checking every single article. --Rs chen 7754 21:06, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't think what Fredddie said was in any way a personal attack, and I actually second it. That you completely ignored it concerns me quite a bit. T C N7JM 21:10, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

I could respond to it, but then I would be ignoring my own advice, wouldn't I? Now, do you have any comments on what I have proposed, or on ways to keep our quality intact without a 2 year process? --Rs chen 7754 21:20, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

I think using an automated tool to track dead links, etc. would be a good idea along with watchlisting the GAs to make sure the changes made to them do not go against the criteria. After all, most active editors should be watching over their own GAs anyway, and we would just need someone else to watch over the GAs of the inactive editors (which isn't too many of them). Dough4872 01:32, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

It's easy for someone to set up books on each state's highway system, like I did for Michigan, and then the one bot will create the appropriate book report that I use to periodically fix issues that pop up. The rest is just vigilance at checking edits for stuff on my watch list. Imzadi 1979 → 01:59, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Interstate 26/US Route 23 in Tennessee

Different question, I want to break out the Tennessee article for Interstate 26, but it is completely overlapped with U.S. Route 23 (which also doesn't have its own article) and continues another three miles into the next state. I believe the reason why neither have a Tennessee article yet because is nobody know how best way to do this. Is there any examples where to highways share the same article in similar circumstance? What would be the best way to handle this? --WashuOtaku (talk) 15:47, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

We had a prior discussion about that issue here. If you can cover the entire length of I-26 in one article without overburdening it, then do that. Otherwise, I-26 can have a state-detail article for Tennessee. Regarding US 23, you can either merge the Tennessee state-detail page into I-26, or could just add a hatnote to the I-26 state-detail page from the main US 23 article. Dough4872 15:56, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for rehashing old conversations but there was never a consensus here. I believe a breakout of I-26 in Tennessee can be made and I would like to incorporate US 23 in it, but not sure the best way doing this. --WashuOtaku (talk) 16:01, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

You could do a state detail page for the entire length of US 23 in Tennessee, which would also include the entire length of I-26 in Tennessee. As for the title, you could use U.S. Route 23 in Tennessee, with Interstate 26 in Tennessee serving as a redirect. I don't think it would be fair to call the page I-26 in Tennessee since not all of US 23 in the state is I-26. Another idea could be to combine them into the title as Interstate 26 and U.S. Route 23 in Tennessee. Dough4872 16:06, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

I think I'll try the U.S. Route 23 in Tennessee idea and combine both markers in the infobox and such. My only concern then someone will get upset putting billing to a U.S. Route first and Interstate second. I don't think the combine route name would work, they tend to dissolve after a year or two. Thanks for the input. --WashuOtaku (talk) 20:04, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

I prefer Interstate 26 in Tennessee be the primary article because I think signed Interstates should be the prime designation for these purposes. Remember that most of I-26 in Tennessee was Interstate 181 until the mid-2000s. Interstate 181 redirects to the Interstate 26 main article. If you do make U.S. Route 23 in Tennessee the primary article, be sure to incorporate the Interstate 181 information and change the redirect. V C 03:00, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

That is the plan. I think the US 23 as top billing will work though, if it's laid out showing both together and explains itself fully, it shouldn't get too many people asking it to be replaced with I-26, split to two articles (which would be an almost carbon-copy) or other. --WashuOtaku (talk) 03:22, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Made first attempt of the new U.S. Route 23 in Tennessee article page. Yes, it is a work in progress, but if you want to go ahead and make corrections and/or think this will not work for a redirect of I-26 in Tennessee, now is the time to review. Thanks. --WashuOtaku (talk) 00:20, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't think you need a Concurrency routes section for I-26 and TN 137 when this information could just be mentioned in the route description. I would move the I-26 mini-infobox into the route description and would ditch the TN 137 infobox as that route is unsigned. Dough4872 04:04, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

I think this is best handled like I-395 (FL)/Florida State Road 836. We don't need two articles here, there are only about 3 miles of U.S. 23 which has not been subsumed by I-26. I'd be fine under either title (a slight preference for I-26 being the title of the article, but not enough to make a deal over it), but basically there's no need for a separate article over a 3 mile extension. Make the article at one of the titles, and redirect the other to it. --Jayron 32 20:20, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Interstate 381 junction list

The junction list "county" needs to be removed as the city of Bristol, Virginia is an independent city (meaning it is not apart of any county). I tried to fix it but couldn't. --ACase0000 (talk) 03:11, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Instead of |county=Washington and |location=Bristol, you have to use |indep_city=Bristol. Easy. –Fredddie ™ 13:54, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

@Fredddie: Ah, thank you so much. :-D --ACase0000 (talk) 15:05, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

US 33 in Ohio

I want to split off U.S. Route 33 in Ohio into its own article instead of a redirect. I have a junction list at User:TenPoundHammer/sandbox and would like some help in adding the mileages and other relevant information. I'd also like to know how the SR 691 south / SR 78 east exit is signed since Google Street View went through before that exit was open. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 19:16, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

The first thing, TenPoundHammer, is will you have a route description or history section written to go with that RJL? If you don't, the past procedure would be to copy the RJL to the talk page and restore the redirect.

Ok, now that I got that comment out of the way, you'll want to look at the straight-line diagrams from ODOT to get the mileages as well as the correct locations. Imzadi 1979 → 19:51, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

@TenPoundHammer: ping for above. Imzadi 1979 → 19:53, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

@Imzadi1979: I plan to include a route description and history, as I did with U.S. Route 23 in Ohio. I could never figure out how to use that mileage thing. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 19:55, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

You mean DESTAPE, even after I explained how to use it? –Fredddie ™ 20:07, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

@Freddie: That looks like a very, very, very, very, VERY complicated mess that I have to redo for every single intersection. No idea how anyone can do that. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 05:59, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

I filled in the mileposts and the rest of the locations from DESTAPE. It's really not that difficult and it only took me about 3 hours (with distractions). I will cite it later today when I have more time. –Fredddie ™ 17:45, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Experienced editor advice required for Florida State Road 997 RJL

Hey folks, there's a risk of a reversion war breaking out between another editor and myself on Florida State Road 997 as to the legitimacy, significance and verifiability of what to include in the article's RJL. My version of the RJL leaves out a lot of material that is included on the other editor's version. I would like to seek third party opinions, please, on how to best proceed on the article's talk page here. -DyluckTRocket (talk) 08:17, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

A formal RfC has been made on the article. -DyluckTRocket (talk) 12:37, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

On this day portal section

We probably have enough snippets in our Portal news archive that we could create an "On this day" section. I don't believe that there are 366 days of content, so it can be set up to show only when there is content available. I think that if we do this, we should expand each snippet to give the reader a little more context. Any thoughts? –Fredddie ™ 21:33, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

I think this would be a great idea to remind readers of past events and their anniversaries. Also, we are not limited to just the portal news archive and can certainly find tons more to add. Dough4872 22:58, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Right. I was just suggesting the news archive as a starting point. Ideally, we'd weed out some of the weaker snippets. –Fredddie ™ 23:03, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea, provided we have enough dedicated resources to keep it going (and admittedly it would only take a couple) There's enough highway news out there that even if there is no entry in a given day that has been submitted to our portals and articles, a search of news archives should find something. Dave (talk) 23:13, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Interstate 14

It seems the five-year transportation funding bill signed into law this month has given new life to this long-moribund proposal. The congressionally designated corridor now extends into western Texas roughly following US 190.

[15]
[16]

Fortguy (talk) 22:33, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

List of U.S. Routes in Washington

Hi, I was going to do a partial revert on htis edit as its an invalid shield.. However I suspect the edit should be a full revert. Thought I'd flag it for you guys to look at. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 13:43, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

It is a valid shield that just hasn't been made yet, Dough4872 15:26, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

No it isn't. –Fredddie ™ 22:25, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

The shield already exists, but is not a state-name one (which is what the template is calling for). Sounder Bruce 20:41, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

2015 goal update

We have 314 classes remaining to make one of our goals for 2015. It seems like a lot, but merging TX FM road articles into RCS lists is probably the easiest way to do this, since it is on average 4 classes per merger (which takes about 5 minutes each). That comes out to merging away 80 of those articles.

There's more information at Wikipedia:WikiProject_U.S. Roads/Texas/FM completion list if you're interested. --Rs chen 7754 21:05, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

List of United States Numbered Highways

On U.S. Route 411 it says that the route has no 2nd terminus and that: "Tennessee signs the south end at I-40 northeast of Greeneville". I-40 isn't northeast of Greeneville. And it would be the north. The correct northern terminus is at US-25W/US-70/I-40 in Newport, Tennessee.

I'd fix it myself but I just wanted to see what you all think. --ACase0000 (talk) 02:52, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Fix it. List of U.S. Numbered Highways conflicts with U.S. Route 411. Both should be reconciled with [17]. This is the official AASHTO log, but was last updated in 1989. If you know this is out of date for US 411 (i.e. have a source, not just google maps) than it should be reconciled with that source. Dave (talk) 06:13, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

That link is outdated. Also I am not relying on Google maps. --ACase0000 (talk) 08:20, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

@ACase0000: if I'm reading Dave's comments correctly, and I'm pretty sure I am, he acknowledged that the source is dated. However, it is the last official AASHTO log of the US Highways. He said that if you had a reliable source that updates the information in the log, then use it. We have almost all of the AASHTO committee reports/minutes cataloged at WP:USRD/AASHTO (and citable with {{AASHTO minutes}} to boot!), so that could be an option. Basically, he's suggesting that you do just a little investigative work to figure out the correct answer and fix both articles, adding the appropriate citations. Imzadi 1979 → 10:38, 15 December 2015 (UTC) (re-signing to activate ping. Imzadi 1979 → 10:39, 15 December 2015 (UTC))

Thanks Imzadi. Grrr, I should never post when I'm in a hurry. Fixing my atrocious grammar in line. Dave (talk) 16:22, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I have traveled on 411 and it appears to end at 25W/70. --ACase0000 (talk) 17:39, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

And that's WP:OR, which is why you have to some digging. –Fredddie ™ 18:44, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to all of you for not being helpful. --ACase0000 (talk) 19:11, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

We have to follow published sources though, ACase0000. Our personal observations are a good starting point, but they need to be backed with sources. Imzadi 1979 → 23:30, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

It's not that we're not trying to be helpful. It's that I have no experience with roads in that area. Again the AASHTO logs are the official logs; sadly AASHTO is TERRIBLE about keeping their website updated. The state DOT does not always sign in the field what they agreed to sign for AASHTO, so it is not unusual for the signed termini of a highway to differ from the official log. Believe me, we feel your pain. I'm more familiar with highways in the west. I had to deal with a mess with U.S. Route 163 until finally in 2008 the state of Utah and AASHTO got on the same page.(The article details it, but long story short, there was a dependency in signage from the official log that lasted over 20 years). Who knew highway termini could be such a complicated subject. Do some digging, the truth is out there. =-) Dave (talk) 01:06, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Would TDOT's maps Etc. Be useful? --ACase0000 (talk) 04:44, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I would like to say yes, but personally, I have never found them to be useful. Most, if not all, of the county maps are outdated and in a raster-format PDF, which makes them nearly impossible to read. The statewide map is at too great a scale to be useful as anything other than a general reference. Just the design of the TDOT website makes me feel like they don't like sharing detailed information with the general public unless they absolutely had to. I can't even find GIS data from which we could measure lengths or make maps. Disappointing. –Fredddie ™ 06:05, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Okay thanks. :-) --ACase0000 (talk) 06:14, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Pennsylvania map templates

With the push to get road maps on templates, I think now would be a good time to get Pennsylvania done as the state recently changed the URL to the maps. The historical road maps posted online by PennDOT are here. In addition, we should probably also create templates for the county Type 10 maps. The current county maps are here while some of the historic county maps are here. Dough4872 00:24, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

The SLD links have changed also, they are here. Also we should get a template created for the PennDOT SLDs similar to {{Maryland HLR}}. In the interim, is there a way we can get the map and SLD links updated as it would take a long time to fix them by hand? Dough4872 01:31, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

AfC submissions

See Draft:Interstate 84 in Pennsylvania, Draft:U.S. Route 231 in Tennessee and Draft:U.S. Route 287 in Oklahoma. Thank you, FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 02:33, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion, you might want to consider only working on one and making it really good first, than making multiples. Mitch32^{(I can have oodles of charm when I want to.)} 18:24, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Interstate 84 (Pennsylvania–Massachusetts)

Why does I-84 have four state-detail articles? I didn't think the entire route was long enough to merit splitting. –Fredddie ™ 19:02, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Arguably only 84 in NY & CT deserve it. PA & MA can be handled in the I-84 article. Mitch32^{(I can have oodles of charm when I want to.)} 19:51, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Depends on how the articles look fully written. There might be enough details for each state to justify separate articles, otherwise the state-detail articles should be merged into the main article. I can see PA, NY, and CT having enough to have stand-alone articles, the MA section is short and might be better handled in the main article. Dough4872 02:56, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Interstate 8 is 120 miles longer than I-84 and is a featured article. How again do Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut need state-detail articles? –Fredddie ™ 03:57, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Using the length factor, one article makes sense. However, there is more to say about roads in the Eastern U.S. than in the Western U.S. as the East is more densely populated and has an older and more rich history in development of roads and highways. Keep in mind most of I-8 is in sparsely populated desert while I-84 passes through or near quite a few population centers. Dough4872 04:01, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Keep in mind that most of the articles in the eastern U.S. are bloated with turn-by-turn analysis and mentions of every farm field of agriculture. While yes, you are correct that the east has more history, I think Rschen7754 would disagree that the west's history of developing roads is less rich than the east's. –Fredddie ™ 04:29, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

The reason I cherry picked CT & NY is that they likely have the longest histories. The MA section deserves to be in the I-84 main article, but PA I-84 is nothing special historically. Mitch32^{(I can have oodles of charm when I want to.)} 04:37, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

In the case of I-84, CT and NY do have a lot of historical information to discuss, PA may have less history but has enough length and a decent number of junctions to sustain an article. MA may be too short in both aspects to maintain an article and might be better covered in the main article similar to other short segments of an Interstate in a state like Interstate 76 in New Jersey. However, I feel the main I-84 article would be a mess if two states have state-detail pages while the other two don't. With that said, we either need to let all 4 states (possibly excluding MA) have state-detail pages (my favored option at this point) or merge all 4 states into the main article. Dough4872 05:11, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

In general, I'd support either running with separate state-level subarticles or merging everything together for one reason. If there were an elegant solution, I'd withdraw this personal reservation. If split up, table-based exit lists would exist only on the state-level articles, and the national-level article would have a simpler "bulleted"-style list. This is the situation with Interstate 75 and Interstate 75 in Michigan, et al. If there were not separate articles, then the table-based list would be in the national-level article, as in U.S. Route 8. These should be mutually exclusive options for consistency.

Let's assume that some states get subarticles and some do not. OK, so each state with a subarticle receives a full table-based exit list, and the national-level article has the simplified list. So what of the states we deem should not have subarticles? If a table-based exit list for that state would essentially consist of the termini within that state, then I see no harm in omitting a table someplace. However, if that hypothetical table contains more than "essentially just the termini", then we have an issue of due weight in our treatment of the topic across the collection of articles. Of course we do have the situations where a highway dips into and back out of a state, and in those cases like I-49 in TX or I-24 in GA, we've merged that minor amount of state-level content into another state-level article.

Ok, the summary: in the case of I-84 in MA, I think we have too long of an exit list to warrant not including it someplace. It would be inconsistent to use the summary-style list for the other three states in the national I-84 article and drop a table for MA at the end. In other cases though, such a single-state exit list might be simple enough to not require a full table someplace. Imzadi 1979 → 14:31, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

In that case, merge the MA sub-article with Connecticut's? Kinda like how Rand McNally used to put states together that were too small for their own page. Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 14:59, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't be against this so long as we have a precedent. -DyluckTRocket (talk) 03:17, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

USSH violation in Virginia

I noticed across Virginia road articles that a mix of "State Route X" and "Virginia State Route X" were used for the article title in the lead. According to WP:USSH, "State Route X" is the official name while "Virginia State Route X" is to be used for article titles. In that case, we need to change the instances using "Virginia State Route X" to "State Route X". Would someone be willing to do an AWB run to fix this? Dough4872 04:09, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Done. Sounder Bruce 04:28, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Dough4872 04:31, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Duplicate location

it would be great if someone could fix the duplicate location parameter errors (to see, view in preview mode) in

Georgia State Route 30 (search for |location1=[[Jacksonville, Florida|Jacksonville]]|location1=[[Florence, South Carolina|Florence]])
Interstate 55 in Mississippi (search for location=Grenada)
Interstate 85 in Georgia (search for |county=Meriwether|location=none|county=Coweta|cspan=5|location=Grantville)

thank you. Frietjes (talk) 17:59, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

All fixed from a technical standpoint. Imzadi 1979 → 18:12, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Business routes in the auxiliary Interstate navboxes

Some of the auxiliary Interstate navboxes list business routes in each state. I've been adding them to others for consistency, but I don't know if they should be included at all since they aren't the same thing as 3DIs. Sure, they're "auxiliary," but do they really have the same importance as a 3DI child Interstate?--Molandfreak (talk, contribs, email) 05:01, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't think that listing all the business routes in the 3DI boxes is necessary. A reasonable compromise could be to include the national list of business routes (where applicable). -- LJ ↗ 07:41, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

@Ljthefro: they aren't all listed, however, some states have enough business loops to warrant the creation of their own state-based listicles. (They aren't purely lists, and they aren't single-topic articles, hence the portmanteau.) As of right now, I haven't seen a navbox that listed every business route, but they have been listing all of the the other state-detail articles, and where appropriate, the applicable listicles on business routes. Imzadi 1979 → 08:43, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I hadn't seen a navbox with the business route links added. Now that I've seen a couple—which have one "business" link (whether it's to a national/state listicle or single article) per state—this seems acceptable. (Side note: Might be worth standardizing the style of headings on the listicles...) -- LJ ↗ 10:07, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Portal peer review/California Roads/archive1

Noting that I have started the above discussion. Your feedback is welcome. --Rs chen 7754 20:28, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Massachusetts exit lists

Massachusetts plans to replace exit numbers from sequential-based to milepost-based in the next few years. Didn't we agree that the exit lists should remain the old numbers until signage changes are completed? Recent changes were made to Interstate 84 in Massachusetts‎ and Interstate 91. Are we getting ahead of ourselves? Chinissai (talk) 14:03, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

In the previous discussion, consensus seemed to determine not adding the future exit numbers until they become official, in which case the future exit numbers would be removed and only the current exit numbers would be displayed. However, I am open to including a column for future exit numbers if they are reliably sourced. Dough4872 15:37, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Link to that discussion. I will go ahead and revert recent changes for now. Chinissai (talk) 19:32, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

List of U.S. highways in South Carolina

There is a discussion on Talk:List of U.S. Highways in South Carolina#Missing highways about the missing entries for the page. Charlotte Allison (Allen/Morriswa) (talk) 05:28, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Those "bypass" routes are actually the mainline routes. Also, since I was the one that created and wrote most of that page, I didn't bother with the miscellaneous routes at the time and you are more than welcome to add them. However, I question the truck routes, as those are typically done at the discretion of SCDOT and sometimes not even shown on official state maps (i.e. difficult to reference). --WashuOtaku (talk) 05:54, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

They can still serve as redirects to the mainline routes, can't they? ---------User:DanTD (talk) 16:33, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Random jct list edits

I noticed a number of recent random edits to junction lists by 2601:202:201:34c2:e9c7:c8a9:ce15:6bb2 (talk). These seem to be adding somewhat irrelevant long-distance destinations. I reverted a couple, but thought others should be aware. -- LJ ↗ 19:03, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Also ‎73.235.237.179 (talk). -- LJ ↗ 19:11, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

I went on a revert spree last night. Cheyenne and Denver are never signed anywhere in Iowa (except here). –Fredddie ™ 19:54, 13 February 2016 (UTC)