Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Highways/Archive 1

message: I'm in the process of adding external links to he highway guides I've created for many North American Highway. Someone suggested that I should let the highway community know I'm doing that so they don't think I'm link spamming. I've got detailed photos and text of lots of stuff along the highways in Canada, Mexico and USA.  I'd welcome your thoughts on my project and the links. If folks want to use photos (I've got thousands of lovely photos) from my highway guides, feel free to use them but do give credit. Thanks, James Love James Love 13:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: From "my" web site? You are not allowed to add links to your own web site. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  22:50, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding Mile By Mile External Links 

message: :My primary idea is to make highway articles as navigable as (and in some cases more navigable than) the highways themselves. The easier for a user to explore a highway system the better. In a really good system, users can enjoy virtual road trips. Continue discussion on the talk page. --Spikey 02:54, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: See the message I posted on your Talk page. Ilyanep 02:59, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

text: robinp 04:13, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Navigation 

message: Is this the right place to discuss US Interstate issues?
I noticed that pages about interstates have a heading called 'Number of miles'. I want these pages to have metric equivalents so that non-US readers understand. A 'Number of miles' heading does not make sense with km. It should be something like 'Distance' or 'Length'. I notice that there are a *lot* of road pages and they are very non-metric. Is there a place to discuss the issue of standard headings etc?
Bobblewik 18:57, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Interstates

message: The article on Transportation is currently nominated on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. Vote for Transportation there.--Fenice 09:11, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improvement drive 

message: In Virginia, we have Interstate and Primary highways with unique numbers. But state maintained secondary routes have a numbering system which duplicates numbers from 600 up in various parts of the state. In WP, we are just now starting to get articles on some major secondary roads, such as Virginia Secondary Route 711, which is essentially as busy as and maintained like a primary highway, but isn't one because they want to keep it a scenic byway and discourage through traffic. This is an unusual situation with 711, but I see naming conflict on the horizon for others (i.e. there could be dozens of other roads which are also a Virginia secondary route numbered 711).   
The article List of Virginia numbered highways does a pretty good job of describing the conflicts we will have with names such as this one, but I don't know how else to name the article. Do we have a WP naming convention for situations such as this?
:::Mark in Historic Triangle Vaoverland 19:20, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Virginia Secondary Roads 

message: It is strongly recommended that those working on articles about U.S. roads put this on your user page. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  03:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ((tl|Project U.S. Roads}} 

message: Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Thanks a lot! Gflores Talk 17:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as the U.S., see U.S. Roads, plus maybe a few of the good state articles. Don't know about otherwise, though. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  03:02, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project 

message: Hi, I'm done with the disambiguated Road templates.  I'll keep checking for awhile before asking that the templates themselves be deleted:
now , , or , 
plus :Category:Lists of roads sharing the same title.
I placed the category under :Category:Streets and roads, where it should be easy to find.
I'm sorry about the earlier problems with Tedernst, who didn't follow anything like standard procedure. Since I'm not a rampant disambiguation hack and slasher, please note that the pages are intact (or as intact as Ted left some of them). I merely changed the template and added the old category.
I hope things continue more peacefully on this worthwhile project.
:--William Allen Simpson 04:52, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD plus old category 

message: Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-03-12 U.S. Roads.  --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  20:57, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Med Cabal 

message: Might as well advertise this here - I'm proposing to move the disambiguation paces like Route 1 to list of highways numbered 1. --SPUI (T - C) 18:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation]] 

message: It may be fine internationally, but that should not go on any U.S. or Canada road articles since we have separate projects for those. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  00:37, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Project Template 

message: I don't think highways should be deleted, but it may be a good idea if they have slightly shorter article titles :-). Can someone take a look at things like Cuddalore - Nellikuppam - Panruti - Thiruvamur - Madapattu - Thirukovilur - Thiruvannamalai - Polur - Vellore - Katpadi - Chittoor Road and suggest perhaps a naming scheme for these roads? They have a number, so it is not that no other name is available. There is no true guideline or policy on article title length, but this is unsearchable and rather unpractical. Fram 07:40, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[List of State Highways in Tamilnadu]] 

message: I have created a proposal for a Highway NorthBarnStar, to reward significant and excellent contributions to WikiProject Highways and its descendant projects. --Kitch (Talk | Contrib) 14:26, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Highway NorthBarnStar 

message: Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory.  This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you.  B2T2 22:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project directory 

message: Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention.  Badbilltucker 23:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia Day Awards 

message: I have noticed that the term "multiplex" is often used in articles to refer to a concurrency, something that I would like to propose should be avoided as per WP:NEO. This neologism only seems to be used by the road geek community, in particular this FAQ notes that it originated from a single newsgroup and that authorities generally use the more intuitive terms "concurrency" and "overlap". Often when the term is used it is linked to Multiplex (road) as if it is expected that the reader may not understand the term (and in fact said article was redirected to Concurrency (road) over a year ago). Sometimes the terms "duplex" and "triplex" are even used interchangably with "multiplex", making things even more confusing and inconsistent.
Additionally, the term "multiplex" is often used somewhat sloppily. For example, see : it's used in several inconsistent forms, such as "becomes multiplexed", "is multiplexed", "has a multiplex", which can generally more fluently stated as "overlaps", "runs concurrent", "joins", etc. Krimpet 05:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I'd recommend the easier-to-conjugate overlap, and said as much on talk:concurrency (road). --NE2 16:37, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Avoiding the term "multiplex" 

message: Single-point urban interchange was moved to the new title Single Point Interchange on January 28 by User:Dab235. There doesn't appear to have been any consensus for this move, and the user also did several other questionable page moves at the same time (including Prince George, British Columbia to "Uj", traffic circle to "The Mega-Smallest Roundabout", roundabout to "The Mega-Rotary" and mouth to "buccal cavity".) However, I wanted to raise it for discussion here, since unlike the others it is a reasonably valid alternate title, and of all Dab's page moves it's the only one that wasn't reverted within a few hours. Change back if need be (don't forget to fix the double redirects!) But please discuss. Thanks. Bearcat 11:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question 

message: This is in response to something I noticed after someone had tried to move Capital Beltway to Interstate 495. I posted to Talk:Capital Beltway, but perhaps this is a better forum for a general discussion. Briefly, some articles on tertiary interstates have a single article that discusses all the separate routes, sometimes containing links to separate articles on specific routes if warranted. Other articles use the interstate route number as a disambiguation page with separate articles for each of the routes (which sometimes do not even have standard Interstate nnn titles). 
I would like to see the former as the standard. Note: I'm NOT suggesting that we move Capital Beltway to Interstate 495--rather Interstate 495 would no longer be a disambiguation page and would include info about all the routes with a link to the Capital Beltway article for more details. However, the Capital Beltway article would not be included in :Category:U.S. Interstate Highway system. Any comments? older≠wiser 17:37, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think in time, all articles about Interstates will become long enough to deserve their own article. Thus, something like I recently did with Interstate 295 is appropriate IMO. --SPUI 10:52, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tertiary Interstate articles 

message: I've moved Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways to the Inactive section of the WikiProject page, as it hasn't been edited since Nov 1st; I wanted to let you all know, and ask if you're still working on it.  If so, feel free to move it back up into the active section. JesseW 08:22, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't know this existed until now; I've definitely been doing stuff that would fall under it. I support this if only to thwart the deletionists. --SPUI 10:52, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Still active? 

message: There exist many alternate, business, bypass, and more exotic spurs of US highways. There is often more than one of a certain name/number. I suggest using {parent} {banner} ({unique identifier}), like U.S. Highway 1 Alternate (Jacksonville). --SPUI 10:52, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bannered US Highways 

message: Is there any particular way to best present the state and local roads and highways which are below the U.S. Highway XX level ? I realize that the terminology and numbering/designation varies. widely from state to state (and province?). I have been thinking, for example Virginia Highway 5, or VA-5 in the case of my home state of Virginia. Vaoverland 12:24, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
:For Florida, the terminology is fairly obvious; everything is referred to as State Road XX or SR XX. So the articles are Florida State Road XX; and references in other articles are SR XX. The problem is with other states. We should probably be using the terminology the DOT uses, adding the state name in front of it, and expanding abbreviations like SR. There are some problems with some states though. For example, Maryland uses MD XX. Maryland XX doesn't particularly seem right. Maybe the word Highway should be added in those cases. Or maybe MD XX is good. --SPUI 13:44, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  State Routes / Highways 

message: Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/York Road - We must band together to keep articles like this from being deleted. Note how many delete votes there are even after I fixed it up into its current form. --SPUI 01:45, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Er, what should I title this 

message: Would there be interested in creating a more general sister project, which rather than being about specific named highways, was about road transport, covering roadworks, street furniture and vehicles such as lorry and bus? A proposal has been made at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Road transport, where it was suggested that input be gauged from this project. Laïka 16:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sister project 

message: Being the founder of WP Canada Roads and most of its sub-divisions, i need help getting them active again, I can put together ideas, but infoboxes are out of my knowledge, thanks.Mitchazenia(Its my birthday!!!) 00:06, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canada Roads 

message: I am curious what people think about state DOT articles and if they fit into the Highway project of some other subcategory of Transport. None that I have seen are under any sort of transport category, but it seems they should fit somewhere. Tell me what you guys think. Polypmaster 04:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  DOT? 

message: I've just created an experimental new format for UK A-road articles at A1 road (London), with individual sections on each stretch of road, instead of either a single generic article about the entire road, or multiple free-standing stubs about each section. I'd be grateful if anyone with an interest would take a look and offer suggestions as to what they think of this as an article format and whether they think it would be useful for other similar roads that change their character repeatedly along their length —  iridescent (talk to me!) 20:20, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[A1 road (London)]] 

message: A new Internet Relay Chat channel called #wikipedia-en-roads has been opened!  This channel is the main discussion channel for all of the roads WikiProjects and road/highway related topics.  Small discussions as well as large meetings are held here.  Logging is only permitted when a large meeting occurs, which will be logged in the subpage listed below.  Come and join us! master sonT - C 00:47, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New IRC Channel for Roads of all countries 

message: I just began a discussion on parentage and descendants at Wikiproject Civil Engineering which may be of interest to editors within this Wikiproject.  I would be very interested to hear your comments, but to keep the discussion in one place I ask that you please post comments within the aforementioned discussion.  Thanks! --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 00:35, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parents and descendants 

message: Please note the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates#Linear features, and the examples given there. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 11:35, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coordinates 

message: Please see the discussion at Portal talk:U.S. Roads. --NE2 23:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Portal:U.S. Roads or North American Roads? 

message: Please read and comment at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (exit lists)#Proposals for clarifications. --NE2 05:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed changes to the [[WP:ELG|exit list guide]] 

message: Would this article be a candidate to be a part of this project? Solarapex 05:24, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see why not. Go ahead and tag it. --TMF Let's Go Mets - Stats 08:06, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Yungas Road]] 

message: Id like to suggest that a UK Roads WikiProject be set up as an expansion of the current motorways wikproject and similar to US roads WikiProject. This would help have a uniform articles through out the UK road systems and also a point for people to combine there efforts and consensus to more easily achieved. For the time being i would like to see what support there is for this before making an official proposal? Seddon69 22:32, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WikiProject Motorways master sonT - C 02:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think he knows that, and is proposing an expansion. I don't see why not, but it should probably be discussed there. --NE2 02:58, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah; discussion should occur over there.  However, my suggestion would be to create WikiProject UK Roads as an umbrella project over Wikiproject Motorways, as USRD is to IH.  --Son 12:56, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  UK Roads/UK Transport WikiProject 

message: I've skimmed through the above "Decommissioned" discussion section, and the discussion seemed to be getting less constructive as it went on, so I'd like to restart the discussion here. From my quick reading, it appears the dispute seems to be about the use of words like "Decommissioned" when referring to a highway's status change. I have some thoughts, but first I'd like to make sure everybody is on the same page here. To help get everything organized, I'd like for each involved user to crate a subsection here briefly stating their view of the dispute, and thoughts on the issue. If you see another user's section that you agree with, feel free to just indicate your agreement in their section, as opposed to creating another section that says the same thing, other than that, please don't reply to other users' sections. I hope we can have a calm, orderly discussion and get this sorted out soon. Mr.Z-man 19:43, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Reliable sources almost never use the term; when they do, it appears to be "spillover" from the Route 66 community's use of it. It really isn't common usage among professionals, only among "roadgeeks". --NE2 23:15, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's your opinion. Many of us do not share that, other than the DOTs not using the term, which as we've seen, DOTs seem to have no uniform term for this. —Scott5114↗ 23:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree with this assessment.  Decommissioned should only be used when the entire designation has been removed from the route, not just a portion.  I don't know of too many instances where a chunk has been removed from the middle.  Typically if this happens the route is given a new alignment where decommissioned wouldn't be the right word to use, perhaps, realigned or moved to a new alignment would be appropriate in this situation. --Holderca1 talk 14:13, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, it doesn't seem to be too common a situation out of Oklahoma (see Oklahoma State Highway 5, Oklahoma State Highway 74.) —Scott5114↗ 14:31, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That happened in Ontario all over the place in 1998, when the province downloaded many highways (made them the responsibilities of municipalities instead of the province). A new highway opened just outside of Thunder Bay in August, and highway designations were shifted around on several roads for it, it was referred to as "re-designating" for some stretches which saw their numbers changed, and "downloading" for routes that lost highway status and came under municipal control. The new highway was "opened". Downloaded was also used for more of the highways that lost their numbers in 1998, but downloaded is exclusive to Canada and is a neologism, so it's right out. vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 16:36, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Especially so if the county took over maintenance afterward. ;) —Scott5114↗ 18:27, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mediation and discussion restart 

message: Woot. Some sort of order!
The argument seems to be that decommissioned is made-up term (in semi-wide usage in the roadgeek community) that refers to a highway that once was a certain route number, but is no longer. The physical highway may or may not still exist; whether or not it does isn't addressed by the term "decommissioned". 
State highway departments don't keep track of former/decommissioned state routes, so the argument is over something that technically doesn't exist according to any given authority. I'd keep "decommissioned" because in my humble opinion, decommissioned has become notable in itself, particularly w/ reference to U.S. 66. "Former" is acceptable (an exit on I-88 (IL) is marked as "Former Illinois 2", but honestly, can you see "Decommissioned Illinois 2" on a sign?). "Old" is also acceptable, if not... generic. But many cities have signage similar to "Old Seward Highway", "Old US. 76", so it wouldn't be entirely made-up. —Rob (talk) 21:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User:Lpangelrob]] 

message: #Rschen7754 (T C) 22:07, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Those who agree with this

message: My argument is very simple: "To support the use of (or an article about) a particular term we must cite reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term—not books and papers that use the term." No reliable sources that define decommission as it applies to highways have been found. The general dictionary definition is to "remove from service" or "shut down", something that does not generally describe a decommissioned highway.
For clarification, the following cases are all being called "decommissioning":
*Removal of U.S. Route 66 signs, while the state continues to maintain the road as Interstate 40 and State Highway 66 (note that U.S. Routes and Interstates are generally maintained by the state, not federal government)
*Renumbering of U.S. Route 666 to U.S. Route 491, where the only change is the number on the signs
*Giving a state highway to the local authorities to maintain
*Keeping State Route 77 in the state highway system, but transferring its funding classification (and therefore number) from primary to secondary
*Closing State Route 480 to traffic and tearing it down
Without a definition, we cannot do this, except in the case of SR 480, where it is being shut down. We should use clearer language, even if it is slightly longer, for instance:
*U.S. Route 66 was removed from the U.S. Highway system
*U.S. Route 666 was renumbered to U.S. Route 491
*State Highway 54 was given to the county, which now maintains it as County Route 12
*State Route 77 was transferred to the secondary state highway system
*State Route 480 was closed and demolished
We don't need to use decommissioned, and we shouldn't, because it will not be understood by those who have not seen it before. --NE2 22:01, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[User:NE2]]

message: Decommission generally means 'stricken from the highway system', be that the state highway system, the U.S. route system, or occasionally, the Interstate System. There are nuances, of course, and that seems to be the hangup here: The term does not specify what happens afterward, but generally it either becomes part of another route or downgraded to a lower system (US 66→SH 66, SH 126→CR 240, etc.) Decommission usually refers to the designation as a whole (U.S. 66 was decommissioned in 1985) but occasionally refers to a segment of the route (In 1984, Arizona also saw its final stretch of highway decommissioned with the completion of Interstate 40 just north of Williams, Arizona.)
Whether this matches with dictionary definition of decommission seems to be a matter of opinion.
====Those who agree with this====
# --Holderca1 14:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[User:Scott5114]]

message: # --Holderca1 14:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Those who agree with this

message: Okay, the problem seems to be that "decommissioned" might be being used in so many situations that it might be confusing. On the other hand, decommissioned is somewhat common usage and there are many alternatives, each with varying meanings, histories, and amount of usage. Perhaps some sort of criteria should be established for when different terms should be used? Based on the definition of the word, what actually happened, what sources say, what the common usage is, etc. Mr.Z-man 22:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Reliable sources almost never use the term; when they do, it appears to be "spillover" from the Route 66 community's use of it. It really isn't common usage among professionals, only among "roadgeeks". --NE2 23:15, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's your opinion. Many of us do not share that, other than the DOTs not using the term, which as we've seen, DOTs seem to have no uniform term for this. —Scott5114↗ 23:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree with this assessment.  Decommissioned should only be used when the entire designation has been removed from the route, not just a portion.  I don't know of too many instances where a chunk has been removed from the middle.  Typically if this happens the route is given a new alignment where decommissioned wouldn't be the right word to use, perhaps, realigned or moved to a new alignment would be appropriate in this situation. --Holderca1 talk 14:13, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, it doesn't seem to be too common a situation out of Oklahoma (see Oklahoma State Highway 5, Oklahoma State Highway 74.) —Scott5114↗ 14:31, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That happened in Ontario all over the place in 1998, when the province downloaded many highways (made them the responsibilities of municipalities instead of the province). A new highway opened just outside of Thunder Bay in August, and highway designations were shifted around on several roads for it, it was referred to as "re-designating" for some stretches which saw their numbers changed, and "downloading" for routes that lost highway status and came under municipal control. The new highway was "opened". Downloaded was also used for more of the highways that lost their numbers in 1998, but downloaded is exclusive to Canada and is a neologism, so it's right out. vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 16:36, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Especially so if the county took over maintenance afterward. ;) —Scott5114↗ 18:27, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion