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U.S. Roads Project‑class

This page is within the scope of the U.S. Roads WikiProject, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to state highways and other major roads in the United States. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.U.S. RoadsWikipedia:WikiProject U.S. RoadsTemplate:WikiProject U.S. RoadsU.S. road transport Project This page does not require a rating on the project's quality scale.

Centralized discussion for the U.S. Roads WikiProject Shortcut WT:USRD If you would like to discuss the standards for route junction lists, please use WT:RJL, If you would like to request a map, please use WP:USRD/MTF/R, If you would like to request a route marker (shield), please use WP:USRD/S/R, For all other comments or concerns, please post below. Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 IH: 1, 2, 3, 4; US: 1, 2, 3; USAT: 1; USRD/STDS: 1; USRD/A: 1; USRD/NT: 1 States: AL: 1; CA: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; CT: 1; FL: 1, 2; GA: 1; IL: 1, 2; IN: 1; IA: 1; KS: 1, 2, 3; KY: 1; LA: 1; MD: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; MA: 1; MI: 1, 2; MN: 1, 2; MO: 1; NV: 1; NJ: 1, 2; NY: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; NC: 1; OH: 1; OK: 1 OR: 1 PA: 1, 2; RI: 1; SC: 1; TN: 1; TX: 1, 2; UT: 1; VT: 1; VA: 1; WA: 1, 2; WV: 1; WI: 1

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Indiana State Road 931 northern segment

I found this in the FAQ for the newly-opened section of US-31 freeway between US-20 and US-30:

What happens to the existing US 31?

INDOT has been working with local municipalities to discuss relinquishing various portions of the former highway. Below is the current status of US 31:
•Old US 31 is closed permanently between 7th Road and 3A Road in Marshall County.
•Old US 31 is SR 931 in St. Joseph County and Lakeville.
•In Marshall County and LaPaz, the roadway is Michigan Road.
•US 31 is closed permanently between Hildebrand Street and US 20 in St. Joseph County.

The portion of Old US 31 through St. Joseph County will become a local street once construction is complete at the end of the year.

So many things on which to comment...first, it says "Old US 31 is SR 931" in the present tense. (Note that "and Lakeville" is redundant for our purposes since Lakeville is wholly within St. Joseph County.) I would take this at face value, since the 31 Plymouth to South Bend page is an official INDOT page, and therefore this information can be taken as official. However, it's sketchy since it's part of an undated FAQ, and there's no backup that I can find such as a press release. There is another unofficial, secondary source in the form of a news article and video from the day of the ribbon cutting for the new freeway segment (I don't know how this flew under my radar at the time) but that's also probably not reliable enough, plus any changes noted above were in the future then. But even if it's the case that we can prove with a RS that the northern 931 exists, you've got the last sentence: "The portion of Old US 31 through St. Joseph County will become a local street once construction is complete at the end of the year". If I follow, that means that the 931 designation is temporary and will disappear at the end of the year, maybe without any signage even being fabricated. It seems to me that it would just be easier to call it "Old US 31" and not even involve the number "931" especially with Kokomo's 931 already well established.

All that said: Is it even worth it to include any of this in the SR-931 article or the parent US-31 article? I certainly don't want anyone to go through the trouble of rewriting the former to account for a two-segment route if the north one is just going to disappear soon.... Mapsax (talk) 17:19, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

@Mapsax: Maybe not in the route description, but it's probably worth mentioning in the history. But unfortunately, there would be sourcing issues as you mention. --Rschen7754 01:50, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Something like this:

The old alignment in Marshall County was given to the county government in . The St. Joseph County portion was briefly designated as a second segment of SR 931, but was downgraded in .

But maybe it's going to stay SR 931. See the version of the FAQ posted in April. (PS: I just told them to save the current version.) --NE2 02:25, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Although this is WP:CRYSTAL, I see this 931 hanging around a while since St. Joseph County doesn't seem to want to take on anything; witness 933 disappearing at the Elkhart County line. And forget my "without any signage even being fabricated"; I didn't get the end of the news video to play initially so I missed the reporter stating that INDOT told her that markers were likely being made as she spoke. I guess we'll just have to wait for a field check to see if there have been markers posted; this AARoads thread was started in 2011 but keeps getting resurrected anytime there's a new event/observation, with the last post just nine days ago, so eventually someone should come across something (it's 300 miles from me so I can't do it myself). Or we can wait around for Street View's next pass.... Of course even if markers are reported it'd still be OR, but at least we'll know it's still worth pursuing. In lieu of a press release or something similar, I guess the status quo is the best option. Mapsax (talk) 12:05, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: don't run ifexist on images in template:jct

If {{jct}} were changed to provide redlinked images rather than empty images where no image exists, pages would be categorized in Category:Articles with missing files rather than Category:Jct template errors. The former may have been overloaded when the current setup was chosen, but it is currently being maintained. The benefit to doing this would be avoiding the "expensive" ifexist parserfunction, which causes pages to take a while to save. The downside would be ungraceful failing causing temporary ugliness until the shield is created. --NE2 19:51, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Where was this six months ago? -happy5214 20:26, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

"The former may have been overloaded when the current setup was chosen" --NE2 20:38, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Plus they'd be way easier to find. I'm all for it. –Fredddie™ 03:05, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Also, we could remove the Jct error category sorting. –Fredddie™ 03:08, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Are we all on board with this change? -happy5214 11:08, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

What's with all the Quebec stuff in Category:Jct template errors? --NE2 13:02, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

it has to do with TCH. I changed the TCH parameter so it displays a double shield instead of one. I've been too busy/lazy to fix them. –Fredddie™ 18:03, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

But I can't fix them if they're not in the category. I've enlisted the help of another editor who asked me to make some TCH-related changes to get this squared away. –Fredddie™ 03:07, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Virginia State Route 638

There is a discussion at RfD about several redirects related to Virginia State Route 638, and the potential notability of these roads, that people here are likely to have useful input to. Please comment at Misplaced Pages:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 October 18#Virginia State Route 638. Thanks. Thryduulf (talk) 21:31, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Attached KMLs for I-69 et al.

These 3 KML files — Template:Attached KML/Interstate 69, Template:Attached KML/Interstate 69 in Tennessee, and Template:Attached KML/Interstate 69 in Mississippi — are incomplete. I also don't have data for Template:Attached KML/Interstate 69 in Louisiana and Template:Attached KML/Interstate 69 in Arkansas. Any help on that will be appreciated. – Epicgenius (talk) 02:10, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I-69 doesn't exist yet in Louisiana or Arkansas, and I don't think an exact corridor has been defined. If you want the proposed route where it has been: http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/89400970 --NE2 03:00, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. May I export it to KML? Epicgenius (talk) 13:52, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Forget it, I'll just make a KML file on Google Earth. Epicgenius (talk) 15:32, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

County Roads

Several county roads are up for renaming, see Talk:County_Road_3_(Florida) -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 23:52, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Help needed at Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Ontario Highway 403/archive1

Unfortunately, Floydian is inactive for a few weeks, and his FAC has issues that need some minor fixing. I'm willing to pick up whatever's not done, but if I could have some help, it would be much appreciated. --Rschen7754 05:16, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

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? --Rschen7754 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). Dough4872 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. Dough4872 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. --Rschen7754 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. Dough4872 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. Dough4872 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.

1. 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.
2. 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. TCN7JM 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. --Rschen7754 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)

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? --Rschen7754 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. Dough4872 02:29, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

2015 goals

With both of the above subsections in mind, what should be our goals for 2015? --Rschen7754 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. Dough4872 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 Misplaced Pages. 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. --Rschen7754 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 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. --Rschen7754 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. TCN7JM 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". --Rschen7754 21:38, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I like the idea, but my question is, how are we going to define a "new editor"? Dough4872 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 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. TCN7JM 14:23, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Categorizing redirects

I see a lot of effort being made to identify bannered routes of various U.S. routes, eliminating stubs, and redirecting them to the appropriate article subsection. These redirects, however, are being redundantly classified into Category:Bannered and suffixed U.S. Highways. This category is now just shy of nearly a thousand entries at this writing rendering the category essentially useless. I suggest that redirects be removed from this and other similar categories when the target article is already included. I support instead the continued categorization of bannered route redirects in local categories such as Category:Transportation in (some) County, (state) as a means of helping readers interested in roads in a particular locale to be redirected immediately to an appropriate article subsection and allow them to ignore other routes along potentially transnational highways in which they have no interest. Removing redundant redirects also allows editors to more easily find articles about bannered routes and distinguish between those that should be redirected as hopeless stubs or worthy of being standalone articles. Fortguy (talk) 06:57, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

This makes sense. It seems things are getting overcategorized as of late. (Do we have a defined USRD category structure?) Perhaps if it is desired to have categories on these redirects, a better category structure within Category:Bannered and suffixed U.S. Highways would be in order... Introducing "Bannered and suffixed U.S. Highways in (state)" subcategories could potentially be useful for navigation—Introducing "Bannered and suffixed routes of U.S. X" subcategories, on the other hand, would not be useful since articles already exist. -- LJ ↗ 07:17, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Fort Lee lane closure scandal

Can anyone here take a look at this article? I've had to fail its GA review and quite frankly reading the article is wading through treacle. Since it's (apparently) been a major national news event, somebody here might be able to help? Ritchie333 10:40, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Why on earth is this tagged for USRD? This is much more of a political scandal and cover-up than anything having to do with roads. We don't usually even cover bridges. I personally think this is outside of our domain, but someone else here might be able to provide some help. -happy5214 11:48, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I guess it depends how you define a "project". Certainly since the article talks about a major bridge containing problems relating to the toll booth alignment of a nationally important interstate and a major commuter route, that is cited to multiple news sources and reaching a high level of news prominence would at least be partially relevant, even if you can't stomach the political stuff. Ritchie333 12:54, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure. It's probably only slightly more related to USRD than e.g. New York City Marathon (which uses the Verrazano Bridge). On the other hand, USRD editors (not I because fuck politics) could help make sure the description of what was closed is accurate. --NE2 14:05, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

It's not within our scope; we don't even cover any article on the bridge. --Rschen7754 14:11, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

We should cover the bridge, but poo. --NE2 14:39, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

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