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Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Assessment/A-Class review/Atlantic City – Brigantine Connector

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The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was promoted. –Juliancolton | Talk 01:08, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Atlantic City – Brigantine Connector

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Atlantic City – Brigantine Connector (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) review

Suggestion: No suggestion given regarding A-Class
Nominator's comments: I have worked on getting this article to GA and have since added better sources as well as some more information to the article. If this article passes, it will be the first New Jersey A-class article.
Nominated by: Dough4872 (talk) 16:40, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
First comment occurred: 22:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I hope to do a full review soon - but don't abbreviate AC and GS in the jct list - it's not like you're short on space in the table. Sources look valid, but ALL CAPS should not be used in the title (even though it may be in the title of the article; it's a Wikipedia thing). --Rschen7754 (T C) 22:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have fixed the caps in the references, however, the abbreviations for the Atlantic City Expressway and Garden State Parkway are part of {{Template:Jct}} and are commonly used for many named roads in exit lists. Should I change the templates to show the name in full, rather than abbreviated, for those two roads as well as other named roads? Dough4872 (talk) 22:53, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Since abbreviations are fine for NJ 87 and US 30, they should be fine for the parkway and expressway as well. Plus, {{jct}} is occasionally used in infoboxes as well, so I wouldn't spell them out there. However, the use of periods should be consistent, i.e., since there are periods in "G.S.", they should be in "A.C." as well, and probably also after Pkwy and Expwy. -- Kacie Jane (talk) 15:29, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have fixed the periods in the abbreviations. Dough4872 (talk) 19:12, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved issues from Kacie Jane (talk) 00:45, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose mainly for grammar issues, but one fairly important {{citation needed}}.
    • The "NJ" after the cities in the infobox seems superfluous to me. Also, if AC Expwy is abbreviated in the exit list, then it should be in the infobox as well. (If you do spell it out in the exit list, I would still abbreviate it in the infobox.)
    • "The connector is 1.98 mi (3.19 km) long and maintained by the South Jersey Transportation Authority and is considered to be a state highway." – bit of a run-on sentence (I count 3 verbs)
    • "The connector consists of lettered exits from A to H, increasing from south to north." – I'm not sure increasing is the correct word to use when describing letters, but it might still be valid. More importantly, the exit list mentions an Exit I, so which is it?
    • "Approximately 25,000 cars travel on the connector daily, which features 16 bridges, 15 ramps, and 23 retaining walls." – These tidbits are mentioned in the lead, but not anywhere else in the article, and aren't cited.
    • Using the entire name of the freeway three times in the single paragraph of the route description isn't necessary, and is cumbersome given how long and awkward the name is. Consider shortening it to "the Connector" after the first mention.
    • "From Exit E of the Atlantic City – Brigantine Connector, a northbound ramp heads north, with Exit H serving Renaissance Pointe and the Borgata casino, Exit G for Huron Avenue, which provides access to Farley Marina and Trump Marina, and Exit I, which serves Harrah's Atlantic City." – This sentence is too awkward. First, "northbound ramp heads north" reads awkwardly. At first glance, I thought it was redundant, although I think I understand what it's trying to say now (a ramp off the northbound lanes heads in the northerly direction?). Secondly, it's not clear from reading it that the three exits are off that northbound ramp. Thirdly, the sentence is just long. I'd imagine that the best way to resolve my second point would be to split it into two sentences.
    • "The Atlantic City – Brigantine Connector was also to feature a grade crossing of New Jersey Transit's Atlantic City Line" – The phrase "was also to" implies that they were originally planning to have an at-grade crossing, but after the opposition, they changed their minds. Since the route description section says the at-grade crossing does in fact exist, this sentence should be rephrased.
    • Check the formatting of references. There are a couple of places where there's a space in between the period at the end of the sentence and the reference (the reference should be immediately after the punctuation), and at least once where there are two references in the wrong order (i.e. [11][6] instead of [6][11]).
Hope this helps! – Kacie Jane (talk) 16:38, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the review. I have replied to the above changes. Dough4872 (talk) 19:12, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
At first glance, everything seems to be in order. I fixed two more things myself – first paragraph of the lead had two sentences in a row starting with "the connector", plus one more referencing tweak – but so far so good. As an aside, I noticed the number of bridges went down once it was referenced... *wink* – Kacie Jane (talk) 20:00, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Does your oppose still stand? --Rschen7754 (T C) 23:23, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I could honestly go either way on the article in it's current condition. I still have a few issues with the writing style; although since this might be mainly personal preference, I've struck through my oppose. The second sentence in the route description is what's catching my eye the most. "The road features its first exit, ..." In what way does it "feature" its first exit? Poor word choice there, as I don't think there's anything terribly special about that exit. It would be better of more simply as "The road's first exit is..."
I'm not convinced that the article reads cleanly, but it's not necessarily enough for me to oppose its promotion. -- Kacie Jane (talk) 21:54, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Unresolved comments do oppose its promotion. --Rschen7754 (T C) 20:12, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What grammatical fixes are specifically needed in the article? Dough4872 (talk) 01:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like I'm put in a bit of an awkward situation here. I don't want to lie and say that the article is perfect, because it's not. Then again, no article is, and that's why we have another class above A, and even the featured article template says that if you have ideas on how to improve it, do so. However, I also don't want to be the troll standing in the way of this nomination. I was asked if my oppose still stood, and I thought I answered that question in a clear albeit verbose manner. My previous response was meant to be read as, "This article is good enough to be A-class, but here's some things you may want to work on before you take it to FAC."
As I said before, any issues I still have with the article are primarily personal preference – as in, "This isn't how I would have worded this. I don't think it's the best way to say it, but the person who wrote it probably does." Personally, I'm of the opinion that nitpicking every last word choice and comma isn't the type of thing we should be doing here, or even at FAC.
All this being said, if necessary, I can probably get around to doing another round of (more specific) comments later on today – although I'd prefer not to if this article can pass without them. (I have other wiki-projects that I've been putting off for a week now.) – Kacie Jane (talk) 17:23, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

My apologies it took so long to get to this. There's a lot going on in wikipedia land and I've been swamped. Dave (talk) 03:20, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review. I have replied to the above changes. Dough4872 (talk) 14:43, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support I did delete one SR 87 milepost that was forgotten. I didn't know there was an inflation template to guarantee the template would be current. Cool. I could have used this on a few articles.

Additional comments from Kacie Jane

  • The first sentence can be reworded to say "New Jersey" only once. Simply removing it from the Brigantine link would be sufficient, but try to think of even cleaner ways to do it.
  • Second sentence, there's no reason to abbreviate miles there.
  • I would combine the last two sentences of the first paragraph – "in north to south order, and features ten bridges..." This comment in particular is just my personal preference, but the last sentence seems choppy to me.
  • In both the lead and the history section, "Le Jardin" is in quotes when it probably shouldn't be. (Elsewhere in the history section, it appears without quotes.) Additionally, the word "the" should be removed before the name in the lead.
  • The second paragraph in the lead should probably be reordered, expanded, and/or split into two. While I realize it matches the chronological order of the history section, in the lead it reads as a single sentence on the planning, a whole bunch about the casinos, and then another single sentence about the completion. The first and last sentence work well together, but with all the casino talk in between, the last sentence seems to come out of nowhere.
  • The first sentence in the route description should be reworded so that it doesn't use the words "Atlantic City" four times.
  • The third, fourth, and fifth sentences all begin with the word "Past." "Past that interchange, ..." "Past the railroad line, ..." "Past Bacharach Boulevard, ..." Shake up the wording a bit.
  • The third sentence again contains the words "Atlantic City" three times. Two of these were also in the first sentence, so there should be a way to easily avoid using the full names here.
  • The end of the route description still needs some cleanup to explain what's going on with the mainline and the Exit E ramp. The way it's written now, it goes from Exit E to Exit F, then jumps back to Exit E. Instead, the article should mention the split where it first talks about Exit E, then list the exits off the mainline, then the exits off the connector.
  • Beach Thoroughfare – coming from a roadgeeking background and not caring a bit about boats, my assumption when I hear the word thoroughfare is some sort of super arterial, but this appears to be a fairly important body of water. I would link it, even though it's a redlink at the moment. Also, Beach Thorofare seems to be the more common spelling.
  • The last sentence of the first paragraph of the history section still needs work. (By putting the words "which was built" there, you're stressing the fact that it was built before you've given the reader any reason to doubt that it would have been.) More importantly though, there's a hole in the article's coverage. If these two groups opposed it, why was the at-grade crossing still built? Even if that one source from DVARP is all you have, explain that it was built because it was the cheapest option. Then you can avoid wording problems in the current sentence by adding a new sentence afterwards. "The proposal for the at-grade crossing was opposed because... However, it was built because..."

    (Contrast this with the following paragraph about the casinos. If Donald Trump opposed it, why was it still built? Because he got an exit ramp built to his casino too.)

Sorry this nomination is taking so long. Hopefully this will be the final round of comments. – Kacie Jane (talk) 00:45, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for looking over the article again, I have replied to the above suggestions. Dough4872 (talk) 02:03, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I really like the way you applied my suggestions, particularly the second paragraph of the lead, and the "spiced" wording in the route description. The only place I'm still having trouble is the E-F-G-H-I mess in the route description section. Looking at a map of the area, I do appreciate all the hard work that's been done, since writing a route description of a spaghetti bowl interchange is inherently difficult. The major flaws I'm seeing right now are (a) that the article implies that F is an exit on the mainline when it's actually a ramp from the northbound ramp to the mainline and (b) that the article text implies that G-H-I are northbound only exits whereas the exit list notes imply that there are exits in both directions and that the southbound exits are merely unlettered. The map provided at Ref 14 seems to imply that these exits do in fact exist southbound. I think the problem is that the route description is concise to the point of being inaccurate.
I'm going to be offline for about 10 hours (work IRL), but when I got back I was planning on taking another look at maps and other sources to see if I could take a hack at it myself. But of course, feel free to make any improvements yourself and/or leave me messages on my talk page in the meantime. -- Kacie Jane (talk) 03:40, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have moved the sentence about Exit F with the information about the northbound ramp. As for the ramp, it is northbound-only. Southbound traffic must use NJ 87 to access the connector at exit D. I clarified this in the route description. Dough4872 (talk) 03:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think the issue derives from the unnecessary distinction between a "mainline" and the northbound ramp. In fact, I would argue that the northbound ramp actually is the mainline. While I realize that NJDOT logs the highway from the ACE to US 30, I think that's primarily for their own convenience (it's kind of a pain to log a single-direction highway with a slew of ramps, and keep in mind they're not the maintaining agency here). Since the exit letters increase from A to I along a specific path, I think it only makes sense to treat that as the mainline, rather than deal with awkward wording about exits off a northbound-only ramp. The reason I was having so much trouble deciphering the route description was because I was interpreting it to mean that Exit E went to US 30, Exits G H and I were on a separate ramp that diverged somewhere around the vicinity of Exit E, and that there was a third split that continued to the northern terminus at NJ 87.
Here are a couple of related comments that really need to be fixed before I'll fully support promoting the article to A-class:
  • The length in the infobox is listed as 1.98 miles. However, the termini are listed as the ACE and NJ 87, and the distance between these two points on the connector is 2.5 miles according to Google.
  • The use of NJ 87 mileposts in the junction list is rather incorrect. There's no concurrency, so you don't have a point where a Connector milepost is equal to a milepost on NJ 87. As a result, it's impossible to determine from the junction list what the distance between Exits F (Conn MP 1.59) and H (NJ 87 MP 0.46) is, defeating the purpose of having the mileposts in the table. Additionally the points used for the mileposts are arbitrary, since they're not on the connector itself. The milepost for Exit G is the intersection between NJ 87 and NJ 187, which is 1/10 mile east of where the Connector actually crosses over Huron Avenue.
  • The final line in the exit list needs a milepost. When the notes say "Continuation beyond wherever", it's because one designation ends at that particular interchange/junction, and another designation starts there. Here the Connector still continues (albeit only for a tiny bit) before it merges into NJ 87 northbound, so it should have a separate milepost for the terminus.
  • Relatively speaking, this is extremely minor, but the line for Exit G in the exit list needs a formatting fix (a spaced en dash between the road and the destination).
Let me know if I can be of service or further explain my comments. – Kacie Jane (talk) 02:33, 15 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have replied to the above comments. Dough4872 (talk) 14:01, 15 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There are really just way too many inconsistencies and vagueries for this article to be A-class. The exit list seems to indicate that the southbound lanes begin at NJ 87, but the route description isn't clear on the matter. However, since Exit E to US 30 is a two-way ramp, the southbound lanes should be considered to begin there. I'm not sure why the note about Ramp D is included on the same line as Exit E on the exit list, since the two exits are a good distance apart. (D should probably have its own line, even if it is entrance only.) The mileposts for Exit E is wrong – 1.40 is where the connector crosses over Huron Avenue at ramp D.
The way the Google map is currently linked, it lists the length as 2.3 miles – if it's being used as a reference, the numbers have to match. (To get 2.5, I used the point where the ramp diverges from the ACE mainline, which is the same starting point the SLD uses.) Also, this article cannot pass unless the mileposts for the three ramp exits are replaced with mileposts from the actual connector. The route description still has a sentence at the end about the Exit E ramp that seems to come out of nowhere, and could use a fleshing out in general; it really tries to do too much with a single paragraph. Specifically, there needs to be more mention of NJ 87's role in serving southbound traffic. If the purpose of building this connector was to connect the ACE with the casinos and Brigantine, but half the connector is northbound only, how does traffic get back? (Also, the note for Exit E in the exit list says that southbound traffic must use the Borgata exit, but the note two rows down says that there is no Borgata exit southbound. There is an exit, it's just technically on NJ 87 rather than the Connector.)
While I do want this article to succeed, it seems to be a lot further than I thought it was on my first viewing. I'd really appreciate it if another member of the project would come along and do a full review to see if we can help this article along. – Kacie Jane (talk) 05:31, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have taken a good look at the article and have tried to sort out the mess concerning the ramps. In both the route description and the exit list, I have made it more clear that NJ 87 provides southbound access for the points served by the northbound-only portion as well as indicating that Exit E marks the beginning of the southbound direction of the connector. I have added a row for Ramp D to show that it is a southbound entrance from NJ 87. Also, I fixed the Google Maps link to show the connector beginning at the ramp from the ACE. Unfortunately, I cannot get the mileposts for the exits along the northbound-only portion of the connector since the SLD has the connector go off to US 30 at Exit E. If anyone can find a way to get mileposts for the exits, I would appreciate it. Dough4872 (talk) 15:22, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved issues from – TMF 23:16, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments:
    • The first sentence of the lead runs on a bit too long. I'd split it in two after "New Jersey". ("...is a highway connector in Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States. It connects the Atlantic City Expressway...)
    • The precision in the infobox needs to be adjusted to match the given mileage.
    • The first two sentences of the route description begin with "The road". One of them should be changed.
    • "Thorofare" or "Thoroughfare"? The former seems odd, but if that's the actual name it can't be helped.
    • I'm reading through the description and the way the third sentence of it is worded is a bit odd. "...a four-lane, 35 mph (56 km/h) freeway, passing under the expressway..." is what's really tripping me up. On first read, it's not clear what the "expressway" is; however, I was able to figure it out by way of the map. The description should make some mention of how the connector begins near the east end of the ACE, heads west on a routing parallel to it, then curves north along the riverbank to pass under the ACE. I find this routing interesting and wouldn't have known this was the routing it took if not for the map. The map should be a supplement to the description and not a replacement for it.
    • Fifth sentence: "Beach Throughfare" - see above; which is it? Also, "running through a tunnel." - what does the tunnel pass through/under?
    • "served by the northbound direction of the connector further to the north such as the Borgata, Trump Marina, and Harrah's Atlantic City casinos." - maybe move "further to the north" to the end of the sentence? As it is now, it reads slightly awkwardly.
    • "The freeway heads to Exit E, which is a northbound exit and southbound entrance" - I'd drop the "which is" here. I've noticed that "which is" is used a lot, maybe to a fault, in the description. Some of these uses should be eliminated where possible.
    • "From Exit E, the connector continues a northbound-only road" - I'd insert "as" in between "continues" and "a".
    • The second paragraph reads like a prose version of the exit list. According to the map, the freeway turns east somewhere, but there's no mention of this in the description.
    • I'd appreciate it if some labels could be added to the map, especially for the orange state highway/U.S. highway lines. As someone who has no knowledge of the New Jersey road system, the shields would definitely improve my understanding of the highway's routing.
    • In the history now: "running from the Atlantic City Expressway north to the Marina districe" - district?
    • "Atlantic City government requested proposals for a property" - proposals/bids to purchase it? Based on the following sentence, that's what I assume it means but it's not explicitly clear.
    • "not scheduled to open until 2003, Trump was still fighting against" --> "Trump still fought"
    • "after an exit ramp leading to the Trump Marina was later added to the project." - Considering the way the beginning of the sentence is worded, I'd drop the "later" since I assume that Trump dropped his case as a result of the addition of the ramp.
    • "The grand opening ceremony was open to the public, which featured various festivities, including a pedestrian tunnel walk, all of which was open to the public." - open to the public is stated twice.
    • "Once the connector opened to traffic, the exit ramps leading to the Borgata were still under construction along with the resort itself, and the ramps did not open up until October 2003." - maybe rewording the sentence to begin like "Although the connector itself was open to traffic, the exit ramps..." would make more sense.
    • I'd reformat the inflation conversion to use available inflation calculation templates instead, such as those on New York State Route 531. That way, the conversion will be automatically updated every year.
    • I'm not a fan of explicitly mentioning termini in junction lists, but considering how unorthodox this highway is, I suppose I can understand their inclusion.
    • Exit E's notes should be "Northbound exit and southbound entrance" for consistency with the first two exits.
    • Since the Route 446X straight line diagram is being used as a reference, I'd remove it from the external links.
    • I understand the South Jersey Transportation Authority maintains the highway, but I'm not sure how relevant an external link to their website is here. If a reader wants more information on the authority, they can visit our article on it, where they can then go to their website if they want to know more.
    • I'd add the year of the SLD to the reference, if available.
    • I'd also consider reversing the alignment of the two pictures in the article. On my layout, the right-aligned image combines with the infobox to make the top of the article a bit lopsided to the right. What I'd consider is moving this image to the left (which probably would require placing it before the second paragraph of the description per WP:MOSIMAGES - it doesn't talk about second-level headers being affected by left-aligned pictures to start a section, but it used to) and moving the history image to the right. Even if this is not done, the history picture probably needs to be moved down a paragraph for the reason given above. – TMF 04:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fixed images. Dough4872 (talk) 15:26, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Thanks for the review. I have replied to the above comments. Dough4872 (talk) 15:26, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • OK, everything looks good. I also made some small tweaks to the article, mostly minor punctuation changes. There are only two issues preventing me from supporting the article, and both relate to the map. The first is the lack of shields, which I commented on above and I understand is in the process of being fixed. The other, however, is that the map doesn't appear to show the northbound-only part of the connector. I'm comparing our map of the connector to a commercial map of the area, and our map gives the impression that both directions of the connector end at and merge with US 30. – TMF 17:57, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • The map that was made for the article was based on the SLD, which falsely shows the connector ending at US 30 rather than continuing up the northbound ramp to NJ 87 near the Brigantine Bridge. The SJTA map of the connector would be a better model for our map. I have also notified the MTF that the map needs to be fixed to show the correct route. Dough4872 (talk) 18:01, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, great job. – TMF 23:16, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • What is the status of this nomination? --Rschen7754 (T C) 04:07, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    It has three support votes, just need maybe a couple more reviews and Kacie Jane to look over it again. Dough4872 (talk) 00:48, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, at this time I don't believe that Kacie Jane's comments are sufficient to fail this nomination. --Rschen7754 (T C) 01:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
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