Wikipedia talk:Notability (highways)/Archive 03

County Highway vs County-maintained road

What's the difference? --Sable232 00:38, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

A county highway is a designation. A county-maintained road is a road that is maintained by the County government, not the state. (→zelzany - new age roads) 00:49, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by that. A state highway is a state-maintained road, plus possibly other roads signed as part of the state highway system but locally maintained. This latter category is very rare for county routes, so for the most part a county highway is a county-maintained road. --NE2 02:55, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Except in rural areas, every road might be maintained by the county. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:02, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

And there's the case for 500-series routes, they're maintained by the state but signed with and are designated county routes. (→zelzany - new age roads) 03:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a reference for the county routes being maintained by the state? It's not unheard of (West Virginia does it - and those "county routes" certainly aren't all notable, as with Virginia's and North Carolina's secondary routes), but I can't find anything that states one way or the other. All I've found is what appears to be a state contract for signing them, and possibly only on state highways: "Maint. County Route 500 SignsContract #310 - South". --NE2 03:43, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Looking in the references for County Route 501, I found the opposite: the "jurisdiction" row on the straight line diagram reads "county" on the entire road. A state highway like Route 3 is listed as "N.J.D.O.T." jurisdiction. --NE2 03:47, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

What's a county highway then, other than every one of those roads? There might be a special numbering system of certain county highways, but those aren't the only county highways. For an example of "county highway" being used for a generic county-maintained road, see [1]. I just read the relevant parts of the guideline, however, and it usually modifies it as "county highway systems that have a state-wide numbering" and "signed county highways". I disagree with using signage as a cutoff; some counties, especially those that have become urban, no longer see a need to mark any county highways, and so only the ones that have signs remaining or are marked from state highways are still signed. I think we should just state that the New Jersey 500-series routes are all notable, partly due to the large amount of history including turnpikes and other historic roads, and that the California alphanumeric ones probably are. The degree to which the system as a whole is signed - and thus useful for motorists - may be important, but the signage status of any single route is not, as with state routes. (State Route 146 (Virginia), for example.) --NE2 03:43, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood the "signed county highways" part and it probably needs to be clarified. When I saw that statement, I thought of Texas's county roads, which sometimes you can see on mapquest, but there is no physical signage anywhere to let you know that it is a county road and this is in rural areas, I don't know of any county roads in urban areas since they wouldn't be maintained by the county at that point anyway, they would be maintained by the city. Farm to market roads are very well signed in urban areas even though most people know or refer to them by their city street name rather than a number. --Holderca1 12:30, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Wow, you guys made a simple question complex, V60 had it right from the start. A county maintained road is simply that, a road maintained by the county, could be a dirt road, could be a county highway, a state highway, etc... A county highway is a designation, like state highway, or interstate, or U.S. highway. A county highway can be maintained by the county or the state, it doesn't specify. --Holderca1 12:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't make sense. Can you provide a reference for that definition? --NE2 20:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with holderca1. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 20:04, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Can you please provide a reference for this definition of "county highway"? --NE2 20:07, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I know, other don't agree with you and you get mad, so you think your always right and things have to go your way. -- JA10^{Talk • Contribs} 20:22, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

NE2, for nuff's sake, can you please use common sense? Take this US 40 in NJ SLD for instance, this is a perfect example of a state highway being maintained by the county. If you were to use common sense and turn it around, you'd understand how it works. Just staunchly asking people for references isn't going to solve anything except satisfy your need for references. And I concur with Holderca1, could you please not make this as heated as it is now? (→zelzany - new age roads) 20:28, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

OK... that's a U.S. numbered highway, possibly marked by the state, and maintained by the county. It's a county highway with U.S. signs. --NE2 20:48, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

What? No its a U.S. highway, doesn't matter who maintains it, it is always a U.S highway. A U.S. highway can be a county maintained road, though. We didn't have the same discussion over the difference between a state highway and a state maintained road. Also, see the county highway article. --Holderca1 21:50, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

It's a U.S. Highway with respect to numbering, and a county highway with respect to maintenance. Similarly, most U.S. Highways are state highways with respect to maintenance. --NE2 21:59, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

No, that's what county-maintained road means. As said before, county highway is a designation. --Holderca1 22:12, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

A county highway is a road maintained by the county. I gave one example above; another is [2]. --NE2 22:37, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

But not all county-maintained roads are county highways. --Holderca1 03:11, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Holderca1, as exersized with US 40 in NJ above. (→zelzany - new age roads) 03:48, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

When we talk about maintenance, that part of US 40 is a county highway. When we talk about numbering, it's a U.S. Highway. A county highway is a road maintained by the county. Here's another example: [3] There are, as far as I know, no *signed* county highways in Pennsylvania, and yet there are county highways. --NE2 04:08, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's one straight from New Jersey: a sample "resolution to prohibit the feeding of unconfined wildlife, on any property owned or operated by Capitol County for county highways". It defines a "county highway" as "any highway or other thoroughfare operated by Capitol County". --NE2 04:17, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm about to leave on vacation, but basically that sure isn't how it is in California. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:54, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

According to the California Streets and Highways Code, a county highway is "any highway which is:

(a) Laid out or constructed as such by the county.

(b) Laid out or constructed by others and dedicated or abandoned to or acquired by the county.

(c) Made a county highway in any action for the partition of real property.

(d) Made a county highway pursuant to law."

A Caltrans meeting agenda refers to Vasco Road in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties as a county highway. This road does not carry an alphanumeric designation. --NE2 05:33, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

(<- reset) So a dirt road maintained by the county is a county highway according to your interpretation? Also, you have confused the heck out of me when you call a U.S. highway a county highway. TXDOT maintains all the interstates in Texas, so you would call Interstate 10 a state highway since it is maintained by the state? But we already have a State Highway 10. I think the underlying problem here is that you don't understand what a highway designation is. Also, your above example doesn't make any sense, we are talking about the county highway designation, not just any general usage of the term. Some people call any paved road a highway. --Holderca1 08:31, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a dirt road maintained by the county is a county highway. Sometimes they even have numbers: [4] A state highway is a highway numbered by the state. Texas has a number of them numbered 10: [5] The problem is that the proposed guideline uses the ambiguous term "county highway". --NE2 08:51, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

No, Texas has only one State Highway 10, so if you give someone directions you would refer to I-10 as SH 10? You are taking it out of context, the proposed guideline says "county highways that are part of a statewide system." There is nothing ambiguous about that. It seems very clear to me, if the county highway is part of a statewide system, then it is notable, if it's not, then it's not notable. Where is the confusion coming in at? --Holderca1 13:46, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Texas has one State Highway 10, but a number of state highways numbered 10. The part that is most ambiguous is "Some states or counties have no signed county highways, but do have county-maintained roads – some which have no other name than County Road 1723." This is just plain wrong, since a county highway is a county-maintained road. --NE2 19:56, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

You are still missing the point entirely, we are talking about roads that are designated as County Highway/Road/Route X. --Holderca1 00:19, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I know that. But that is not the only meaning of "county highway", leading to Sable232's confusion. --NE2 01:08, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Removed part that was confusing, didn't add anything anyway. By saying what is notable, one is left to assume everything else is not. --Holderca1 00:33, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe some specific examples are needed for clarification? --Polaron | Talk 20:44, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that the terms are ambiguous. I think we just need to give the two subsystems of county highways that are generally notable. --NE2 20:48, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Whoa. I'm looking at this from a Minnesotan standpoint, and this doesn't make much sense to me. Here we have two kinds of "county roads." We have roads that are maintained by the county, and given a number which appears on the official MNDOT county maps. They usually are signed. We have roads that are maintained by the county using state aid money, these are called County State Aid Highways. These are numbered in the same way as the others, and almost always are signed. There is no difference between the two types except for where the maintenance money comes from. So, am I to understand that a CSAH is notable (for a list) only because it is a "highway" and one that isn't is not notable? That doesn't make sense. --Sable232 15:27, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

My interpretation is that neither type is notable by just existing, but a list of both types should be made, as well as articles where enough can be written. --NE2 19:56, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree, start off by making a list of the roads with a short description for them all. If there is more information than look at breaking a separate article out. I think are biggest problem is people creating a two sentence article for County Road X which ends up finding itself on AfD. --Holderca1 13:46, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

County Road Question

There are a good deal of articles about county routes in New York State. Are these notable? There is even a very active wikiproject for them. I am believing that they are notable. Smartyshoe 15:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

See the discussion above. But, based on my cursory examination of the discussion (and my own beliefs regarding non-statewide county route systems), the answer is no. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 21:22, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I think this guideline is more aimed at protecting the short one or two sentence stubs that are out there. I think if you have a well written, well sourced article on one of these NY county routes, you shouldn't have anything to worry about. --Holderca1 21:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think this guideline should be discouraging the creation of the one or two sentence stubs, allowing articles to be created on intra-county routes only if there's actually something to write about (such as if the road is a former state or U.S. route). Now, I've just jumped into this, so I don't know where this is going, but those are my two cents. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 04:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

That was basically what I was trying to say, it is hard to write a well sourced article if there isn't anything to say about it. :) --Holderca1 10:41, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the request for comments

Two points....a) please format the talk page as to where you want the third party comments to go; and

b) I stumbled onto this quite contentious discusion from the request for comments page. My first thought is that there seems to be confusion about the difference between the designation of a highway or road, and who maintains it. In California, where I am the state government (CalTrans) handles the interstates, the US highways, and most of the state highways. County and City governments handle the county highways (of which there are not really that many), some of the state highways, and all the regualar roads and streets. Good Luck Rocksanddirt 23:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)