Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Planning/Featured topics

An "unofficial" project project

Optionally, we should look at the possibility of including Kansas Turnpike and Pennsylvania Turnpike in the topic. The former is a FA, and honestly, the latter should be at some point. (Whole books are written about its history, which should help.) Once we're at GT level, we can assess what articles should be bumped higher to elevate the topic to FT status. Imzadi 1979 → 06:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Another possible idea is a GT or FT for U.S. Route 50. The main US 50 article, as well as U.S. Route 50 in California and U.S. Route 50 in Utah, are GAs while U.S. Route 50 in Nevada is a FA. US 50 passes through most of the same states as I-70 so most of the editors working on the various state-detail pages for I-70 can also do the same for US 50. This could become our first GT or FT for a U.S. Highway. Dough4872 17:30, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

How about we start with I-70 and work on US 50 second. Imzadi 1979 → 22:31, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't all of the 3dis need to be included in the topic as well? --Admrboltz (talk) 22:35, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe so. – TMF 23:38, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe. We could do subtopics by state with the 3dIs and lists of business routes (assuming there are enough to do by-state lists), but as for I-70 itself, I don't think the 3dIs would need to be included. Imzadi 1979 → 00:30, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Another issue: CO-470/E-470 was originally listed as I-470, but the proposal was dropped... should CO-470 / E-470 be included? --Admrboltz (talk) 21:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Probably, There is ample sourcing to show that the number "470" in those roads is not co-incidental, and all were resurrected from canceled plans for a I-470 beltloop around Denver. There is also a W-470. Dave (talk) 17:18, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Adding CO-470 and E-470 would also mean adding Northwest Parkway. Gee what a headache. You could also say Colfax Avenue as well, being a Bus loop of I-70...I say SH 470 and E 470 be omitted. --PCB 06:10, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Interstate 70

This is what we are looking at right now. --Admrboltz (talk) 19:38, 23 January 2011 (UTC) (Moved box to main page --Admrboltz (talk) 21:34, 25 January 2011 (UTC))

About the above, the Baltimore city-detail article will likely be merged into the Maryland article. Any other business routes that exist can likely be covered in the state-detail articles, leaving only the CO list to stand on its own. That means we'd have 26 articles, three of which are currently Featured, one that needs to be Featured (the CO list). The I-170 for MD could be merged into the MD s-d article since its cancellation is linked to the cancellation of the remainder of I-70. Of the remainder, I see the Pennsylvania Turnpike and PA s-d articles as having FA potential. Same for the MD s-d article. The WV s-d, being a shorter highway segment, likewise has that potential. Imzadi 1979 → 21:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

WV has been de-redirected and already brought up to a C class. Need to do some more digging during the beginning of the week see what else I can dig up. --Admrboltz (talk) 00:15, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The Colorado list annoys me; I believe it should be merged. Does anyone concur? --PCB 15:40, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

In theory, I don't have a problem with having a single article for both the freeway and its business loops. However, I would be staunchly opposed to just merging the content into the I-70 article in its current state. A merge would result in a serious drop in quality for the main freeway article. Currently the business loop article has all the crap-magnet sections (exit list, major junctions & infobox) but almost void of prose, or anything that would make an article "FA worthy". If a merge is to occur, please purge the business loop article of all infoboxes, and add some prose. Although most of these business loops are non-notable, a couple are. For example, the I-70 business loop for Grand Junction is borderline worthy of its own article. As it is the original alignment of US-24 (back when it went that far west) there is some history there.Dave (talk) 17:15, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I would add a business routes section to the I-70 in CO article, but it has to be done right. There are three classes of business routes in Colorado:

• Business spurs of Silt, Eagle, Edwards, Watkins, Strasburg, Deer Trail, Agate, and Vona. All of these business spurs are less than a mile long and primarily serve as connectors between I-70 and its paralleling U.S. highway. Besides being designated as business spurs, with questionable signage, they are basically local roads that happen to be state-maintained and connect the Interstate with a small town. All these business routes need is a bulleted list of sentences like those in the current article, with no infobox.
• Business loops of Idaho Springs, Limon, and Burlington. All three of these loops are longer than a mile and are probably fully signed. These routes should get an infobox small and a paragraph.
• Business loops of Grand Junction and Denver. These loops are a big deal, serving a major city. These loops should get a paragraph, an infobox, and a Main template to a separate article. The article for Grand Junction would need to be created and brought up to at least GA. The article for the Denver loop would need to be an identified existing article or created and also brought up to GA.

Depending on how official this I-70 project is, should we split it onto its own USRD subpage?  VC  21:55, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

For I-70B in Denver, Colfax Avenue is probably the best "main article" and/or redirect target. I'm not a fan of having a dominant infobox and a "sub" infobox for sections. IMO, the mini-infoboxes are more appropriate for the "list of" articles, where no one section is dominant. However, I will admit that Fredddie and Imzadi have made it work fairly well in a few of their FAC nominations. My personal opinion, bulleted list for all I-70 BL's except for Denver and Grand Junction. Denver can link to Colfax Avenue, Grand Junction should probably have a new article created, IF we are to go down this road. Dave (talk) 22:25, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

On the CO business loops, I would prefer that it stay as a separate list article for now. There's no reason we can't expand each loop into a little mini-article. By this, I mean for each loop, we could/should have {{infobox road small}}, a paragraph for a route description that's integrated with the introductory sentence of the "lead", a paragraph on history and optionally a junction list. The junction list table would only be added if there are more highway junctions than the termini. Otherwise, the table is a waste of space and a visual disruption to the article. Overall, the list would need its own lead at the top and a single references section and a single external links section at the end of the article. If this can be done, I would feel comfortable nominating the list at FLC. If it can't, we'll need to find a way to merge the key content into the parent article. M-28 (Michigan highway) has a business loops section for its three business loops, which summarizes all three separate articles into paragraph form. Such a thing will need to be added to the I-70 (CO) article if it hasn't already. However, let's concentrate on getting the mainline articles in order first, and deal with the business routes second. Imzadi 1979 → 23:09, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Regarding Interstate 70, The New York Times recently reported about a design competition to create a proposed wildlife bridge to unite habitat divided by the highway. The bridge design, intended for a location near Vail and Breckenridge in Colorado, intends to provide an alternative to habitat fragmentation and a way to help alleviate damages due to vehicular collisions with wildlife (reported to be $8 billion annually nationwide) and the approximately 100 human deaths each year resulting from these collisions. The Times article is here with a blog posting including interesting video about the project here Information about this proposal could be added to both Interstate 70's national and Colorado articles. Fortguy (talk) 16:35, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Nice article, although it's not accurate in presenting this as a new concept only done in one or two places. There have been decades old attempts to landscape over, under and at-grade crossings of highways to encourage animals to use the crossings and reduce accidents. The I-70 in Colorado wikipedia article does cover earlier attempts designed in the 1960's and 1970's to steer animals into dedicated crossings, in discussing Vail Pass in both the Route description and History. I do know that Utah experimented with landscaped at-grade animal crossings in the late 1980's, including one that still exists along US-40 near the Jordenelle Reservoir. From time to time I'll stumble across a blog post that mocks the concept (usually because of the bizarre signage) but I've not kept up with the studies on how effective they are. However, the newspaper article presented above is certainly taking the concept to the next level, and agree it may merit some coverage. Dave (talk) 06:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

US 50

Additionally, the three-digit routes can be removed. The box doesn't look quite as good as the I-70 one. --PCB 23:46, 24 January 2011 (UTC)