Talk:Bradford Bypass/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: asilvering (talk · contribs) 11:56, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	See below for prose/focus comments. One suggestion, not required to pass the review: I think it's reasonably likely that someone might come to this article, read the lead, and then skip down to one of the headings without reading the whole article. I think "description" and "history" work well either way, but it might be worth expanding "PC" and "EA" in "perspectives" the first time they appear.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Lead is out of order and a bit unbalanced; should have the history section as the second paragraph, and should expand more on the controversy/perspectives section. Right now this serves to bury the controversy between two much larger paragraphs.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	I think the references in the infobox should be moved to the relevant point in the text instead...? I clicked through a few other Ontario roads and none of the articles I found had the information footnoted in the infobox. You can move the text of the notes to the "history" section, or omit if it's redundant.
	2c. it contains no original research.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	I'm certainly expecting an article like this to go into detail, but there are some points where this gets excessive, or where the sequences of facts could be reworked into a smoother narrative.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	See note on lead for minimizing the environmental controversy. Likewise, the "Perspectives" section sandwiches the environmental controversy between the same positive opinions - definitely not a neutral frame. There are many ways you could go about fixing this, but here's one suggestion that I think would work: pull the "politicians support it" sentences together and get them down to two sentences tops, or even one (they're not explaining why the politicians support it, just that they do, so you can basically summarize this as "even the local opposition politicians are in favour") briefly mention the positive opinions of the residents and local businesses for the same reason. Also, are there any small groups that don't support the bypass? (aside from environmentalists, who are mentioned already) outright state the main reason for this support, which I assume is "would reduce congestion and travel time", but isn't explicitly stated as the reason why people support the project (it's just mentioned as the words of the MTO); the "vital piece of infrastructure" quote should go here. related in-favour reasons like "we could also have this cool trail project" go here a transition like "however, environmental groups are skeptical of these claims for (these reasons). Also, they oppose the project for (these other reasons)." a just-the-facts kind of statement summarizing where things stand now, so that no one opinion gets the endline (ok to slightly duplicate something already said in "current status" subsection imo) In general, what the environmental groups appear to actually be calling for is an updated EA, while the groups in favour of the bypass are saying "we are going to do a new EA". I think it will help to clarify why that isn't a comforting reassurance to the environmental groups. The articles used as sources here do explain this; it would be more balanced and less confusing to put that kind of thing in here than the "the old EA didn't take these other things into account", which appears easily countered by "well, we'll do a new EA".
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.

Individual items

Done "The Holland Marsh is a Provincially Significant Wetlands" - this isn't wrong, but you might consider rewording the sentence so it doesn't set off subject-verb agreement alarm bells. -- asilvering (talk) 20:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Done "Proposals for a highway corridor south of Lake Simcoe date as far back as the late 1970s." - the April 1982 Globe article says the debate has been going on since the 1960s, so I think this sentence must refer to formal proposals? I don't think that's necessarily obvious to readers, so it should probably be specified. Might as well mention the debates dating back to the 1960s while you're at it. -- asilvering (talk) 20:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Done "no wetlands would be impacted" - the source doesn't say this. Quote: "Steele said the path is outside the wetlands of a wildlife marsh." Outside the wetlands doesn't mean it won't impact them - and there are environmental groups in the "perspectives" section that are saying it will affect wetlands. You could fix this by attributing the quote to a specific person, but honestly I don't think you need this in this section and could just as easily remove it. -- asilvering (talk) 20:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Done "The MTO, then known as the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MTC)" - the MTO was introduced in the lead, but hasn't been spelled out in the body of the article yet -- asilvering (talk) 20:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Highway 404/89 Route Location Study, published in 1989" - the Corporation of the Town of Georgina footnote doesn't lead to any info about this. p 15 is talking about a sewer system. -- asilvering (talk) 20:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Highway 400 – Highway 404 Link", paragraph 2: this gets unnecessarily stuck into lists of dates. The point here is to explain what the "several upgrades" are, but we already know it's in the "early 2000s" so we don't need every single proposed-started-completed date. For example, On August 28, 2000, the MTO announced a contract for a four-lane extension of Highway 404 from Davis Drive to Green Lane, and the reconstruction of Green Lane into a four-laned arterial road between Leslie Street and Woodbine Avenue. This contract began shortly after the announcement in September 2000. Both were completed and opened to traffic on February 8, 2002, at a ceremony attended by MPP for York North Julia Munro and York Region chairman Bill Fisch. can easily become something like "A four-lane extension of Highway 404 from Davis Drive to Green Lane, and the reconstruction of Green Lane into a four-laned arterial road between Leslie Street and Woodbine Avenue, were completed and opened to traffic on February 8, 2002." -- asilvering (talk) 20:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Done "while it was expected 20,000 vehicles per day would make use of the bypass, over 25,000 vehicles traversed sections of it in 2011" - this also seems like trivia to me (and I'm not sure "while... over..." is warranted given the time difference between the two figures) -- asilvering (talk) 20:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Done "Highway 400 – Highway 404 Link", paragraphs 4+5: in here the chronology seems to jump around. I think what's happening here is that this section has been constructed source by source, one fact and one footnote at a time in sequence. A useful way to build an article, but now you've got enough here that it could more helpfully be combined and reworked into one paragraph, in narrative order. Something to the general effect of "Although the PCs had already started work on the bypass, the Liberals won the election on a transit-oriented platform, and scrapped the bypass project. However, York Region and Simcoe County continued to advocate for the bypass, including it in their transportation master plans and commencing the York-Simcoe Boundary Area Transportation Needs Study as a basis for their advocacy. The provincial government did not change its plan." (Of course, your version can and probably should have dates and so on in there. But anything that doesn't fit on that basic three-part narrative is probably unnecessary.) -- asilvering (talk) 20:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Done "Early works construction is tentatively scheduled to begin in the fall of 2021." - needs updating. -- asilvering (talk) 20:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Current status" section - the chronology is jumping around in here too. Can you have a look at the first three paragraphs and see about narrativizing them as in "Highway 400 – Highway 404 Link", and keeping just the most important dates? -- asilvering (talk) 20:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Asilvering: just wanted to check if you were completed your review or there is still more to come before I get to work. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 04:54, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about that! Got distracted, am ref-checking this one now. -- asilvering (talk) 18:32, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, updated and on hold for now. -- asilvering (talk) 20:54, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Whew, why can't I get reviews like this during the GA backlog contests? This may take more than 7 days because there is quite a bit of work to do, and because the majority of the Perspectives section was done by a co-editor, but I'll start now. @Turini2: do you have any input or would you like to help out on this? - Floydian ^τ _¢ 16:10, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello - yes, I can take a look at a few of these points this week. Thanks for the ping! (@Asilvering: Great work!!) Turini2 (talk) 16:47, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to start with addressing some of the simpler points in the table above, then move to the comments. I've also numbered your Individual items list below the table so I can answer each of them:
Regarding 1a, I've made extensive use of the abbreviation template in this article for just this reason, but I noticed they weren't in the Perspectives section. I've added them in (as well as for NDP).

1b: Done. I find it somewhat hard to summarise these environmental perspectives, because they just throw the same list of concerns at every single proposal without fail... "Will affect wetlands, farmlands, forests, the endangered South-Central Ontario Blackfly; suburbs will sprawl."

2b: You must of somehow picked only articles I haven't improved yet. Length and dates are referenced in nearly all Ontario road infoboxes.

3b: I assume you address the case of this in the points list below the table.

4: I'll hold off on this for the moment to see what Turini2 has to say.
Apologies, I've been a little snowballed with work this week, I'll see what I can do this week. Soz! Turini2 (talk) 20:22, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As for the Individual items:
1. I just switched it to the singular, not gonna waste space on the semantics of whether it is or isn't always pluralised. :)
2. Other than that mention, I haven't found any information regarding the corridor prior to 1978. It's a rather vague statement to be worth including in my opinion.
3. I changed to this to say "it will not cross any wetlands."
4. Added {{abbr}} mouseovers.
5. It just notes that it was published in 1989.
6. Made some changes, see if that's better.
7. Agreed, removed it.
8. Paragraph 4 is regarding the provincial government, whereas paragraph 5 is regarding York Region and Simcoe County.
9. Updated. First project is currently being bid on until mid-February, so it should start around April or May.
10. I've rearranged it, see if it's ok now. Frankly the 4th paragraph is a tabloid piece.
All for the moment. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 04:28, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Turini2: just checking in. I can try to tackle this section myself if you're finding yourself too busy? - Floydian ^τ _¢ 23:23, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Asilvering: I've done some work to rearrange the Perspectives section and trim a few superfluous details. The general flow is now [politicians and groups support it. The opposition politicians also supported it last election. Here's why.], [Environmental groups such as foo et al. criticise it because yada yada reasons.], [Archeologists/historians are worried about super historic place.], [Supporters push back saying the study will be updated.] I think this provides a pretty balanced approach. Not sure what I could add for why the groups that oppose it don't accept that the EA will be updated, which is in my humble opinion because they just oppose any sort of development and are professional NIMBYs, so even if it was updated they'd come up with a new filibuster speech. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 01:27, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hey all - sorry, been crazy busy with work! Looks good to me, made a few minor tweaks. Only query I have is regarding tenses of the Lower Landing piece - given that people don't know exactly where it is/where it might be, "irreversibly destroy the site before it can be properly investigated" seems very ... certain regarding location? I tried to reword it, but it sounded far too vague and woolly! Not sure how other articles with the potential of archaeological discovery have been worded. Turini2 (talk) 19:06, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Turini2 I think the sentence that's in there now, Indigenous groups and heritage advocates are concerned that construction of the proposed bypass would irreversibly destroy the site before it can be properly investigated. gets it across fine - they're concerned, not certain. If a highway gets dug right through it, it will certainly be irreversibly destroyed, so having that strong language in that part of the sentence seems fine.

@ Both of you, I think this is good to go now! I'm going to pass the review. Good luck keeping up with this as the construction continues! (I can't make that not sound like a threat. I promise it is not a threat.) -- asilvering (talk) 05:16, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Floydian: Once the EA is updated in due course, I suspect we can update it with something along the lines of "Group Alpha was satisfied by change 1, but change 2 didn't go far enough and they're still annoyed about XYZ" - something that acknowledging the updated EA, while acknowledging that you can never please everyone (esp. NIMBYs). That should provide the balance at the end. (Can't make an omelette without breaking eggs!) Turini2 (talk) 19:06, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]