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Route Lists: Introduction

Some concerns were raised about Maryland's route lists in an IRC discussion. Here are the current lists for reference, as well as their size as of today:

There is also a List of numbered highways in Maryland that redirects to the Interstate/U.S. list instead of providing a link to these lists or an overall explanation of Maryland's highway system.

The major issue is most of these lists are too long. As you can infer from the sizes, these lists take a long time to load and even cause timeout errors for those people with slow internet connections. While there are aesthetic issues, the major issue is one of accessibility. Therefore, accessibility should be the prime focus in the hashing out process that is set to begin here. Some of the initial ideas floated or referenced were as follows:

  • Split the Interstate/U.S. list into separate lists for each route type.
  • Split the Maryland state highways list and the other lists into chunks, such as 1-99, 100-199, etc.
  • Design a better hierarchy for these lists for easier navigation, capped by a top-level summary page similar to the one developing for the list of numbered highways in New York
  • The list of minor routes seem to contain three sets of routes:
    • Routes that should be expanded into separate articles.
    • Routes that are an old alignment of a better known route.
    • Routes that are spurs between a highway and someplace.

I am going to start a discussion header on the minor state highways, since the ideas related to that page seem to be most numerous at this time. You are welcome to start discussion headers on the other lists as well. I am also going to relay this discussion to USRD so the national figures there can offer their guidance. Viridiscalculus (talk) 06:58, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Well I'll offer what I did with Michigan. The Michigan Highway System article describes the history of the state trunkline highway system, and gives links to the 3 component types lists. That pared down the big list into smaller lists. This way each item is covered, but the size doesn't overwhelm. In fact, the three lists are just tables and nothing more.
Now, the Interstates and US Highways shouldn't be in the same list. That's cherry-picking two of the three types of state highways and leaving out the third type. I opposed a similar list at FLC on those grounds, and if I had known about this Maryland list when it was at FLC, I would have opposed as well. The redirect title for the I/US list is wrong and should be deleted or redirected elsewhere. The other Minor list should probably be broken apart. Split off anything that should be a separate article. Merge and redirect listings into other articles. (For instance, M-206 redirects to M-26 (Michigan highway) because the latter highway was realigned on top of the only roadway to carry the former designation.) Routes that serve a common purpose (all spurs to state institutions, parks, etc) could be merged into a single list like what Utah or Nevada did. Other old alignments should probably be merged with their counterparts as much as possible. That still means through that some lists will never be decreased in size though. (All current state highways should be in one list someplace, regardless.) Imzadi1979 (talk) 07:54, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I would agree with the approach Imzadi used with Michigan. A intro page talking about the different route systems and then separate lists for each route type is probably the best way to go, especially if there's a lot of Interstates or U.S. Highways to cover. Each list article should be specifically titled to make it clear which highway type is detailed, with any ambiguous links redirecting to the main intro page.
As to "minor" routes, there's been some states that actually deleted such lists or otherwise revamped that information, the problem being that the term "minor" had no sourceable definition. That's one reason why List of state highways serving Utah state parks and institutions works is that these short routes are clearly defined around a common theme that doesn't rely on an arbitrary length to classify them as "minor". (FYI: Nevada doesn't have a list of "minor" routes...the idea has been talked about, though.)
In trying to reduce the page file size, you can look at what info is actually presented versus what is really essential to the list. List of Maryland state highways gives the counties traversed for each route, which I would argue gives too much information. Similarly, the page code size could be reduced and loading time shortened by eliminating numerous jct templates (or image/page link codes) from the termini columns, i.e.:

 US 1 / US 40 Truck in Baltimore → Baltimore. --LJ (talk) 10:43, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Ah, so that's why the page is so slow. Even though I have broadband, I still got timeout errors when I tried to load the list last night. If someone with broadband can't load the page, people with dial-up have no chance.
I noticed that the NY overall list was mentioned in passing here. In a perfect world, it would look a bit like Michigan Highway System; however, I need to be motivated to clean it up first. =) But yeah, following the general structure of either the NY or MI summary pages is a good idea. – TMF 14:48, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Here is my take on the situation. The US and Interstate list can remain as it is. List of numbered highways in Maryland can be turned into an overview of numbered roads in MD. The state highway list can be split up by 100s (List of Maryland state highways (1-99), List of Maryland state highways (100-199), etc.) in order to break up the long 128 kb list. In addition, minor highways too short for an article can be redirected into their place in the list (without a wikilink) and former routes can also be included in the list italicized with wikilinks if they are notable enough for a standalone article or can redirect to another route. However, it is important to note that many minor routes are comprised of several suffixed segments (such as Maryland Route 992) so the list should indicate all these segments. However, even some major routes (such as Maryland Route 2) have short suffixed routes (like MD 2G) that serve as a short connector off the route to another road. I don't know if routes such as MD 2G should also be included in the list. ---Dough4872 18:57, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I personally think that all state routes that are small loops off other major routes formed from a realignment should be mentioned in the bigger route's article. They're a little lost here in the vast list of minor state routes. Also, when I do history sections I tend to do a list of realignments of the major highway, so the merge of its small loops into the main article could possibly coincide with that. --Onore Baka Sama (talk) 00:31, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I like the idea of putting the former alignment routes in the same article as the present alignment route, as well as the concept of giving the minor routes context instead of putting them in a vast list. I am not fully convinced this is a good idea yet, so I am going to give it a try with Auxiliary route sections in the MD 53 and US 220 articles. I am going to add information on MD 636, a related route used to get onto MD 53, to the MD 53 article. For the US 220 article, I am going to add old alignments MD 807 and MD 395 and affiliated minor route MD 830. Viridiscalculus (talk) 02:39, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
That's always a possibility, since these routes act as auxiliary routes to a main highway and the number tends to be associated with one specific highway (for example, Maryland Route 675 is associated with two separate former segments of U.S. Route 13). Infobox road small could be used for these minor routes in the main article, much like with a bannered route. However, there are some minor routes that are not associated with a particular route. ---Dough4872 02:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Route Lists: Minor Maryland state highways

As mentioned above, there seem to be three sets of routes contained in the minor routes list. As a step toward figuring out how many highways should actually be in this list, I am going to take a stab at identifying the routes that should be split out into their own articles. My general criteria will be as follows:

  • There is no use in expanding articles that will remain stubs forever for lack of sufficient information. However, if sufficient information exists for a route, the route should be expanded. Even if there is nothing compelling about a particular route, if the route has the potential to have a junction list, route description, and history and become at least C-class, it should be marked for expansion.
  • All signed highways (signed on public maps and with route markers in the field) will be considered, with the only ones unlikely to be expanded being those that are very short.
  • On the contrary, unsigned highways need to have some compelling argument, such as being quite long or having a major role.

List of state highways in the minor highway list that should be split out

Feel free to comment on these routes:

  • 1-499: 21, 57, 172, 344, 393
  • 500-599: 500, 501, 506, 508, 509, 513, 521, 529, 566, 578
  • 600-699: 619, 623, 627, 637, 656, 670, 674
  • 700-799: 715, 725, 756, 781
  • 800-899: 802, 822, 851, 896
  • 900-999: 935, 937, 953

Viridiscalculus (talk) 07:37, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

My comments are going to be more generic than about any specific routes since I don't know much (if anything) about the MD route system. What I would do is redirect all of the routes - signed and unsigned - that are old alignments of other, longer routes to the old route's history section. There, you can mention "...the former alignment of MD x through Foo is now/was redesignated as MD y..." and such. Next, I would split out all routes that are signed into standalone articles. This will inevitably result in some articles with a one-paragraph route description and a one-sentence history section, but I think that's unavoidable for the most part. The last suggestion I have - and the first that isn't a rehashing of what I said online last night - is to create a list of unsigned state highways in Maryland. Last night, I suggested covering some of them in the articles about the areas they serve; however, upon thinking about it further an unsigned list is probably the better option. Now, how sourceable it is, I don't know, but just speaking from a logistical standpoint, I see it as a decent option that doesn't require subjective inclusion/exclusion criteria. – TMF 15:15, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
In the comment mentioned in the above section, I brought up the possibility of getting rid of the minor route list by giving the more notable roads their own articles while having the very short roads redirect to their place in the main list (which would be split by 100s). The above roads listed seem like long-enough roads that could probably warrant their own article. ---Dough4872 19:00, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
As far as MD 21 goes, I moved it to the minor list because it is tiny and, as far as I could see, serves little purpose other than to connect Tolchester Road and MD 20. MD 57 is short as well, so I moved it. I'm beginning to think that those were rather hasty decisions, so yeah. Whoops, heheheh.
As far as the main list of highways goes, I think that we can start by removing the county column. It isn't completely necessary, as the articles they point to will have their "Counties traversed" sections and therefore have county lists right there for easy access to the Wikipedia reader. I will go so far as saying that the county lists are useful to the editor, mostly; I've used them to find the proper HLR to expand the article. The cities of the route termini should be location enough for the Wikipedia reader. But that's just my opinion. --Onore Baka Sama (talk) 23:38, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I wanna note on something that was forked, MD 669 - this better off being in the Pennsylvania Route 669 article rather than a standalone, all of the history ties into PA 669 and its a short alignment.Mitch32(We the people in order to form a more perfect union.) 01:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Also I have a sandbox on MD 953, so I can cover it if you want. Interesting history.Mitch32(We the people in order to form a more perfect union.) 02:04, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
As for splitting out minor routes, I would definitely say 21 and 57 should be split out immediately. 953 could sustain its own article, and MD and PA 669 could be combined. On another note, it may be possible to combine Maryland Route 286 and Delaware Route 286 as they are both short routes with a related number. ---Dough4872 02:44, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I am opposed to MD 669 being merged with PA 669 because I do not think they are sufficiently intertwined like DE-MD 54. After the PA 669 article is improved, we can revisit this in one of those routes' talk pages. I also recommend improving the article and revisiting for MD-DE 286. I can probably split out MD 57 into a decent article within the next week. Viridiscalculus (talk) 05:35, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
MD 21 should be split out now since it was a start-class before merged into the minor route list. ---Dough4872 16:44, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
If you feel strongly that MD 21 should be split out now, then take charge. Viridiscalculus (talk) 21:41, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I conducted a survey of the Highway Location Reference that involved identifying parent route-child route relationships. You can find the data I collected in my sandbox. My findings were as follows:

  • There were a lot more suffix routes with the same number as the parent route than I expected. For example, MD 135 has suffix routes MD135A, MD 135B, etc. The suffixes are never signed, but the routes with occasionally be signed with the parent number if they are part of the route's alignment. There are several instances of a situation where a state highway cannot cross an intersection with a major highway to continue its journey directly, e.g., MD 262, where the highway on the other side is assigned a suffix but signed normally, like MD 262A. MD 18 has suffixed routes that include routes that are part of the signed MD 18 mainline and other suffixed routes that are old alignments, tiny spurs, etc. With these routes, it is obvious that there is a relationship, and these routes should definitely be considered for inclusion in the parent article and not elsewhere.
  • Almost every route that is not worth expanding into its own article has a parent article or could have a parent article in which the routes should be expanded. Some child routes already have their own articles. Other child routes are so short individually they should remain in lists. For example, US 50 has some child routes that merit their own articles, such as MD 662 and MD 565. US 50 has other child routes that are better served being arranged in lists, such as MD 835, MD 908, MD 950, and MD 992. Such a route list can be split into its own article title, such as "Auxiliary routes of U.S. Route 50 in Maryland", if putting all of the routes in the parent article would be excessive.
  • There are very few orphan minor routes, or minor state highways that have no clear relation to any other route. Some orphans can be justified as being a child of some parent route. Others can be lumped in with an unnumbered road (MD 927 with Randolph Road), a state highway in another state (MD 942 with WV 28 Alt), or even in a non-roads article (MD 797 (State Circle) with Maryland State House). If worst comes to worst, we can bite the bullet and make separate articles for the most unloved orphans.
  • In conclusion, I am now confident the list of minor state highways can eventually be retired if we go ahead and lump the minor routes not worthy of their own articles with their parents. The biggest problems I can think of are some articles may look awkward with their different-numbered auxiliary routes listed and programming redirects will be more of a pain. I have revised the MD 53 article as a first test of these proposals. I am going to work on US 220 in Maryland and see how that goes before putting my weight behind a decision to move in this direction for the whole system. Viridiscalculus (talk) 21:41, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I really think you have a good idea to handle MD's situation of minor routes. However, I wouldn't agree that all the relations are correct. For example, I would not consider MD 268 to be related to MD 279, as it is a circa 1 mile connector between MD 7 and MD 279. It could very well be considered related to MD 7. ---Dough4872 02:03, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
There is a good chance I got some of the relationships wrong. The fact is we will need to do further research to confirm these relationships and portray them correctly in the articles we edit. This survey is a good starting point; I am going to see about uploading it to the WikiProject page.
In other news, I completed my work on U.S. Route 220 in Maryland. In addition to upgrading the major fields, I added several auxiliary routes: US 220 Truck, MD 807 and suffixes, and MD 830A and B. I will work on the redirects later. While I like the format, I have notability concerns about some of these routes. MD 830 is a pair of driveways glorified by an accident of history that no one is going to notice driving by. Where does being complete rank against notability here?
I also added information about MD 48 to one of the auxiliary routes (807D) that happens to traverse part of the same path. Consider this the first statement in the coming discussion on the former route list. Is this a good way of folding former routes into articles about highways following the same path decades later or should this be done differently? Viridiscalculus (talk) 09:11, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
The info about US 220 Truck does not need to be in the article as it is already in Bannered routes of U.S. Route 220. For the associated state routes (807 and 830), I think the procedure you are using is working. As for merging MD 48, I don't know if it fits in there, even though it may be the only pracitcal place if we are going to split up the former route list. I think we need to take a look at each route in the former list and see where we should put each of them. ---Dough4872 03:32, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
If the info about US 220 Truck is going to be in the bannered routes article, then its section on the banner routes page needs to be wikified, since readers may not have the context of the US 220 in MD article. I will update the links to US 220 Truck in the US 220 in MD article. I am going to change the header from Auxiliary routes to Related routes to conform with WP:MDRD/EG.
I think we know where we are going with the minor routes, so I will put together a plan for those to post here for last second feedback and then in the minor routes section. I am also going to start discussions on the former routes list and the list hierarchy. Viridiscalculus (talk) 04:54, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Speaking of the Editing Guide, there are parts of it that I feel are not compliant with USRD standards. For example, it calls for a counties traversed section for routes in multiple counties; this is really a waste of space as the counties are already mentioned in the prose. Also, the points of interest and notes section are nonstandard and can be integrated elsewhere in the article. Also, the related routes section could be repurposed as mentioned above instead of including links to other articles. ---Dough4872 18:05, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Minor Highway Plan

This long-term project involves the List of minor Maryland state highways. The definition of a "minor highway" is either undefined, ambiguous, or arbitrary. The best way to eliminate having to figure out what a minor highway is for purpose of having it on a list of minor highways is to eliminate the list altogether. However, there is a lot of valuable information in the list that needs to be saved. Most of that information can be put to good use either by expanding the data into new, well-developed articles or moving the information to articles about related highways. The goal of this initiative is to eventually retire the list while transferring all relevant data to other articles. To accomplish this, over time we will transfer every route on the list either (1) to the article of a related route, or (2) to its own developed article.

  1. Many routes in the Maryland highway system are related to each other by history. For instance, MD 144 is related to US 40 because the former route (the child) is the old alignment of the latter route (the parent). Similarly, MD 765 is a child route of MD 2 because MD 765 is a collection of MD 2's old alignments in southern Calvert County. The vast majority of the highways in the minor routes list are related in some way to highways with their own articles. The information on the "minor" highway can be transferred to the article of the relevant "major" highway. For example, MD 430, a highway in the minor routes list, is related to MD 193, which has its own article, by MD 193 having taken over much of MD 430's length. Therefore, to provide better context than including MD 430 in a list of minor routes, we should integrate MD 430 into the MD 193 article as a related route. Course of Action: Incorporate all minor routes that are related to a route with its own article into that article in a Related routes section. For examples of how this has been done, see Maryland Route 53 and U.S. Route 220 in Maryland. MD 636 was moved from the minor routes list to MD 53. MD 807 was moved from the minor routes list to US 220 in Maryland. I will put together a list of highways presently in the minor routes list that should be incorporated in this manner.
  2. There are other highways in the minor routes list that are not related to another highway, be it a child or parent. These articles should be split out into their own articles. However, instead of just transferring the information and being done with it, these articles should be sectioned properly with at minimum a lead, route description, and junction list. These articles should also have a history section and be properly referenced, although sometimes that is not possible right away. The last thing we want to do is add more stubs. Course of Action: Split out all minor routes that are deserving of their own article. Make sure the new articles have all required fields, such as a route description and junction list. If you do not think you can expand a minor highway into an article that will not be a stub, then ask for help or leave the highway for someone who will fashion a proper article for the highway. For examples of how this has been done, see Maryland Route 57 and Maryland Route 736. Both highways were expanded into proper articles after being listed in the minor routes list. I will put together a list of highways presently in the minor routes list that should be expanded in this manner.

If you have any questions or comments, please offer them here. Viridiscalculus (talk) 20:23, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

How many state routes are there in MD? It might suit you to break the big list into two or three segments. --Fredddie™ 22:39, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
There are a lot, they use almost every number between 1 and 999. ---Dough4872 00:21, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Route Lists: Former Maryland State Highways

Compared to the list of minor Maryland state highways, the List of former Maryland state highways is going to be more difficult to retire. I did a survey and only about half of the present entries in the former highways list can be redirected to the route's present highway. However, retiring this list is not as crucial as retiring the minor routes list because there is no question what a former state highway is. Despite the lack of urgency to change, it would be a good idea to figure out what direction we want to take this list because there are many former Maryland state highways that have not yet made it to this list but will be added in the future.

There are several directions we can go, including:

  • Keep the list as it is now, with some upgrades in formatting, such as introducing infobox road small, and clearer guidelines on how best to populate the list. Former highways that have enough information to merit their own articles can be split out, with a Main Article link and summary of the route provided on the list page
  • Include the list of former state highways in the same list as the list of present state highways, with entries on former state highways indicated in some way, especially if there is a number assigned to both a former highway and present highway. This is about how the former highways are addressed for Michigan: List of Michigan trunklines. Almost all former highways listed have their own pages, which would be ideal. However, this may not be a reasonable expectation. One disadvantage of the Michigan way is either the highway has one line of information or an article, with little possibility for something in the middle.
  • Include the list of former state highways on the same page as the present highways, but in a separate table, as is done for Texas: List of state highways in Texas. This has the benefit of separating the two sets of lists but keeping on the same page for easy scrolling back and forth, but has the same drawback as the second proposal: either information will be minimal for a route or expansive enough for its own article.
  • A combination of the first two approaches. A list of former state highways is retained and upgraded as in the first proposal. At the same time, links in the list to a former highway go to the former highway list, unless the former highway has its own developed article. Arizona uses this approach: List of state routes in Arizona
Since no one put forth their opinion in how we should organize the former state routes, I will offer my opinion. I am in favor of (1) keeping the list as it is now, with some upgrades. In addition, I am in favor of (2) combining the list of present state highways and former state highways. What this means is the article List of Maryland state highways would contain a list of both present and former state highways, with the default sort being by number. My rationale for these suggestions is twofold. For #1, most former highways will have more information than just their endpoints. By keeping the list of former highways with the paragraph-size entries, we allow for the present information and perhaps more information about a particular route to be preserved. For #2, having one list instead of two lists on the List of Maryland state highways page means one less obstacle for someone who does not know whether a particular numbered route is a present or former route. Viridiscalculus (talk) 09:27, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
I agree that both current and former routes should be included in the main list, however, before this is done the main list needs to be split up for size purposes. We can still try to break up the former route list by merging routes with similar routes and creating a few new articles where necessary. ---Dough4872 18:34, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Before we split the list by 100s, I want to see how much the size of the page can be cut down by slimming it down using the suggestions from the Intro discussion, including removing the counties, removing jct templates, removing unnecessary links, etc. Ideally, I would like a sortable list like Michigan has, so people can sort the list by whatever they desire: number (the default), length, or another column. Splitting into 100s removes the possibility of a sortable list. Viridiscalculus (talk) 22:49, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, we can try cutting down the list as much as we can. However, if the full list is still too big, then we need to split it or go back to the pre-table version. ---Dough4872 22:54, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
I did an experiment with the County column in my second sandbox. That column's information would seem to be a shoo-in to be cut because (1) the counties a route passes through can or should be found in the route's article and (2) the county column is not sortable. I copied and pasted the list of Maryland state highways up to MD 100. That portion of the list has a size of 20,388 bytes. I removed all information from the county field. The result had a size of 15,463 bytes, which is 76% of the county-laden list. I believe cutting out the county column and replacing it with a Notes column would drop the size of the list to about 100kb. Next I am going to look into reducing the size of the terminus columns. Viridiscalculus (talk) 23:40, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
That is a good start, and remember to remove all the shields from the termini. You may also want to try an experiment by adding the former routes into the table to see how big it would be. ---Dough4872 00:44, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
If I can offer some suggestions, when List of Iowa state highways was being peer reviewed, I made the list a sortable table like that, but I made the miles and km into two separate columns using {{mikm}}. Then I made each column except for name and length_mi unsortable. I used a couple of my own creations: {{Roadlink}} for termini (it's almost exactly like {{Jct}} but with no shields) and {{Roadlink/name}} for route names and shields. Both mikm and Roadlink/name handle sorting out of the box, so it cleaned up the sort keys. I'll put a short example on your sandbox2. --Fredddie™ 01:55, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
That's a good idea, and I am doing that with the DE list. ---Dough4872 02:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I started the new table of Maryland state highways in Sandbox2 following Fredddie's suggestions. So far, I have gone through MD 200, which includes 141 highways. The list is about 22 KB, or about 156 bytes/route. I expect this list to end up with about 650 routes and 100 KB in size. Given how large it is going to be, I am leaning toward not including former routes in the table, since that would likely push the table over 900 entries. Viridiscalculus (talk) 21:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

We can leave the former routes out and see how big the list will be with just the current highways. If it is still to big, we may have to split it up. ---Dough4872 00:20, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
The new list is finally done. I will keep it in User:Viridiscalculus/Sandbox2 for a day or two for feedback before I replace the current table. The new table clocks in at 73 KB for 480 routes, well under my estimate above. Placing the former routes we have now in the former route list (about 60) there would not make it much larger, but there are many, many present and former state highways that have yet to be profiled in Wikipedia. Viridiscalculus (talk) 05:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
The new list at least loads for me, but it still takes a couple of minutes to do so. My guess is that it's so slow because of all of the template transclusions - every line has four template calls, and if there's 500 lines, that's 2,000 transclusions. I would definitely consider moving whichever routes are unsigned to another list. You could then have lists for unsigned active routes, signed active routes, and all former routes, which should help resolve the loading issue. – TMF 13:57, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
There is a problem with that method, as there is no clear verifiability to what routes are signed and what routes are not. In addition, it appears that there is still a significant sum of the routes that are signed. In this case, I think the only viable way to break up the list of current routes is to do it by 100's. ---Dough4872 15:37, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, if you or anyone intends on taking this list to FLC, that would be an issue. Anyway, I've analyzed the list a bit, and there are 481 rows, with the midpoint being around MD 334. Given that, you could split the list at MD 300 or MD 400 and have two lists instead of nine. I think that'd be a more desirable option since it'd be less unwieldy. – TMF 16:10, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
If we were to split it into two lists, we should use 500 as a dividing point. We would then have List of Maryland state highways (1-499) and List of Maryland state highways (500-999) as our two lists. ---Dough4872 17:00, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
The issue with that is that the first list would be significantly larger than the second. – TMF 17:10, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
We should see about that first, if the list split at 500 makes the first one too big, then we should split it at 300 or 400. ---Dough4872 18:16, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
As Dough mentioned, splitting the routes based on signage status is troublesome because determining signage status comes close to original research. My preference is to have one list so that all state routes are listed in one place, as suggested by Izmadi. However, if the list needs to be split, I would place the split after MD 378. That seems like a random spot, but MD 378 is the final route in the secondary clustering sequence (starting with 38 after the primary sequence of 2-37). After 378, state route numbers were assigned sequentially based on when the highway was completed or placed under contract. One issue with doing this is unless I can find a reference for these clustering sequences, splitting based on this would be another flirtation with original research. Therefore, I advise putting the divide between 399 and 400 if doing 378 will not work. Viridiscalculus (talk) 20:20, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
That's another thought that could work. However, as mentioned, we need a source to verify the numbering schemes. ---Dough4872 00:17, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I replaced the old list of present Maryland state highways with the new list of Maryland state highways with the Roadlink templates in List of Maryland state highways. This is a short-term measure that saves 55 KB while we continue to figure out how to reorganize all of these lists. The list still has a really long load time, so the list will likely be split up in the near future. My next experiment will be to add former routes into the list in my Sandbox and split the list various ways to see what happens. One idea that comes to mind is splitting at 200, 400, and 700 into four lists. I will also get a discussion started on list hierarchy. Viridiscalculus (talk) 00:31, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

That would be a good idea. If we include all current, minor, and former routes into a main table, then it would probably make the most sense to split by 100s or 200s. ---Dough4872 01:16, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I added the former routes to the tables in my sandbox. There were only about 60 of them, so they did not add much heft to the table. I split the table into 1-199, 200-399, and 400-999. The first is in Sandbox2, with links at the top to the other two. The three tables are 29, 25, and 32 KB, respectively. One problem I came across is with the links to the highways in the leftmost column for those numbers that are assigned to a present highway and a former highway. Is there a way to link to a page other than the page for the current highway using the Roadlink template? Example: The entry for former MD 45 should link to MD 45 in the former routes list, not the article for present MD 45. Viridiscalculus (talk) 20:47, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Redirects

There is also the issue of redirects for former state highways whose paths have been assumed by present highways. I will use the example of MD 41, a former state highway, and MD 135, a present state highway. There are a few options:

  • A search for MD 41 redirects to the MD 41 entry in the list of former state highways. A user needs to manually click the MD 135 link that should be in the MD 41 entry to access the present path.
  • A search for MD 41 redirects to the MD 135 page, either to the top or to the History section. A user may be bewildered about seeing information for MD 135 instead of MD 41, especially if the MD 41 information is solely in prose.
  • If the list of former state highways is retired and a regular list is used, MD 41 redirects to the entry in the list.

Thoughts on which directions we should head? Viridiscalculus (talk) 05:30, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

In the case of former routes, what should be done depends on the route. For some routes, they can redirect to an article about a route that absorbed their alignment; for example, Maryland Route 280 could be redirected to Maryland Route 213 since MD 280s former alignment is now MD 213. In the case of MD 41, Maryland Route 41 covers the current route while a hatnote in the MD 41 article could direct users to the Maryland Route 135 article for information about the former MD 41. For former routes that existed in more than one instance like Maryland Route 71, a disambiguation page could be used with links to U.S. Route 301 in Maryland and Maryland Route 194. However, there will be a few former routes that will not fit in with the above criteria, in which case an individual article may need to be created if the former list is to be broken up. ---Dough4872 17:44, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
My preference is a search for a former highway redirects to that highway number's entry in the List of former Maryland state highways. From a user standpoint, it is more hospitable to entice a user to click another link than to involuntarily redirect them to the relevant article, leaving them questioning why they got redirected to another article. Using the first approach also solves the issue of disambiguation by giving the user the choice of which link to click, and removes from our job the task of figuring out which article to redirect to or putting together a disambiguation page.
Actually, I just noticed the MD 41/MD 135 example was not a great one, as MD 41 is assigned to both a former and present route. As mentioned by Dough, a search for MD 41 should go to the present route, not the former route, with a hatnote in the MD 41 article to provide a link to MD 41 in the List of former state highways, where there would be a link to MD 135. In general, the user would decide which article to select next, rather than us deciding which one they should want to view. Viridiscalculus (talk) 09:27, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

It has been six months since this proposal has been discussed and now that the minor list has been taken care of, our focus can shift to the former route list. Any thoughts at this point? Dough4872 20:52, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Route Lists: Hierarchy

Here is a plan for overhauling the hierarchy of lists, based on ideas suggested in the original route lists discussion.

  1. The top-level page will be titled Maryland Highway System. This page will have an overview of the overall system and its history. The List of turnpikes in Maryland will be linked from this history. The model for this page will be Michigan Highway System.
  2. There will be links to the List of Maryland state highways, List of Interstate highways in Maryland, and List of U.S. highways in Maryland. These three pages will be the next level in the hierarchy.
  3. The U.S. and Interstate lists will each contain an overview and then a list of all highways of those types.
  4. The List of Maryland state highways page will contain an overview of the Maryland-numbered highway system, then links to multiple list pages, such as List of Maryland state highways (2-199). These lists will include both present and former routes.
  5. All former routes will link to the particular entry in the List of former Maryland state highways, which will contain a Rockland County-style rundown of all of the former highways.
  6. Since the List of minor Maryland state highways will take a long time to retire, the highways now classified as minor will continue to be linked from the List of Maryland state highways page. However, there will no longer be a direct link to the minor highways page.
  7. In conjunction with these changes, I recommend updating the links area of Infobox Road Maryland. Instead of the five links present now, there would be one link, to Maryland Highway System.

There are probably some areas I overlooked or some issues I missed, so I welcome feedback on this plan. Viridiscalculus (talk) 21:54, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this is a generally good idea to resort the Maryland lists. However, we should continue to attempt to break up the minor list by merging routes to related routes. ---Dough4872 23:21, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
The lists should be titled "Interstate Highways" and "U.S. Highways" (note the capitalization of "Highway"). An "Interstate highway" is any highway that enters two states and a "U.S. highway" is any highway in the United States, and I'm sure neither of those are what you want as the topic of the lists. – TMF 04:18, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
The word "highway" should actually never be capitalized when referring to a type of highway, it should only be capitalized in the name of a particular highway. So "Interstate Highway" refers to a highway named Interstate Highway (as in Route 34 is also known as Interstate Highway), "Interstate highway" with a capital 'I' is a highway on the Interstate system, and "interstate highway" with a lowercase 'i' is a highway that goes through more than one state. This is also true for U.S. highways, and even though that means the term "U.S. highway" is ambiguous, it's still clear what the article title means as all highways in Maryland are also in the United States, so there would be no reason to qualify them as "U.S. highways" if the "highway in the U.S." meaning were meant.-Jeff (talk) 18:37, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
That's not how literally the rest of Wikipedia handles it. – TMF 19:12, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
I have a skeletal and rough draft of the new hierarchy of route lists in my user space. In addition to the top page having links to lists of state routes, I also provided links to the MDSHA and MdTA articles for context. There is still much to do, but I appreciate any feedback on what I have so far. The top level is at User:Viridiscalculus/Maryland Highway System. Viridiscalculus (talk) 07:27, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
I completed the update of the updated route list pages in my user space. Unless there are objections or major changes needed, I intend to add these to mainspace on Wednesday. The top level page is at User:Viridiscalculus/Maryland Highway System. I am also going to update the Roads in Maryland Navbox to better fit the new hierarchy. Viridiscalculus (talk) 01:26, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Interstate 95 in Maryland

When looking at Interstate 95 in Maryland, I see that three of the four segments of I-95 have subarticles, while the second one does not:

  • Interstate 495 (Capital Beltway): This article is about the Capital Beltway: I-95 is concurrent with the Beltway from the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to the College Park Interchange.
  • Between the Beltways: This segment does not currently have a subarticle, which is one of the points of this discussion. This section lies between the College Park Interchange and just beyond the Baltimore Beltway to the Baltimore city line.
  • Interstate 95 in Baltimore, Maryland: This article is about I-95 within the city limits of Baltimore.
  • John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway: This article is about I-95 between the Baltimore city limits and

I am starting this discussion because I think the Between the Beltways portion of I-95 deserves its own subarticle with a name like Interstate 95 in Maryland (Between the Beltways). The portion is notable in itself, but it should be split out more so because the other three portions have split out articles that do not overlap. This is not something I am raring to work on right now, but I would like to work on improving the I-95 in MD article(s) in the near future, so I decided to get the discussion wheels rolling now. Viridiscalculus (talk) 23:15, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I-95 in MD is 110 miles. I disagree that it needs to be split into 4 subarticles. Honestly, there should be only 3 articles at work here: Capital Beltway, I-95 in MD and the JKF Memorial Highway.
  • Interstate 495 (Capital Beltway): This first article focuses on the Beltway as its own entity. The whole thing is I-495, and full of cultural significance related to government in Washington. Yes, I-95 follows the beltway, but a section heading in the RD about the Capital Beltway section with a {{seealso}} link is sufficient. Some discussion of the specific history related to rerouting I-95 to follow the Beltway is all that's needed in the state-detail article about the Beltway.
  • John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway: As for the JFK Memorial Highway designation, that article should focus on the history behind the name, with a short summary description of I-95 in MD and DE. It does not need to be a full-blown highway article, let alone exit lists. In fact, if it weren't a bi-state memorial highway designation, I'd merge it totally into the appropriate state-detail article. Insert a mention into the state-detail article for MD about where the designation starts with a link, and that's all that's necessary there.
  • Interstate 95 in Baltimore, Maryland: As for the content of the city-detail article, most of that should be split up and merged to a few places. A lot of the content of the article, along with content from Interstate 70 in Baltimore, Maryland and Interstate 170 (Maryland) should be combined into an article about the freeway revolts and the master freeway plans for the city. The rest is information that only needs to be in the state-detail article or the Fort McHenry Tunnel article.
  • Interstate 95 in Maryland: This should be an article about all of the larger Interstate Highway in that state. It should link to the first two articles as I've listed them here. There should be some content related to the Baltimore-specific history from the article on the freeway system in that city, in summary form.
Your "Between the Beltways" article just doesn't fly for me. First off, by definition, the segment of I-95 between I-695 and the Baltimore City limits isn't in Baltimore, nor is it between the two beltways. If you include it in this proposed article, the defined scope of the article should really be: "Interstate 95 in Maryland (Everything that is not the Capital Beltway, in Baltimore or northeast of Baltimore)" or "Interstate 95 in Maryland (Between the Beltways and some stuff that isn't)". Is that section of freeway really more notable as being "Between the Beltways" or being "in Maryland"? Is it even a likely search term? Just because dcroads.net has a page on that search term doesn't mean that Wikipedia should. That website has a narrower focus than all of USRD or MDRD, so it makes sense that it would have different criteria for subdivision.
The concept of a state-detail article was originally to provide a home for an exit list, on a state-by-state basis, and to cover aspects of the history of the interstate highways that are specific to a state. Since all of the interstate highways are technically state highways with common numbering and signage, it makes sense that the specific historical development of the highway corridors takes place at a state level, not an interstate level. Only some sweeping development was coordinated nationally. By splitting into intrastate-detail articles, Maryland has developed a new concept here that isn't necessary. The MD article's exit list has a gap in the middle for the Baltimore article's list, yet it encompasses all of the I-95/MD content of the Beltway and JFK articles' lists. Most of the Baltimore-specific history is related to sweeping changes in the whole freeway system in that city, and not just changes made to I-95. This division really needs to be reconsidered, and eliminated. Imzadi 1979 → 21:45, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
I was looking for consistency when I made my "Between the Beltways" proposal, but clearly your proposal, a step in the opposite direction, provides greater consistency both within the article and among how these situations are handled elsewhere in Maryland articles and in other states. Your ideas also resolve thorny issues like how to deal with the exit lists and history among multiple articles. I look forward to working on the I-95 in Maryland article with these ideas in mind. I see you have already moved in that direction.
One thing you mention is there may be a need to keep the JFK Memorial Highway article because it is a bi-state memorial designation. I may not be understanding parts of the history, but it seems beyond Kennedy dedicating the highways in both states, the highways being renamed for him shortly thereafter, and common exit numbers for two decades, the histories of the two highways have diverged since then, with the part in Delaware now much better known as the Delaware Turnpike. The JFK Highway article itself talks about the Delaware part in the Lead but after that it is all Maryland. The case for absorbing the JFK Memorial Highway article into I-95 in Maryland is quite good.Viridiscalculus (talk) 07:57, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Let me back track here a touch. This might ramble a bit, so bear with my as I try to explain my thought process. the U.S. Route 41 in Michigan article has a section on the various memorial highway designations that have been applied to it over the years. It would make perfect sense to have the state-detail article on I-95 have such a section or subsection some place in the article devoted to the various names applied to segments, with a history of the naming. A redirect from the memorial highway name to the article, a little touch of boldface text, and Bob's your uncle. The only problem here is that the JFK was in two states, so which state gets the section, MD or DE? That's why I said maybe a pared-down article on the JFK that better addresses both states. I don't remember seeing any signage when I was in Baltimore last month, so I wasn't even fully aware that I was on the JFK until after I got home and read about stuff online. Imzadi 1979 → 08:34, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Here is my take on handling I-95 in MD. The Interstate 95 in Baltimore, Maryland and John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway articles should be merged into I-95 in MD as these segments can easily be mentioned in the main article. In addition, I have proposed a merge for Chesapeake House and Maryland House into I-95 in MD, see Talk:Interstate 95 in Maryland for the discussion. Dough4872 02:20, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
I agree that JFK Memorial Highway should be shortened greatly—but I think that it should just be subsections of I-95 in Delaware and Maryland. The only real significant features of the JFK is the history of its name... and that new overpasses along it have "JFK" carved into the concrete (at least near Baltimore). Giving both routes a route description and a junction list is VERY redundant information; an entire article for the JFK can't really offer any independent information. —Onore Baka Sama(speak | stalk) 17:56, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Minor route idea

There's already List of state highways in the United States shorter than one mile. The Maryland section is quite long. How about creating a List of state highways in Maryland shorter than one mile? This list could be created as a table with highway markers, lengths, dates and locations. They could all be redirected to their entries in the table. The US list would then have a {{main}} tag added. By using an objective criterion (shorter than one mile) over a subjective criterion (minor route) that solves that issue. There's precedent for this style list. It would also solve the funky mergers of routes into "related routes" sections when there is no greater connection than a simple intersection. Imzadi 1979 → 20:41, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

As I'm also against the whole "related route" merging thing, and as I had a similar idea, I support this. It would also clean up further stubs, depending; there are several one-mile long routes that probably will never have enough information for their own articles, yet they currently exist as individual stubs. Until recently, MD 460 was one of those, and not much can be written about it, even in history or landmarks. —Onore Baka Sama(speak | stalk) 01:03, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
That was my intention when I created the minor routes list. I intended it as a list where we could give information on some of the less-notable routes in Maryland, akin to List of minor The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy characters for example, without having to resort to creating articles that would be destined to remain stubs for the foreseeable future. The only problem I see with the 1-mile plan is if there are any routes that are longer than one mile that aren't notable enough to have their own articles. If that's not an issue, then I see no problem with it. Anything would be better than the option of having related routes merged though. For example Maryland Route 802 is an old alignment of Maryland Route 8. Other than that historical connection and the fact that they intersect, the routes have nothing to do with each other.-Jeff (talk) 13:51, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
I have come to realize the "related route" mergers are just as subjective and arbitrary as putting highways in a "minor routes" list, so I welcome this idea to organize these routes through a more objective means as in the above proposal. One concern I have in the links of a Maryland-specific list of highways shorter than a mile is there are many suffixed highways that should be addressed together. For instance, MD 920, MD 920A, MD 920B, etc. are listed separately in the list of highways shorter than a mile. All of those highways are indeed shorter than 1 mile, but rather than discussing them in isolation they should be viewed as parts of a whole, as they are in the article for MD 920. I realize this smacks of the "related routes" concept that is now looked upon with disdain, but we should not recoil from the "related routes" idea by dismissing the relationships that really do exist. We need to keep that in mind in moving forward with the plans to be put together. Viridiscalculus (talk) 07:36, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, I like the revamped, streamlined MD 920 article, and I wouldn't merge them into this list I proposed. For cases like the MD 920 suffixes, merge them to the parent article. If they're under a mile in length, they'd need to be mentioned in the table, but the redirects would point to the parent article, not the list. In fact, the list could be wikilinked for the MD 920 suffixes since they "live" someplace else. For the highways that "live" in the list, boldface the names. Imzadi 1979 → 08:44, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Letter suffixed routes of a particular number have always been grouped in a single article, for example Maryland Route 835. I only oppose merging articles for routes that have completely different numbers.-Jeff (talk) 12:11, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Also, letter-suffixed routes sharing a number is a well-defined criteria, unlike the arbitrary criteria of the routes being "related". Perhaps the best example of merging letter-suffixed routes is Maryland Route 18 which is made up entirely of letter-suffixed routes but is signed as MD 18 with no suffixes.-Jeff (talk) 12:25, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
I think using the 1-mile benchmark would be good for establishing a less subjective minor route list. For routes in the current minor list that are over one mile, we can try to create decent articles for the routes as there are resources available to make a decent article. Dough4872 02:26, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Jeff, to use an analogy, the content of an article about a highway "lives" someplace. For most state highways, it "lives" in an article that matches the name of the highway, case closed. In other cases, that content is merged someplace else, and it "lives" with its parent, or in a list, etc. The article name that matches the highway's name is then a redirect. My idea is that if a highway designation is less than a mile, the content can "live" in an objectively defined list. If it's ideally located in a parent article, that's even better. The less than a mile list will still need to have some mention of all the highways that match the criteria for inclusion, so it needs wikilinks added to the alternate locations for articles merged elsewhere Imzadi 1979 → 02:46, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
I went ahead and started the List of state highways in Maryland shorter than one mile article. I kept the format of each individual route the same as in the minor routes and in the deprecated "related routes" because I think describing the route in prose will be more helpful than in table form, as was suggested, because of the limitations of explaining a route in a table. A few notes: I realize MD 756 is over a mile in length and I will try to split it out into its own article. I am not sure what to do with the MD 359 suffixed routes. MD 359 is longer than a mile and the routes are described in the MD 359 article, but the routes should be in the <1 mile article because they are that short. Viridiscalculus (talk) 01:58, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
I think this is a good start; at this point, should we move all routes in the minor list under one mile to the new list? The short sections of MD 359 should be mentioned in the MD 359 article, since they are directly related by number, with a hatnote in the new list pointing to the MD 359 article for the information. Dough4872 01:01, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
We should start with the "related routes" that have been merged in with "parent" articles. Once we take care of the related routes, either splitting them out into their own articles (1+ mi) or moving them to the <1 mi list, we can start integrating the highways in the minor routes list into the <1 mi list. Viridiscalculus (talk) 15:31, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Another question, shouldn't the title of the new list be List of Maryland state highways shorter than one mile in order to be consistent with List of Maryland state highways? Dough4872 01:43, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Infobox Maryland highway

Please do not remove this box from state highway articles. It's a convenience template that adds some default parameter values that are useful to this project (such as maint=MDSHA for example). The people at USRD have also said that there's no problem with it.-Jeff (talk) 12:53, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

You are a little too late. Template:Infobox Maryland highway has been replaced with Template:Infobox road in what looks like every article. From what I can tell, the changes were purely behind the scenes and will not affect what is displayed, since Infobox road has the same types of parameters, including the maint parameter. I agree that the change was sudden and was probably improper to do without prior notice, and I would like for some explanation on why it was done. Viridiscalculus (talk) 16:54, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
This isn't just about one state's infobox, there is an external consolidation drive. Currently nominated at TfD are the redundant infoboxes for CO, LA, MA, MO, NC, NH, NY CRs, OK, RI, TX, U.S. Routes and WA. It looks like WOSlinker will nominate the infoboxes for NY Parkways, MN, MD, FL, CT, KS, and IL in a secondary, supplemental nomination. Imzadi 1979 → 18:37, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
As I already mentioned, this template is not "redundant", it's a convenience template. With this you don't need to manually set parameters such as state, maint, and type. Also, if a new parameter gets added to Infobox road, this template makes it easier to automatically add it to all the MD articles by setting a default parameter value in Infobox Maryland highway. USRD has even said that such state-specific infoboxes are OK. I too am disturbed that this is being done without notifying the relevant projects.-Jeff (talk) 21:42, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
What makes MD so much different from the rest of the US, or the world, that it needs its own customized version of the infobox? Imzadi 1979 → 21:49, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
The same could be said about the other states that use one.-Jeff (talk) 21:52, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
In the states that previously had a separate infobox, they were merged together to make Infobox road. Over time, many of them, including the MD one presumably, were modified to pass parameters to the main infobox for display. If this were a case like the {{jctint}} and {{MIint}} template series, I could see a point. In that situation, the latter termplate generates similar output with simplified input. (A |state=MI parameter isn't needed on each of the dozens of inclusions on a single page. Additionally, some of the output text has been customized to follow the rest of Michigan's article prose.) Unlike the templates for making junction list and exit list tables, the infobox is transcluded once on a page, meaning any "shortcut" to be garnered from building in default values is negligible. As well, if a new "default" is added to the infobox, will articles be incorrect because they haven't been updated to reflect exceptions to the default values? Assuming that the information added isn't in the text of the article, and the included text is not references, how many readers would know to correct it? How many anonymous readers would know which parameter to add to override the incorrect default? Blindly adding default parameters is not a good thing, and by sticking with a template that doesn't do so, the information in the infobox is not displayed unless it is explicitly added. It sounds extreme, but articles are being edited all the time, and with as many hundreds and thousands of articles in the projects, some articles will be overlooked.
Additionally, the infobox "family" for US highway articles is "broken", unlike the {{cite X}} series of templates. In that series, all of the templates use the same parameter names, and they are named in a consistent fashion. Newer editors don't need to consult a list someplace to find the correct template name for a state, then remember which name is assigned to the parameter for the first terminus to be listed, or the number assigned to the highway. Enforcing a "requirement" to have a state-specific infobox with non-standardized parameters does little to encourage cross-pollination of editors between the state projects, which is a beneficial goal to the overall US Roads project. Imzadi 1979 → 22:09, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Personally, I don't see why we can't delete the MD infobox and just settle with using Infobox road for MD articles. Infobox Maryland Highway does the exact same thing as Infobox road and it seems pointless to have two infoboxes that are the same. Dough4872 00:40, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
I have thoroughly stated my reasoning. In short, several other projects use such templates, USRD does not disallow it, it has fewer parameters than Infobox road, and most important of all, it helps with the maintenance of numerous articles.-Jeff (talk) 01:33, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

"Counties traversed" sections: Necessary?

I've been running through each state highway, expanding articles one-by-one since Maryland Route 19, and by MD 139, it was noted by someone that the "Counties traversed" sections seem rather pointless; a sentiment that I mostly agree with. I notice two things:

  1. there is no call for this section in the article standards section of the main WikiProject, but
  2. it is noted on the MD Roads tasks section as important, as it mentions lengths of specific counties.

I have been adding the sections purely because they were listed in the MD Roads WikiProject as a task, but personally, I'd like to think that this is an unnecessary inclusion of information; I don't see the necessity of informing the reader of the individual length of... say, US 13 in Somerset County. Since there seems to be conflicting information here, what do you guys think? —Onore Baka Sama(speak | stalk) 15:02, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I did not know or I forgot that the Counties traversed section was necessary per the MDRD Editing Guide until you mentioned it here. I have not been including the section when I update articles. I agree that this section is unnecessary. The names of the counties traversed is or should be provided in the prose and Junction list. The mileage of the highways in each county seems unnecessary. I can see how someone might want to know how long US 13 is in Somerset County, but that person can look at the HLR for that information if they really want it. Viridiscalculus (talk) 17:16, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
The counties should be listed in the infobox, as the infobox is part of the summary of the article in the lead. As for the body of the article, the counties should be included as part of the prose, and they'll be listed in the junction/exit lists. I wouldn't go out of the way to make sure all counties are mentioned and linked in the RD, more that the detail should be naturally included in the writing, flowing with the rest of the text. Imzadi 1979 → 18:46, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Even if people deem lengths through counties to be unnecessary, it would still be nice for each county to be accompanied by a link to the HLR. If that can be done in the junction list then it might be unnecessary to have a separate list just for the counties.-Jeff (talk) 22:01, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
I assume the HLRs for each county are used as a reference for the mileposts in the articles. If that's the case, those references should be at the top of the table to reference the mile column. {{jcttop}} can be used to create the top line of the table, and the |length_ref= parameter will add the reference in the appropriate place. That will provide the external links to the HLRs through the references section. Imzadi 1979 → 22:15, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
IMO, the counties traversed section is unnecessary as it is redundant to mention in the prose and junction list. It is almost like the Cities and towns section that was deprecated. In addition, another thing I notice in some MD articles is the county section of the junction list having the total mileage within the county. Is that really necessary, as no other states do this? Dough4872 00:47, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, it seems enough people find the section pointless. I shall remove the note from the tasks page. —Onore Baka Sama(speak | stalk) 06:40, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Just tossing out an idea, but in the junction list templates, {{jctint}}, etc have the capability to use a |county_note= parameter. California uses this extensively because of their postmile setup. The starting and ending mileposts for each county with the footnote to the specific HLR could be added that way for MD. Imzadi 1979 → 20:14, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Former route list

Now that the minor route list has been taken care of, we need to take care of the former route list. We could continue to keep a list of all former routes, or we can split them elsewhere. In spitting the former routes, routes that are now a part of another route can be covered there, such as Maryland Route 280 being covered in Maryland Route 213. Other former routes that were of great length could be given separate articles, with former routes that were under a mile possibly merged into the List of state highways in Maryland shorter than one mile. I am reopening this discussion so we can bring up the idea after the new list was created for routes under one mile. Please share your thoughts. Dough4872 03:00, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

My preference would to be have all former routes in a RCS-type list. If the list gets really long, it can be split in a way we can figure out later. If a former route is part of a present route, the present route can be linked in the blurb for the former route. If we have enough information about a former highway that it deserves its own article, we can create such an article and link it from the list, similar to how we link highways less than one mile with their own articles from the less than one mile list.
I do not want to place former routes less than a mile in the less than a mile list. The less than a mile list should be reserved for existing routes only. Also, routes where some of the suffixed parts have been decommissioned would be explained in the article of the existing route. For instance, if MD 835D is a former route, it would be explained in the MD 835 article, not in a former routes list. — Viridiscalculus (talk) 16:27, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I do think maintaining the former list in a new RCS format (as opposed to the current format) is a good idea. If there are too many routes that make the list too long, then we can split by number similar to the main list. However, my concern is including former routes that are now parts of other numbered routes. Outside of Maryland, most of these types of former routes redirect to the current route number. For example, Maryland Route 280 currently redirects to the former list as opposed to the Maryland Route 213 article. In my opinion, having MD 280 redirect to the former list would be more confusing then having it redirect to MD 213. However, I would be for keeping the list as long as it is cleaned up and converted to RCS. Dough4872 00:57, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Suppose there is someone who does not know MD 280 is a former highway or that it was fully assumed by MD 213. I believe such a person who does a search for Maryland Route 280 would be more confused by having been redirected to MD 213 than being redirected to the MD 280 entry in the former routes list, where that person would read that MD 280 was a former route that was assumed by MD 213 in the 1970s or whenever. In the latter situation, the person has the option of following the link to MD 213 to learn more about that highway. In the former situation, the person has no choice. — Viridiscalculus (talk) 18:36, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Well, honestly, the correct method would be to redirect former designations to the highways that replaced them. As a redirect, the former designation should be mentioned and in bold in the lead. Then a second browser line should be added to the infobox to reflect the redirect. Full history and information about the former designation should be covered in the article. M-26 (Michigan highway) has redirects from M-206 (Michigan highway) and M-111 (Michigan highway). Both of those designations are in the lead in boldface. They have their own subsections in the history section. Imzadi 1979 → 22:44, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
While I do like the idea of including former routes in the article of the route that now follows the alignment, there are some former routes, such as Maryland Route 82, which are now not a part of a current state highway and would otherwise possibly have a short article. Therefore, in MDs case, a RCS list may work better. Dough4872 22:47, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure if there is a "correct" method or not for handling former routes replaced by other highways, unless there is something in the MOS or similar documents you can point us to. One situation the "correct" method cannot handle is when a particular number has been assigned and decommissioned multiple times, as is the case with MD 71 and MD 37. — Viridiscalculus (talk) 22:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
In the case of former routes that have been assigned multiple times, many articles have hatnotes, such as the current Delaware Route 4 having a hatnote to Delaware Route 299, which is the original DE 4. In addition, some states disambiguate former routes by using the dates the route existed, such as New York State Route 215 (1940s–1970s). I do like how the current list for former routes handles numbers used more than once by listing them as one entry. However, this would be a problem if the article was switched to the RCS format with IRS, as this would require either multiple infoboxes under the same header or separate sections for each instance that the route existed. Dough4872 23:47, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

At this point, it does not appear we have a consensus on how to handle the former routes. Would a straw poll listing the two options perhaps help the situation? Dough4872 19:55, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I know for me, I would rather be working on other things at this point than former routes. There is no deadline. We do not have to figure this out now. So how about we come back to this in a few months? Of course, if you or anyone else come up with ideas or mockups of proposals, feel free to post them here. — Viridiscalculus (talk) 00:15, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Map Database

I found electronic versions of all or almost all official Maryland highway maps between 1910 and 2008 at the Maryland State Archives website. With that information, I created a map database and linked it from the Resources section of the WikiProject front page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Roads in Maryland/Map database — Viridiscalculus (talk) 20:29, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Maryland Tags

The discussion about a proposal for a bot to tag articles in WikiProject U.S. Roads as articles within WikiProject United States made me want to start a discussion about the more local situation in Maryland roads articles. A significant percentage of articles tagged as part of the WikiProject Roads in Maryland via the USRD banner are also tagged with the WikiProject Maryland banner. Examples: Maryland Route 2, Interstate 895 (Maryland), and U.S. Route 219 in Maryland. Some articles only have the USRD tag: Interstate 95 in Maryland. So, my question is:

  • Should we continue to have these WikiProject Maryland banners in Maryland road articles?

I would like to avoid arguments about the work necessary to make the talk pages of articles consistent, either with or without the WP:MD banners, by stating such a clean-up would be a very low priority and it could be done as articles are updated. — Viridiscalculus (talk) 01:44, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I was looking through talk pages of Maryland road articles with WP:MD tags and I noticed a significant percentage of them were added by the same person. I investigated further and found that person added 257 tags on the same day using AWB back in September 2008. There are a lot more of them now, but that is because I added them to new articles I was creating or to articles I was revising because I thought the WP:MD tags needed to be there; I know better now. I have decided to remove the tags based on the fact WikiProject Roads in Maryland is a child project of WikiProject Maryland. I am not planning on doing this as a formal project; rather, I will remove tags as I update articles or when I wish to update a bunch of talk pages at a time. — Viridiscalculus (talk) 16:09, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

New state business route markers

At least two years ago, Maryland started using these new route markers for state business routes. I've recently uploaded SVGs of them, and worked with USRD to get them to switch the relevant templates over to use the new markers. All that's left to do is to make sure that cases where business route markers were added without using a template are fixed. So, if you see any regular MD markers left on an article with a business banner over them, be sure to fix them so that they use the new markers, preferably by using the relevant template with the appropriate type and/or subtype parameter. Also, if you have any requests for more business MD, or other route markers, I'll still accept requests on my talk page. Thanks!-Jeff (talk) 03:52, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

RFC on coordinates in highway articles

There is currently a discussion taking place at WT:HWY regarding the potential use of coordinates in highway articles. Your input is welcomed. --Rschen7754 01:57, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Proposed restructuring of USRD

There is a proposal to demote all state highway WikiProjects to task forces; see WT:USRD. --Rschen7754 05:08, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to demote this project

There has been a proposal at WT:USRD to demote several wikiprojects to task forces. This is one of the projects in the proposal. Vote below whether you think this project should be demoted to a USRD task force (support) or kept as a wikiproject (oppose). Other options are welcome, for example, making this a task force of WPMD.-Jeff (talk) 20:23, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

  • I posted on the talk pages of almost all users in the project participant list to request their comments for this discussion.  VC  16:18, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose.-Jeff (talk) 20:23, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Jeff, can you explain why you take the position you do?  VC  23:33, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
      • I feel that it's more efficient to have a few members working together who share the same local expertise, rather than having a large number of members working in a single project that spans a large geographical area. Keep in mind, this proposal will merge all the talk pages of the affected projects. It's not ideal for someone whose expertise lies in a particular state to have to sift through topics on other states to find one on their own.-Jeff (talk) 01:00, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Support - I think that these days most road editors work under USRD and follow the USRD standards, including MD editors. Speaking for myself, I have edited MD articles to USRD standards as I would for other states such as DE, NJ, and PA. There is nothing that makes MD roads so special as to have its own subproject. US roads are US roads, no matter what state they are in. Dough4872 00:27, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Again, I'm not saying Maryland is special. I strongly encourage any other project affected by this proposal to hold a discussion of its own regarding this on its talk page. The reason I only started a conversation here is because I'm a member of this project and not any of the others being affected by this.-Jeff (talk) 01:00, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Weak Support - WP:USRD has nationwide suggested standards, and I don't think there's anything that makes Maryland (or any other state) deviate from that standard significantly. To speak to Jeff's point I also don't see why the task forces wouldn't be made up of people with "local expertise." I don't have local expertise in, say, Colorado, so unless there's a glaring grammatical error or something I probably won't edit there. I've lived in NH, MA, NY, VA, and MD so I'm more likely to edit road articles there, and more specifically, in the parts of those states where I have lived. I'm not even on all those states' road WikiProjects (even though I've lived in VA, I'm not terribly comfortable with their road system outside of Fairfax County, and things like when state routes get a circle and when they get that turned-on-its-side-D-shape always confuse me even though I've read about it multiple times). Similarly, I think I'm on the RI roads WikiProject because I have some local expertise in that I was a fairly frequent visitor to RI when I lived in MA. I'm not going to join a WP:USRD task force for roads in Texas just like I wouldn't join WP:TXSH because I've never even been to Texas. In sum, I don't really care much about the outcome of this proposal because I can't see how it would change my editing habits. --Tckma (talk) 16:30, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Support — While this project has had a much more active past, today there is very little intrastate collaboration in this project. The activity on this project's talk pages has dwindled to a trace in the past year. I feel like if I post to the talk page, I am unlikely to get more than one or two editors commenting without drawing attention to the discussion elsewhere. In fact, I had stopped regularly checking this project's talk page; I only found out about this particular discussion through the national talk page. On the other hand, almost all of my collaboration work is with individuals from other state projects or task forces. The collaboration occurs at the national level because there is not a critical mass of active editors at the state level to effect change or discuss a proposal. Collaborating at the national level allows for better results because there are usually ideas, resources, or precedents from different states that apply here. There are clearly instances where editors feel more strongly about their state project than their national project, as in New York. I do not think that is the case for the Maryland state project and I certainly do not feel that way. While I clearly identify as representing Maryland, organizationally I am a part of the national project.  VC  17:34, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
  • There have been no further comments in the last seven days, so I am going to close this discussion. There seems to be consensus for demoting the project to a task force of USRD. Later today, the project will be officially transformed into a task force.  VC  16:43, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
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