Talk:Illinois Tollway/GA1

GA Review[edit]

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Reviewer: Arsenikk ^(talk) 13:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting article that is getting close to GA. My main concerns are the lack of references, a number of very short paragraphs and the lack of an operations or organization section. I would also like to see some pictures of some of the roads. Some other comments:

An infobox would be suitable.
Nowhere does it state 'United States'.
'Governor' should only the capitalized when in full (i.e. 'The Governor of Illenois'). When just writing about the governor, use lower caps. Is there no article on this office to link to?
The sentence "In reports on the Authority in the press, such as those by the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune and the Daily Herald, the Authority's full name is used." is fully worthy of inclusion in the article, but perhaps not in the lead.
The lead doesn't really summarize the article. For instance, there is little about the actual highways that is manages, as well as any history.
Could the sentence "The first toll highways in the Chicago area were planned, constructed simultaneously, and finally opened in 1958 under the authority of this Commission." be reworded slightly; it is particularly 'constructed simultaneously' that confuses me as to whether planning, construction and opening happened at the same time, or construction of all the roads happened at the same time.
Dates in the format Month DD, YYYY, need a comma after them. As does City, State.
There are three very short paragraphs in the history section. These should be merged into the other paragraphs.
The sentence "As of 2009[update], ISTHA maintains and operates 286 miles of interstate tollways in 12 counties in Northern Illinois." is a vital summary of the authority, and should be in the lead as well.
Units of measurement need to be in both imperial and metric. Use {{convert}} for easy conversion.
North-South should use an endash (–) instead of a hyphen (-).
Several statements in the history section lack references.
More a question than a comment, but is it such that a toll road continues to collect tolls forever, or just until the road is payed off? From my European point of view that former seems politically unacceptable, but I may be missing something.
- Excellent question. I have vivid recollection of all the promises made in 1958 that the system would be paid off by 1988 and made a freeway. Instead, they issued new bonds to extend the system to Dixon, Illinois. When those bonds were about to be paid off, they issued new bonds for the Congestion Relief program. The Tollway will not pay off the latest bonds until 2035. This really represents a subsidy by commuters of new routes that they will not use. 66.173.140.100 (talk) 18:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The 'toll roads' section is unreferenced.
I-PASS should be I-Pass (no upper cases unless an acronym).
The 'toll collection' section is almost entirely unreferenced. Several of the claims are very blunt, so they need referencing (such as the penny issue).
Use "1980s" and "1990s", not "80's" and "90's".
Are there no images of any of the roads that could be added?
File:ISTHA Seal.JPG needs a fair use rationale.
- The page has the standard infobox fair use rationale. Is more needed? Racepacket (talk) 05:16, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is a mixing of month-first and day-first dates.
"Open Road Tolling program" is either a specific program (and therefore all-caps) or a general program (and therefore non-caps).
"public-private partnership" should be wikilinked.
Perhaps add a wikilink to congestion pricing where the issue is discussed.
Too much of the history section is under 'critisim'. If things just happened (good or bad), they should be in the history section.
There should be a section on organization, which discusses matters in part left out, in part spread out between the sectiona nd in part located in the lead. Include such things as system length, revenue, management, operations etc.
Coordinates shouldn't just be dumped into the prose.
Avoid abbreviations such as 'Gov.'

I am placing the article on hold. Arsenikk ^(talk) 13:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Points addressed and User:Arsenikk notified on Jan. 10, 2010. Racepacket (talk) 05:06, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about the late reply. The article is looking much better now. A few comments:

Remember to use {{convert}} when stating units (such as miles) to also print the metric values.(fixed)
'Eminent domain' and 'conflict of interest' should be wikilinked. (fixed)
In general, {{main}} should only be used for whole sections, not parts of sections. (fixed)
Don't force image size (except maps). (fixed)
However, the lead should still be a bit longer (for instance a bit more on criticism and new projects) (fixed)
There are still a few unreferenced statements, for instance the reason for the use of pennies being the state's nickname. (fixed)
Refs 8 and 9 are not understandable for the lay reader. (fixed)
The dates in many of the references do not follow standard formatting (using '17th' instead of '17' etc.) (fixed)
Use the same formatting for published dates as accessdates (preferably spelled-out). (fixed)
Ref 69 isn't a reference. (fixed)
A lot of the references are missing author or publisher. (fixed)

Article still on hold. Arsenikk ^(talk) 15:21, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Concerning ref 69: I am not concerned because the coordinate is a note. I was just commenting that a coordinate is not a reference, i.e. despite there being a ref note in the prose, the content was not being referenced. No need to touch the coordinate, just add a reference. Arsenikk ^(talk) 21:00, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations with a good article. One detail I'm not going to bother with, but the refs should not have abbreviated months. Nice if you fix it, but I don't think it strictly falls into the GA criteria. Arsenikk ^(talk) 16:23, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]