Talk:Alberta Highway 2

Queen Elizabeth II Highway
This page should also include, in the future, the highway shield for the new route. Phoenix2 23:54, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Speeding
I have been mulling over the following statement made in the beginning of the article: "The RCMP usually ignores moderate speeding, instead focusing on excessive speeders as long as the flow of traffic is steady, and the weather conditions are safe." I think it is irresponsible. The fact that traffic exceeds the posted speed limit does not sanction it. The problem on this highway is that some vehicles are travelling at 105-110 (probably because of speedo errors) while others are going over the 130 mark. It is this difference in speed that kills. Recently there have been several accidents involving semis -- some of them were well above the 110. Their ability to maneuver or stop is diminished at higher speeds. I travel this road every day and there are many cars doing 110, but a good portion of the vehicles are exceeding the limit. I have noticed more police pulling over cars that passed me and I would estimate they were doing about 125. Every vehicle (including semis) that exceeds 115 should receive a speeding ticket. (115 allows for speedo errors and variations of throttle modulations) Cadillac 15:54, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

June Ice Storm
I'm not sure why it was claimed that there was an ice storm along this route in mid-June 2004. I checked Weather Underground (www.wunderground.com) for Calgary, Red Deer, and Edmonton for June 2004. Neither Calgary nor Red Deer dropped below 35F for the month. Edmonton dropped to 33F on the 8th, 32F on the 17th, and 33F on the 26th, but there was no mention of ice and skies were partly cloudy on these days. Does anyone have a source about this June 2004 ice storm?Ufwuct 05:11, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

You can have hail falling when it is 90F, so I'm not sure your arguement holds ground. I have pictures of the hail from the very storm you speak of. MazriM_TaiM 11 Dec, 2006

Deerfoot Trail Picture
That picture used for Deerfoot Trail in the article is actually Glenmore Trail Eastbound, which is obviously not correct. MazriM_TaiM 11 Dec 2006
 * Replaced picture. --Qyd 23:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Traffic Levels
A couple years, old but has every Alberta highway and traffic levels (AADTs) at a given point. Implement it in the article however you please...looks like the busiest point on any road in Alberta is roughly, Deerfoot just south of Memorial. PhoenixTwo 05:07, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:AB-provincial highway.svg
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Image copyright problem with Image:Thompson-hwy.png
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Shields in info box
Image:Alberta Highway 55 (Northern Woods).svg If we have the QE2 shield in the info box, we should also have the Northern Woods and Water Route shield as well, as part of Highway 2 forms part of that route. I see that the 2nd shield is added through Template:Infobox road/AB Hwy shield, but I don't have the skills to change this template to add a 3rd shield. If I get some time I'll set up a sandbox to work on it, but if someone reading this knows how to do it, please go ahead. Indefatigable (talk) 23:37, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Good catch!(Hwy43 07:03, 11 November 2009 (UTC)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daryou1978 (talk • contribs)
 * I figured it out: this article now has three shields, and the infobox in other Alberta highway articles is still displaying correctly. Indefatigable (talk) 22:10, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Rosebud river
The Rosebud river should be added as a major waterway crossing. Beejsterb (talk) 00:52, 27 August 2016 (UTC)


 * "Major" is subjective. How is Rosebud River a major river? When I think of major rivers in Alberta, there are much wider and longer rivers than this that I don't consider major.. Hwy43 (talk) 03:09, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Alternate names
I recognize that Alternate Names are for the entire route; however, I feel that an exception should be made for AB 2 to include the Queen Elizabeth II Highway and the Northern Woods and Water Route - their respective shields are already shown. There are also numerous examples of the Alternate Name listing names for a portion of the route: • Alberta Highway 40 - shows Kananaskis Trail and Forestry Trunk Road • Alberta Highway 49 - shows Spirit River Highway and Northern Woods & Water Route • British Columbia Highway 5 - shows Coquhihalla Highway • British Columbia Highway 97 - shows the different named segments, including the Alaska Highway • British Columbia Highway 97C - shows the Okanagan Connector and Coquihalla Connector • Ontario Highway 417 - shows Queensway within Ottawa There are others as well. Any thoughts? -- MuzikMachine (talk) 19:34, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * My thoughts are that I don't like it, which is why I put it back, and that any of those showing partially named segments would be contrary to the documentation. But it can stay if you like it. Especially the NWWR; it's such an insignificant, negligible, and lightly travelled section it just doesn't deserve to be in the infobox... because realistically if you put that in there, then you should put Deerfoot which is far and away the best known segment, and then you'd have to thrown in Whitemud, Henday, Gateway/Calgary Trail, St. Albert Trail and it gets out of hand. To put nothing is therefore a good solution.

What is your take on this? -- Ace fitt 22:47, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree that the NWWR is an insignificant route, my thought was that the route shield was already listed; however I wouldn't miss that one being eliminated. I do think that Queen Elizabeth II Highway should be included as the link redirects to Hwy 2.  It could even show as "Queen Elizabeth II Highway  (portion)  " or "Queen Elizabeth II Highway  (between Calgary & Edmonton)  " -- MuzikMachine (talk) 23:09, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Definite no on the sub-text, if it were to be included it all, it'd be best how it is now. I feel like I made it clear early in the 2nd paragraph of the lead which section is designated as QE2 so that would be enough clarification and it could even be bolded; such is the insignificance of the NWWR to me that I didn't even include that in the lead (though I probably should given the shield in the infobox). The infobox is an overall summary and IMO doesn't need to include such detail. At the end of the day, it's not a Sherwood Park Freeway situation and the primary name is still Highway 2.
 * The Highway 40 example is not a good one, as that road is split into 3 distinct sections. As for Highway 49, I'd say that it's relative; the fact Hwy 49 is part of NWRR is far more significant to that highway's overall importance than it would to be a key route linking the 2 massive centres of the province. I dunno, I still vote no but we'll see what the other guys say. -- Ace fitt 00:28, 15 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Template:Infobox road is unambiguous. For the alternate_name parameter, it states "Use in situations where the entire route has another name." Neither Queen Elizabeth II Highway nor Northern Woods and Water Route apply to the entire length of Highway 2. These alternate names should be excluded from the infobox in favour of mentioning them in appropriate locations within the prose. Hwy43 (talk) 01:12, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Also, I have seen second and third small infoboxes in other articles before. These second and third infoboxes could have the highway markers and alternate names added for the QE2 and NWWR segments. Hwy43 (talk) 01:43, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of using the smaller infoboxes for the QE2 and NWRR shields, I'm going to test that out right now. -- Ace fitt 02:03, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅ 02:31, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks good but the template has no parameters for the start/end points which could be beneficial. Also can't decide if the QE2/NWRR shields should also be in the top infobox now. -- Ace fitt 02:35, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Now that you've implemented that, would you consider revisiting the northern Alberta section so that the NWWR infobox lands in one subsection? The subsections I'm thinking are Edmonton Capital Region (ideally Morinville) to Athabasca, Athabasca to Donnelly (aka the NWWR portion) and Donnelly to Grande Prairie? As for the missing parameters, how do they do it at Alberta Highway 2A for the different segments? Hwy43 (talk) 02:44, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The Northern Alberta section will pretty much double in size and will therefore be split further, I'm working on it offline so I'll see how it lines up when it's done but I'm not sure there's enough for Morinville to Athabasca to be its own section. --  Ace fitt 06:04, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Not sure how it would double in size. For northern Alberta, we'd be going from two subsections (Westlock County to Athabasca and Peace Country) to three subsections. We are essentially splitting existing content from the second subsection into two subsections. As for Morinville to Athabasca, it is a longer route than Westlock County to Athabasca, so that subsection would grow slightly. Thinking about this further, I think the route description organization into the following sections and subsections would be ideal:
 * Southern Alberta (Montana to Calgary)
 * City of Calgary
 * Central Alberta (Calgary to Edmonton)
 * City of Edmonton
 * Northern Alberta (Edmonton to Grande Prairie)
 * Edmonton to Athabasca
 * Athabasca to Donnelly
 * Donnelly to Grande Prairie
 * Trimming the metro regions down to just the core cities avoid the awkwardness of the differing opinions of where these regions begin and end, and also further lengthens the segment ending at Athabasca. Hwy43 (talk) 07:41, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Another way to skin it would be:
 * Southern Alberta
 * Montana to Calgary
 * City of Calgary
 * Central Alberta
 * Calgary to Edmonton
 * City of Edmonton
 * Northern Alberta
 * Edmonton to Athabasca
 * Athabasca to Donnelly
 * Donnelly to Grande Prairie
 * Hwy43 (talk) 07:44, 15 November 2016 (UTC)


 * That last split seems fine, but I'll end up overhauling the entire thing as I've done with the others so I'm still not sure how big each section will be. The only reason the sections are titled as they are now is an attempt at something more creative/prose-like than "x to x" and "x to x". Future sec is mostly done, History section is daunting and will take weeks. -- Ace fitt 11:54, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

My initial thought is that Queen Elizabeth II Highway should be in the infobox. It is a major part of highway 2, and when people say Queen Elizabeth II Highway, they mean highway 2. But then I think about Queen Elizabeth II Highway, it is the highway that connects Calgary and Edmonton, 2 is just a provincial designation to a bunch of different roads in Alberta. Perhaps Queen Elizabeth II Highway should have its own article explaining its importance connecting Calgary and Edmonton, and the economy of the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor? Is it that different than Poundmaker Trail or Red Coat Trail? It's just only on one road. 117Avenue (talk) 19:49, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd prefer to redirect Queen Elizabeth II Highway to the QE2 section here and put QE2 in the infobox than to write another article. There'd be more than enough content for it, but this article will probably top out at ~25-30 kB of prose once I'm done, not overly long. -- Ace fitt 20:17, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

The main infobox is obese
My main issue is with the unnecessary detail in the Location section, which lists towns and villages. WP:USRD does not do this, and within Canada, Ontario does not do this. At the very least villages are not notable enough to be listed in what is supposed to be an overarching summary of the article. I'd move to eliminate the entire Location section on articles like Stoney/Deerfoot/SPF as USRD has done in some circumstances, but the best compromise between size and effectiveness of a summary for Highway 2 would be to eliminate the villages and counties sections and list only major cities and perhaps towns. My position is generally supported by WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE:

''When considering any aspect of infobox design, keep in mind the purpose of an infobox: to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the article (an article should remain complete with its summary infobox ignored). The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance. Of necessity, some infoboxes contain more than just a few fields; however, wherever possible, present information in short form, and exclude any unnecessary content. Do not include links to sections within the article; the table of contents provides that function.''

The fact that Berwyn, Alberta is on Highway 2 is not a key fact; it wasn't even significant enough to be in my first draft of an already overly detailed Route description section. I feel like I successfully summarized the key facts of the article in the first 2 sentences of the lead. The Alberta infobox is therefore directly contrary to WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE and the rest of the North American implementation, but is only really creating an issue on this highway because it's 1000+ km long. Maybe another point against counties being listed would be that the demarcation of counties/municipal districts is less significant in Alberta than it is in the US. We don't have county this, county that, County Police, etc. Secondary benefits of a smaller box would be aesthetics and ease of navigation as the massive wall of text in the current Location section is pretty bad, and also it would present me more layout options if the top third of the article was not taken up by an infobox.

Potentially more effective implementations: California State Route 1 lists nothing. Ontario Highway 401 lists only major cities. Again, I'm not necessarily looking to overhaul all the infoboxes (though I'm all for tightening up the boxes on the major routes), just looking for a possible exemption from the norm for this particular article, itself an oddity because of the length. -- Ace fitt 22:37, 16 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I'll look at your comments in detail later, but will advise that the infobox as currently presented aligns with the consensus approach to Alberta highways on Wikipedia. That said, it is bloated. An initial thought is a brief overarching infobox for the entire route in the lead with only the cities listed, followed by subinfoboxes throughout the balance of the article (like done for QE2 and NWWR) for the different regional segments where the detailed lists of four applicable municipalities are presented within. Hwy43 (talk) 23:18, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I like that idea, though it'd only solve the issue of there being one gigantic infobox. My end goal would be to shift lengthy lists out of infoboxes in this article. Again, I don't deny that the current implementation is the consensus for Alberta, and on every other article it doesn't create an issue. My proposal is some exception to the rule only for this article. -- Ace fitt 00:30, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

The collapsible lists are brilliant, and I'm kicking myself for not thinking of that. Maybe we can optimize it so it looks a little bit more natural and there's not that gap in the middle, but that might (uh oh) involve modifying the parent template. Collapsible is definitely the best solution. -- Ace fitt 03:10, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I was inspired by the use of collapsible lists for elected officials within settlement infoboxes (e.g., MPs and MLAs at Edmonton). I've seen it done at the municipal council level before as well. I think 117Avenue implemented it as a solution on Alberta community articles. It could use some massaging as you suggested, and we can experiment with that (couldn't find a way to avoid the automatic bolding of the list title and had to use a non-breaking space to avoid the default bold title). We've found a way to maintain the consensus approach to Alberta highway infoboxes while being respectful to infobox length concerns. Win-win. Hwy43 (talk) 03:19, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Solution found for list titles. Now if I can only figure out how to left justify the list titles. Probably easy for someone with more experience editing templates. Hwy43 (talk) 03:51, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * In addition, I would further prefer that the show/hide link appear left-justified first, followed by the left-justified title. e.g., "Cities: [show] List of cities..." Hwy43 (talk) 04:30, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Just to give some context as to why WP:USRD does not do "major cities", we got rid of them because there was no objective way to prove that a city was indeed a "major" city. We still list counties where appropriate because those are easily verifiable by a map that shows county lines. As far as the collapsible lists go, I have no opinion on whether they stay or go, but I can help shoehorn the infobox to make it work for you. is based on the meta, so if there's another infobox that uses collapsible entries more naturally than what's in use now (I agree that it's currently a bit wonky with the extra spacing), I'm certainly willing to help add that functionality to the template. –Fredddie™ 03:45, 17 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi, thanks for the comments and offering to assist. I (we) may just take you up on that when the dust settles. I'm aware of the USRD background. Unfortunately the solution to address USRD's subjectivity concern didn't address a different subjectivity problem. The " Major cities" label induces subjectivity as "major" could mean something different to each editor. I previously proposed an objective solution for Alberta highway articles – to only populate the cities parameter with incorporated cities; a black and white (objective) solution. To implement, it was requested that the cities parameter for Alberta highway articles produce a "Cities" label rather than the default "Major cities" label. The consensus among the Alberta highway editors was in alignment with the objective solution and associated request but the edit request at the highways infobox template was declined. Hwy43 (talk) 04:20, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * One unfortunate thing I noticed is that the collapsed infobox lists do not appear at all on mobile (Android or iPhone) and therefore that information cannot be seen unless either the wikimarkup is read, or a desktop version of the page is requested by the mobile browser. I suspect this is outside of our control. -- Ace fitt 00:46, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Slang phrases added then deleted? Good faith?
I added the following details to the 'Enforcement and collisions' section of the article - 'Locals who frequently drive on the Queen Elizabeth II Highway have developed slang phrases for the roadway. Given that it is part of the CANAMEX trade route that ships goods and services, a phrase that developed over the years is "The highway that makes lives and takes lives." Another phrase that developed is "The highway that eats cars."'

Sure this is not sourced. But given the nature of the highway, these phrases have indeed become a little more common in and around the area by drivers who use the highway. These phrases are used to describe the roadway which may be important to the article. There is no way to properly cite this as they are phrases that grew by word of mouth.

Can this be added as a good faith addition? I'm not sure how this works on Wikipedia. Wikifanman14 (talk) 05:57, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * If colloquial phrases become popular enough, they make it into something that can be sourced, like the "Highway of Death" for 63. It's as simple as that. If it can't be attributed, it is original research. -- Acefitt 15:13, 21 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I have never heard either of these phrases attributed to this highway. Without sources, it should not be there. Resolute 16:17, 21 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Also never heard of these. They should only be added if they can be sourced, and we are talking about reliable sources. Blogs, forums, social networks, etc. don't suffice. Hwy43 (talk) 18:33, 21 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Ok, I understand. Thank you. I have heard these phrases by mouth before but have only seen them written once. That was on an Edmonton based forum. Wikifanman14 (talk) 00:01, 22 December 2016 (UTC)


 * If you do happen to see it mentioned on a Global, CTV, CBC, article or something such, just add the link to that here and I'll add the text back into the article with the reference. -- Acefitt 01:00, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Coordinates
Hello,

I was looking over the Major intersections list and I'm wondering if the intersection coordinates are still needed? The KML line file better shows Highway 2, it clutters the notes section, and it's not commonly used for other (non-Alberta) intersection lists. I'm thinking that if a page already has the KML line file, the points can be removed (same with other pages like Alberta Highway 16) Thoughts? MuzikMachine (talk) 17:15, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with them being removed. -- Acefitt 08:05, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Hwy 2 / Gaetz Ave Interchange is open.
Hey all,

Just an update... The new interchange at south Red Deer (Gasoline Alley)is now 100% open to traffic. This wiki page for Hwy 2 can be updated. Wikifanman14 (talk) 11:24, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the update. -- Acefitt 13:28, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

"AB 2" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect AB 2. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 25 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 19:53, 25 February 2021 (UTC)