Talk:Causeway

Sheeps Foot
A machine with a sheeps foot! surely that takes the description a little far? CustardJack 5 July 2005 16:00 (UTC)

Imitation Sheep's Feet????
I think I'd like to see some documentation of this. Does anyone have any idea what this is about, or are we being treated to someone's exercise in whimsy? Septegram 20:20, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * The image at the right is a piece of construction equipment called a compactor riding on a "sheepsfoot roller". Thewellman (talk) 00:39, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Bridge?
My understanding is a causeway is NOT considered a bridge. However the US discussions refer to them as bridges... Nil Einne 04:21, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

"Elevated by a bank"?
I wish to take issue with the definition in the opening sentence, that "a causeway is a road or railway elevated by a bank". Dictionary.com's definition is more broad: a causeway is simply a raised roadway. i.e. it need not be "elevated by a bank", but may also be elevated by something else. [UPDATE: I checked three printed dictionaries (MacQuarie, Collins Consise, Oxford Consise) and they say all the same as Dictionary.com Rocksong 09:38, 7 June 2006 (UTC)]

The reason I mention this is the Victor Harbor Horse Drawn Tram here in Australia, which crosses a "causeway", which is raised not by a bank, but by wooden supports. (You can just see the wooden supports in the photo at the Victor Harbor page). I guess some people would call it a bridge. I'm wondering if Victor Harbor is the only example of this broader use of the word "causeway". (Dictionary.com, cited above, suggests it is not). If so, the definition should be amended, or at least clarified for variations in local use. Rocksong 01:26, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, I've looked further. Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is also not a causeway by the definition in the article: it is supported on concrete pilings, and is in fact also called a pair of bridges. Perhaps the definition (or somewhere in the article) should note that in some parts of the world, bridges in very shallow water (such as the two examples I've given) are sometimes called causeways? Rocksong 13:08, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Venice links are bridges
The article lists the link between Venice and the mainland as a causeway. Both the rail and road links are in fact BRIDGES. Small boats can actually pass underneath both of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thisismadness (talk • contribs) 14:07, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

History
This article lacks a history section, without this it seems very incomplete, as there is no coverage of the continuous development of the causeway as an engineering technology throughout history. As causeways are one of the most basic examples of public works engineering, (comparable to the invention of the bridge, road or dam It would greatly benefit this article if a history section could be added and expanded, as this would provide historical context for the modern examples provided.WaynaQhapaq (talk) 03:50, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Is a causeway really a bridge?
The lead defines a Causeway as follows "In modern usage, a causeway is a road or railway bridge, usually across a broad body of water or wetland". Is it really a bridge, or is it a substantial form of an embankment that carries thoroughfare, often across wetland? If it is a bridge then it should be in Category:Bridges by structural type (not Category:Bridges btw). If isn't a bridge then it probably shouldn't be! PeterEastern (talk) 03:44, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Examples
Many of the examples given in the article are actually bridges (whose names happen to include the word "causeway"), and do not fit the given definition of causeway. --125.25.32.243 (talk) 10:33, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Boardwalk?

 * Is it, sometimes–when constructed of timber, as was the Sweet Track–also a boardwalk? Also the question of bridge may need further thought; but a causeway constructed from earth is clearly an embankment rather than a bridge. Rwood128 (talk) 16:40, 3 November 2018 (UTC)


 * See the causeway across Colwyn Bay Beach, Wales, which is in the "Gallery", . Rwood128 (talk) 19:17, 3 November 2018 (UTC)


 * The article Stepping stones describes them as a simple form of bridge or causeway. Rwood128 (talk) 11:21, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Causeway
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Causeway's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "bm": From Witham Shield: Witham Shield, accessed August 2010 From Boardwalk:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 15:15, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Confusion over definition....
So the article, as currently written, defines a "causeway" as "a track, road or railway on the upper point of an embankment across "a low, or wet place, or piece of water"." (emphasis mine)....And yet many, if not most of the "causeways" in America, including ones listed and photographed in this article, such as the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, have no embankment at all....They're simply long bridges, typically crossing rather shallow bodies of water, and generally fairly low above the surface of the water, such that taller boats and ships often can't pass underneath. But they don't have any embankment made of soil or stones or other filling material underneath them - just the body of water that they're crossing, and the support columns that are holding them up.

I'm not sure what the best solution here is. Perhaps two separate articles - one about "causeways" as defined in this article, with actual embankments underneath them, and another about the long and low "causeway" style bridge? Or perhaps having both discussed in this article, including its definition, and explaining how the same label is used for both (rather different) concepts?

But the way the article's written now isn't very good at all, since it gives one definition in the intro, and then the article goes on to include lists of "causeways" which don't fit that definition at all! -2003:CA:8717:D20A:C14D:C466:26A9:98D4 (talk) 22:30, 8 January 2024 (UTC)