Talk:List of United States Numbered Highways/Archive 1

Untitled
Is it Highway or highway? Wikipedia has List of United States Highways and United States highway. RickK 03:17 4 July 2003 (UTC)


 * United States Highway when part of a name such as United States Highway 91 is a proper noun and thus it should be capitalized. The parent article dealing with the whole system is less clear, however. I would suggest that U.S. be used in the place of United States in order to make linking easier. A simple find and replace on this page will fix the links (just make sure the filled links are moved to the new nomenclature if you decide to do this). BTW, I think it would be neat to have articles on every highway in the U.S. --mav 07:28, 14 January 2004 (UTC)

Ask and ye shall receive! As I noted on the Village Pump page, I've begun creating pages for each US highway, based on the list at this site. Oddly enough, I began this effort on 12 Jan 2004 -- two days before Mav's suggestion! Though actually, he'd probably already seen my note, seeing's how he's an admin and all...

Some notes from the discussion at the village pump:
 * I've put together a template for the pages that includes most of the basic information. Some of the nice info on the Interstate highway pages isn't as available -- who knows the mileage in each state for a US route, when each state can reroute the designation at will?
 * I converted almost all the existing US Highway pages (except for Route 66, which is a detailed article in itself) to the new format. U.S. Highway 75 was the template I used for most of these pages, but as could be expected, the format is constantly evolving.  Please feel free to make any changes you deem appropriate -- I'll be watching and incorporating your suggestions, as I've done with U.S. Highway 90 (correct Wiki heading capitalization style).
 * With no objections, I've established a new naming convention: U.S. Highway 75, as opposed to United States Highway 75. I used "Move" to create redirects for the existing US highway pages, after I updated them with the new format.
 * The owner of the US Highway Ends page has said it's ok to use the information on his site for this project.

Any comments or suggestions, please post here or on my talk page! --Robertb-dc 00:29, 20 January 2004 (UTC)


 * Neat! You might want to form a WikiProject on this - it would help to organize things for you. I am concerned about the "Used with permission" text. To what extent are we permitted to use that text? Is the author aware that we will edit his text mercilessly and that others will redistribute it at will (meaning it will be used by many other websites other than Wikipedia)? Is he aware of and agrees to release his text under the GFDL? See also: Boilerplate request for permission --mav — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mav (talk • contribs) 03:43, 20 January 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the encouragement. I don't know if there's going to be enough general interest for a WikiProject -- there's only a handful of Wikipedia folks that seem interested in highways, and many of *them* are interested in particular highways (see the edits on U.S. Highway 395).  As far as the source... I sent him another note to confirm, and he says it's really no problem.  Most of his site's info is factual information compiled into a handy reference, and I'm not copying him verbatim anyway.  What would be the fun of that?  --Robertb-dc 21:49, 20 January 2004 (UTC)

And another question...
What's wrong with the US 8 shield on this page? No matter how many times I purge the image, the image never appears. -- T M F T - C 05:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC) It turns out that the problem was related to one encountered by many images last night. It now appears fine. -- T M F T - C 17:26, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

A Question...
Where would a route such as U.S. Route 20A fit on this list? -- T M F T - C 05:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * List of bannered U.S. Routes. --SPUI (T - C) 19:56, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Numerical Sequence
Looking for a specific highway number is really a "scroll-and-seach" job. It would be helpful if these were ordered in sequence. Yes, it's a considerable project, but I might take it on someday. Cosmo1976 (talk) 17:08, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

How to classify violators?
In the small "Main US Routes" box at the bottom of the page, US 163 is listed along with other three-digit violators (US 400, 412, 425). Personally, I think this is how it should be. However, in the giant table that forms the main content of the page, US 163 is listed as if it's a branch route off US 63 (which of course it is not). Should US 163 be sorted between US 101 and US 400? Or would that be confusing because the other US 163 (the original, now decommissioned) should rightfully be sorted under US 63? Niobrara (talk) 21:22, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Historic maximum length
While the recent addition was sourced, it was cited to a self-published source, which isn't exactly kosher, so I reverted the addition. Policy dictates that we use reliable sources, and in the Wikipedia sense, that means they need to come from publishers with a reputation for fact checking an accuracy. As esteemed as they may be in the roadgeek community, the various people behind certain websites lack that reputation to the general community.

We look for evidence of "editorial oversight" in the publication of material before it is used as a source here. Did someone else review the material before it was published? In the case of self-published sources, the answer is no; the author is the publisher. There is an exception to this policy; if the author is an "expert in his field", and acknowledged by others as such, then we can use self-published works. We can also use certain blogs, even though they are titled as such, because they are hosted and overseen by a reputable publisher like a newspaper. Droz's website doesn't fall under either exception. Going forward, we should be reducing our reliance on his site as a source for material on Wikipedia, not increasing it, unless or until we can make the appropriate allowances under policy to use it.

Additionally, according to what was posted, US 2 currently has its "historic maximum length", yet I know that to be false. US 2 in Michigan was truncated to St. Ignace in 1983; previously it had its followed its own routing or the I-75 freeway to Sault Ste. Marie. There are other issues with the term "historic maximum length", so it is best to leave that out of the table.  Imzadi 1979  →   16:47, 13 August 2013 (UTC)


 * The table as it stands is useful only for current routes. It doesn't allow for comparison of historic routes, because there is no data.  The changes I made were a positive step towards fixing that problem.  Historical length data is difficult to come by.  Droz may not be a perfect source, but it was a good start.  I would think if you're aware of inaccuracies, you could simply fix them, rather than reverting the entire table.  And if you're aware of a better source than Droz, perhaps you could specify.  Until then, those values would've been fairly accurate; most subsequent refinements wouldn't have been very drastic. Niobrara (talk) 17:59, 13 August 2013 (UTC)


 * We have two issues here at work.
 * For the missing numbers, they should be individually researched and added for the various former highways at last extent. Then the footnote at the top of the table needs to be altered to state "except where noted otherwise". That resolves that issue of missing data. For example, we know the last routing of US 66 in 1985, so it should be easy to look up that length and insert it into the table with a footnote.
 * Droz should not be used, period. I pointed out one error on a quick glance, but I did not revert the addition because US 2 was wrong. I reverted the addition because it is wrong to rely on a self-published source for a major addition to an article in this way. Even if we used his webpage as a starting point (which we shouldn't), we'd have to eventually fact-check every one of his figures and supply corrections and alternate citations for them. Once we did that, we'd lose the connection to the original published conclusion of "historic maximum length", which is based on an opinion. We'd need to supply a source that listed the length of each highway annually (either all of them, or multiple sources individually) or some other source to establish when a highway was at its longest to then measure what that length was. That's getting into too many cross-references and starting into synthesis issues in total.
 * In short, if the issue is missing lengths in the table, they should be researched and supplied. I have great misgivings on the concept of "historic maximum length" as a metric worthy of inclusion in the table, absent a reliable source (in the Wikipedia sense) giving us that information. I'll also note that we have a new project standard for lists of highways at WP:USRD/STDS/L, which doesn't include the proposed metric. This table will eventually be updated in format to match that standard.  Imzadi 1979  →   19:26, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Yellowstone US Routes
For the four US Routes (20, 89, 191, 287) that are broken into two segments due to Yellowstone National Park, there is inconsistent labeling as to how Yellowstone is dealt with. For US 20 and US 287, it lists two southern/western termini (the entire route's S/W terminus plus where it exits Yellowstone) and two northern/eastern termini (where it enters Yellowstone and the entire route's N/E terminus). However, US 89 and US 191 each only list one southern terminus and one northern terminus each with the label, "Segments connected by road through Yellowstone National Park" instead. Any reason for this? 152.41.62.159 (talk) 19:05, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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US 440
Was this planned for US 40N in Kansas? US 340 was created in Maryland by then.Alexlatham96 (talk) 01:27, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

US 85B
In keeping with other situations, U.S. Route 85B (Williams County, North Dakota) in North Dakota should not be considered a mainline highway. It's a suffixed route of U.S. Route 85, so it should appear in the List of special routes of the United States Numbered Highway System, not here. (The article even says that it is a "temporary auxiliary route".)  Imzadi 1979  →   15:36, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

US 163
The stated length for U.S. Route 163 in the table does not match the length on the route's page. The current AASHTO definition has the northern terminus at US 191, which would make it 64.62 miles long. Given that AASHTO approved the truncation in 2008 (source: http://sp.route.transportation.org/Documents/USRNMinutesOctober17,2008.doc, UDOT application: http://sp.route.transportation.org/Documents/USRoutesApplication.pdf ), shouldn't the table be updated to reflect the current length? Coasterlover1994 03:36, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Split the List into a new Article
Considering that Primary and Auxiliary Interstate Lists are in Different Articles, why not Primary US Routes and US Auxiliary Routes be in two Articles. Qutlook (talk) 16:38, 7 December 2021 (UTC)


 * No. This is faulty logic. –Fredddie™ 16:58, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
 * according to AASHTO definition, "auxiliary US Highways" are the special routes. US Highways with three-digit numbers are equally primary with those that have two digits. The two systems do not follow the same numbering and nomenclature.  Imzadi 1979  →   22:13, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Numerical... grammar?
Is there any particular reason that the "miles" column includes commas for digits greater than one thousand, but the "kilometers" column does not? More specifically, is there a reason we can't use a consistent number formatting across the entire article, either one way or the other? Sesame honey  tart  20:04, 1 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Looks like it's the other way around for me... the miles column lacks a comma and the kilometer column has it. The inputs into the templates were all entered without commas, and the template adds one when it formats the output of the miles-to-kilometers conversions. It looks like if someone goes through and inserts the comma in the templates' miles inputs, it will appear in the miles column. (I will also note that according to the MOS, the comma in a number is technically optional for four digits and only required for five or more.) I've gone through an added the missing commas, but if I missed one, just add it to make it appear.  Imzadi 1979  →   02:09, 2 June 2022 (UTC)