User:DyluckTRocket/SouthFloridaSR

G'day, here.

This page is meant to aid in the review of the various Florida State Roads throughout the South Florida metropolitan area as to whether or not the State Roads in question are too minor/non-notable as to warrant their own article, and thus combine them into a "listicle" similar to what was achieved previously in WikiProject:U.S. Roads, the situation of which is referred to after its original incarnation, the Rockland County Scenario, or RCS. RCS has been applied effectively to a number of situations as found on the linked page, notably the original, the list of Maryland state highways shorter than a mile, or the Farm to Market Roads in Texas. It is hoped that RCS can be applied more liberally to the minor Florida State Roads, particularly those in Miami-Dade County.

The purpose of applying RCS to Miami and creating the listicle is due to a number of reasons:
 * 1) To find a middle-ground between WP:UCN and WP:USSH, especially as they don't always align to the articles in Miami as they currently stand, and the application of both has not been universal;
 * WP:USRD seeks to improve the coverage of National and State highways of the United States, even going so far as to make a metric of the system, WikiWork. Inevitably, it is hoped to reduce the WikiWork for the articles covering the Miami area simply by the sheer reduction of the number of articles in WP:USRD's project space, either through divesting some articles to the U.S. Streets WikiProject and Miami WikiProject where they can be more aptly owned by those project spaces, or by combining the articles together into one list of mini-articles;
 * 1) In line with the above, to improve the verifiability of the information presented about the State Roads, some non-verified information of which is over ten years old;
 * 2) To provide a more acceptable format for the less (but still) notable State Roads in Miami-Dade County.

The idea behind applying the RCS to Miami can be attributed to, one of WP:USRD's senior and quite accomplished editors; however, I have been behind this particular page's creation and hope to spearhead the eventual creation of the listicle.

About Miami-Dade County's roads
The entirety of Miami-Dade County is laid out on a grid pattern, with the Latitudinal Baseline being Flagler Street and the Longitudinal Baseline being Miami Avenue, the cross-point of which is downtown. The result of this is that most roads follow a numerical format, with streets generally running east-west and avenues generally running north-south, prefixed by their position relative to their corresponding street and avenue, thus "Northeast 1st Street", "Southwest 86th Street", "Northwest 43rd Avenue", "Southeast 2nd Avenue" and so forth. To further add to the complexity, some municipalities use their own numbering system: thus, Hialeah's 49th Street is also Northwest 103rd Street. Named roads, therefore, stand out amid the milieu of numbered thoroughfares; but these are often augmented by the addition of the corresponding grid-line street or avenue, e.g. Milam Dairy Road is also West 72nd Avenue, and West 16th Avenue in Hialeah. Hypothetically, the paucity of named roads would lead to their increased local common usage and local notability, as contrasted with and compared to other major American cities. Additionally, because of the regimental application of the numbered streets, often there will be multiple, disconnected segments of the same street in various parts of the county - Galloway Road, or West 87th Avenue, has seven segments, for example. Therefore, not all parts have the same level of importance, with some parts acting as major cross-town routes, while others are mere backstreets.

As a result of, and in addition to, all of the above, the designation of State Roads does not always follow a common logic of being entirely homogeneous with a particular road; that is, the named pavement and associated State Road are the same thing and terminate simultaneously at a T-junction with another State Road at both ends. Many designations are only applied to various parts of a longer road, the other ends of which are maintained by the county or a municipality. An extreme example is Sunset Drive, with the western end of SR 986 lying just to the west of an underpass under the Turnpike Extension (but no interchange connects to the HEFT), and its eastern end at the boundary of the City of South Miami. The road, otherwise, continues on for many miles in either direction. There is evidence (though not always verified) of truncation of routes, where the remaining portions have been given over to county or municipal control. Miami-Dade County, though, does not typically sign its County Roads, so there is much missing information as to route designations.

Outside of Miami-Dade, other counties in Florida follow a typical format common across the United States, where there is an assortment of County and State Roads, the named roads of which have clear termini or the State Roads follow multiple roads.

Why bother with the State Roads at all?
See 's essay here.

TL;DR version: The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), an arm of the State Government of Florida, as a representative of The People, decided that it was important to devote limited funds derived from State taxes and grants to the maintenance of these select roads, as opposed to other roads in the State. This is a notable course of action.

The other extreme
Wouldn't it be better to keep these separate for the sake of local history?

Perhaps, but as noted in the reasons above, there has been disagreements as to the titling and notability of the minor State Roads in the Miami area. Additionally, information on many of these State Roads' histories has not surfaced after ten years; much of the current information is unverified and was often written as part of the article's creation without citations. Where there has been history, it has tended to be for the named road, rather than the State Road designation or truncation, and tends to be in those articles named for the roads themselves. Thus, we have verifiable information for the route's description from maps and FDOT, and not much else. Thus, the RCS intends to strike a compromise and balance between many articles of little detail and one article of too much detail by having many articles of moderate detail, with one listicle containing the remainder, all consistently titled and correctly pigeon-holed.

Why not rename all articles into their local road names?
TL;DR: Calamitous headache, skyscraper-sized can of worms.

Long version: There are multiple reasons for not doing this:
 * It suggests, at worst, renaming every single article in WP:USRD's space to their named road counterparts. That would break apart many articles into smaller, non-notable ones. In many cases, a city road is given notability by the fact that it is maintained by the State (see above). At best, it would suggest a review of all articles WP:USRD manages. That would take the next decade to do. WP:USSH exists for other reasons beyond this, too; it's a compromise itself, for one.
 * Outside of the Miami area, in the US, it's normal for a road to be known primarily by its route number rather than its local name.
 * If an article is to be named after a numerical road (i.e. Nth Street/Nth Avenue), its title would be Nth Street (Miami) or Nth Avenue (Miami) as many, many American cities have similarly named roads. It is annoying to both the casual reader and the serious editor to have to deal with the disambiguator.

Why not rename all articles into their State Road number?
Previously, this was the case. However, the editors of WP:MIAMI showed their preference to use the common name of at least eight streets. The State Road is a secondary function of these particular streets and, in all current cases, the designated State Road's length is inferior to the length of the street. I understand where they're coming from: where I'm from the named road, not the route number, is the common name. In Brisbane, for example, a resident would direct a traveler to follow Sandgate Road, not State Route 26. A resident doesn't know where State Route 32 is; but they'll be more likely to know how to get to Milton Road. Just recently, at a busy intersection, a lady who was following walking directions on Google Maps asked me which of the two roads was a particular route number (she asked the right person, thankfully) so she could keep following her directions as there were no clear signs about for the route numbers. These two articles, and others like it, though describing the road name over the route number, happen to describe a particular part of the city of Brisbane and help an outsider who doesn't know the city understand it a bit more. Similarly, articles like Kendall Drive and Coral Way help describe particular portions of Miami and seem to be more readily identifiable with Miami and by Miami residents than Florida State Road 94 and Florida State Road 972 respectively.

Criteria
To determine whether or not an article should be left as is or be transcluded to/added to/merged into the listicle, I have made a set of criteria for the State Road in question the article covers to meet sufficiently:

Homogeneity
The main criterion, especially as this is what spurred the article move requests in 2013 and an unsuccessful attempt to create an accommodating standard at WP:USSH. Basically, if the State Road sufficiently covers the length of the named road(s) from one end to the other, the article should not be changed (other than the usual editing, of course). The calculated percentage of the road's entire length, from one named end to the other, under state control is usually quite high, typically higher than 80%, if not at 100%. This is not an invitation for the article to be renamed after the street, as there is often other criteria involved that justify the article being named after the State Road (apart from those listed below, these include WP:N and WP:USSH).

Freeway
A trumping criterion: if the article in question is about a State Road that contains a freeway, it remains as is with no changes outside of the usual editing that should occur. The article being named after the number is common practice on Wikipedia for most freeways, as they are usually homogeneous or part of a longer route.

Multiple Roads
Basically, the State Route the article covers is applied to a sufficient length of more than just one road, either with the two roads end-to-end or, more importantly, requiring a motorist to make a turn to continue on that State Road. In the latter case, this is often a trumping criterion unless the percentage of state control is low. Where the State Road is split onto a one-way pair, it is noted in the Apparent Purpose column; however, it is usually not sufficient to classify the article to be left as is. This criterion is on a case-by-case basis. Having multiple roads can help the intent to have the article remain as is, especially if multiple roads aids in the identification of an arterial route that breaking the article into non-notable articles named after the streets would create. To have an article named after a N-th St/N-th Ave would require the use of a (Miami) disambiguator in the title, and thus should be avoided.

Highway
Apart from being part of the United States Numbered Highways system, a Highway is regarded as a primarily rural State Road that connects two or more urban or tourist locations. Florida State Road 997 is such an example. This is also a trumping criterion, and often the State Road also meets the Multiple Roads or Homogeneity criteria.

Trans-county
If the State Road designation begins in one county and remains the same as it crosses and continues into another county (thus excluding Florida State Road 852), then the article in question should not be changed. Most of these roads in question cross between Miami-Dade and Broward Counties.

Length
While road lengths are not listed, if a State Road is understandably quite short, then it is precluded towards addition to the listicle. Generally, this involves transclusion of relevant information rather than merging.

Key
The name in bold is the related (main) article's title. Other wikilinked names will either be redirects, or an article about a short, notable section of the longer route.

Links are given to the State Road's technical diagrams (SLD's), drawn by FDOT for verification of the routes in question. The information presented by the technical diagrams can be cross-checked in the mapping site of your choice, e.g. Google Maps. The "Active off-system" length shown by some SLD's are also given in the table, which typically refers to the length of that State Road that was (usually) previously under state control; "Off-System" thus indicates a truncation and an intrinsic diminishing of the route's importance. If the length is "Inactive", though, this indicates a length of road that has been removed from use and does not necessarily diminish the route's importance. See the SLD Handbook for more information.

The "apparent purpose of designation" column is my attempt to rationalise why FDOT has decided that this road is part of the State Highway System, i.e. its importance; it is by no means based on any legislative or bureaucratic decisions, but only on my own experience in town planning, and should be treated as a guide as to my determination for the article's status. YMMV, please discuss any disagreements you may have. If the State Road acts as a terminus for another State Road, it is also mentioned here, as this gives clout to the State Road's importance. Additionally, the condition of the road, in terms of how "major" it is, is also listed here; the more major it is, the more likely it should remain as its own article.

The article's titling history is also given, as especially in the case of the "Named Road" articles, it provides historical context for the current precedent.