User:Scott5114/Highway notability FAQ

Many times at AFD, users will vote on a highway article with the argument that highways aren't notable enough for an article. Here's an FAQ answering common objections voiced by anti-road editors (or sometimes not voiced, but you can tell that's what they're thinking ;) ), answering why highway articles are useful. There are also some points that answer why such and such road may not be notable, even though many other roads are. This was originally posted as a bulleted list at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Highways/Archive 1 - you may find that form more readable.

This FAQ covers the United States primarily, but with a bit of creativity can be applied to roads in other countries. You can read the U.S. Road project standards for notability at WikiProject U.S. Roads/Notability.

FAQ

 * What makes a state highway important enough to be covered in Wikipedia?
 * Someone at a Department of Transportation felt the need for a highway was important enough to have it be built and numbered. There are thousands—maybe millions—of roads and streets in any particular state; to be assigned a number, state maintenance, and have shields put up is pretty special. States often have a limited amount of money for maintenance of roads and thus can only afford to take on routes of statewide or regional significance. Some states even have a legislatively defined mileage cap which prevents the road system from containing too many highway miles. In states like these, mileage must be conserved and the DOT must be selective about what can be a state highway. Thus, the DOT does the selection for us of what is or isn't notable.


 * A good illustration of this point is the situation in the state of Kansas. The Kansas state highway system is governed by K.S.A. 68-406. This statute requires that the total length of all roads in the state highway system not exceed 10000 mi, and authorizes KDOT to make changes to what is on the state highway system, including removal from the system of roads which have little or no statewide significance, and the addition of roads which have statewide importance and will provide relief for traffic congestion on existing routes on the system. Thus, we can simply use KDOT's expert judgment as to which highways have "statewide importance" as our notability standard.


 * Are all highways notable?
 * No. Many states and regions have secondary or county highways that aren't notable enough for an article. However, highways at the state level and above are generally considered notable (see above).


 * As shown above, state DOTs generally select the most important routes for inclusion in their state highway system. That means counties, townships, and cities are left to handle the balance of roads. These roads are generally of more local importance, serving as minor connectors in rural areas. As a result, they are in most cases not notable. In a few select instances, of course, there are mitigating circumstances that make a road notable; CR H-58 in Michigan, for instance, was deemed so important to improve, due to its access to a National Seashore, that the U.S. Congress passed a bill providing funding for its paving. In the case of something like that, it is notable. Most county roads do not have this sort of pedigree, however, so unlike state highways, they must prove their notability on an individual basis.


 * Why must they be covered in such great detail? Why can't they be merged to one article on the system?
 * Individual highways are an important part of local history. There is a particular curve in my town that can be rather difficult to take with oncoming traffic, rain, night, and so forth. Turns out this curve was built the way it is because this was the original intersection of two highways, where both traveled on a bridge across a river. Neither highway passes through the curve anymore, so the reason for its existence would seem puzzling without knowing about the old alignments of the two highways and the now-nonexistent bridge. Where reliable sources exist to cite information such as this, we can (and should) cover this type of information. In so doing, individual routes would have too much information written about them to squeeze into a condensed list.


 * In the case of entire systems of routes of borderline notability, we do sometimes cover the entire system in one list. The road project informally calls this sort of situation a Rockland County scenario, after an instance where the county road system of Rockland County, New York was condensed in this manner. Keep in mind, though, that this has only been found to work well in instances where individual routes have little citable material out there, and thus little to say about them other than their physical extent.


 * Who would possibly find this interesting?
 * Some people do enjoy this kind of stuff. They especially like the history of them (reroutings, highways that don't exist anymore, etc.)


 * Someone who uses the road often may be curious about when it was built, destinations further along the route, length of the highway, and so on. Those who are unfamiliar with the road may want to know about the overall "feel" of the road; the sort of terrain, traffic, and so forth.


 * Would anyone else use these articles?
 * They're obviously useful, if people are citing them.


 * Also, they can serve as geographical reference points. (e.g. Maysville, Oklahoma is located at the junction of State Highway 19 and State Highway 74). Such references are more meaningful to me than Maysville is located at 34°49′3″N, 97°24′37″W (34.817489, -97.410162). I know exactly where SH-74 is; I have no clue where 97°24′37″W is.


 * With the advent of mobile devices that can also access the Web, our road articles can provide a fantastic resource to folks on the road about the road they're on. I have pulled up our Oklahoma State Highway 87 article while on the road to figure out what highway it turns into upon crossing the Arkansas state line. Our exit lists may help a driver determine what their exit number is given only the name or route number. (Sure, WP:NOT a travel guide, but if we can help travelers while conforming to the bounds of policy and providing other info, shouldn't we?)


 * Phil Sandifer makes this point succinctly:

Is the Garden State Parkway full of toll plazas? Apparently it is. Thank God we didn't delete our road coverage. (Checked this one from my sister's iPhone while driving the Jersey Turnpike.)


 * What is the incentive for citizens to scrutinize their currency?
 * Nicely phrased, but that has nothing to do with this FAQ. ;)


 * Why is this article so lousy?
 * The WikiProject U.S. Roads, which handles articles of this nature, is severely overtaxed, with over 9,000 articles at the time of writing, and only about half of the United States covered. Most editors try to focus on improving existing articles and so new articles are created by inexperienced users, and aren't up to the quality we'd like them to be. You can help by improving the articles!

AFD precedents
Some examples of AFD precedent: More are availiable at WP:USRD/P.
 * Articles_for_deletion/Hawaii_State_Highway_7241
 * Articles_for_deletion/Georgia_State_Route_160
 * Articles_for_deletion/Washington State Route 900