Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways/U.S. state highway naming conventions


 * NOTE: This page was created on December 12, 2005. On July 5, 2006, the Arbitration Committee issued Arbitration Committee Highways case Remedy #5. On August 5, 2006, State route naming conventions poll began in response to Arbitration Committee Highways case Remedy #5, the history of which is described at SRNC Account. This page was marked as "inactive/keep primarily for historical interest" on January 27, 2007.

The purpose of WikiProject Highways/U.S. state highway naming conventions is to coordinate the naming conventions of state highways in the United States. Edit this page!

Table of current conventions
(Note that a lot of lists are at "List of State numbered highways" because that's what the template had by default.)

Things to keep in mind
The pipe trick makes it easier to use links disambiguated with parentheses.

Possible conventions for roads
Here there is typically little argument about the root - use whatever the state uses, though some would like uniformity across all states "State Highway X". The problem is with disambiguation - do you put it before or after: Also, in cases where the official name and common name differ, which do we use:
 * Florida State Road 50
 * State Road 50 (Florida)
 * Route 17 (New Jersey)
 * State Highway Route 17 (New Jersey)

Comments
What do we do for states like Idaho, where common DOT usage is "Idaho X"?

I would say always go with California State Route 232 (for example). If the state uses Highway instead, go ahead and sub that in there instead of Route. Here's my reasoning behind this: Take Route 255 over to New York. Wait... County Route 255 or State Highway 255? In what state? Do I just find U.S. Highway 255 to get there? Or do I just take County Route 255? (Or even a road called Road 255). In fact, here I was referring to New York State Highway 255. How is one supposed to know that? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  04:47, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If the text doesn't make the state clear, you should expand out the link. Redirects will make that possible. "Route X" in such states will always mean state route; US routes and county routes should always be specified. See for instance Route 17 (New Jersey). --SPUI (talk) 00:23, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Well as long as the name is specific enough, is legislative-compatible and all the routes are at the same convention it's fine. But California State Highway 17 sticks out like a sore thumb as does U.S. Highway 101. And we can't do anything about it without a naming convention. So maybe the setup we have is fine for Florida... but not for California since they use a different system. I think that's probably what we'll have to do. As for the ones called "Idaho X"... that's a hard one. I would say put a word in there so people (foreigners) at least know it's a highway. I'm not particularly attached to "State" unless there's a conflict with county highways in this case. However, that and "WV x" is not good... some people (esp. foreigners) don't even know what "WV" stands for. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  04:26, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Disambig pages might be necessary if we come up against a term that already has notable use in contexts other than a highway (although I don't know of any.) &mdash;  Rickyrab | Talk 16:18, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Possible conventions for lists
It's typically best to begin with "List of", though it can be argued if the article has details on the system and its history. Then there's a question over whether to use "List of name in state" or "List of state name": And what do we do when the official name is different from the common name:
 * List of Florida State Roads
 * List of State Roads in Florida
 * List of Routes in New Jersey (ambiguous)
 * List of State Routes in New Jersey (compromise that doesn't use any common or official name)
 * List of State Highway Routes in New Jersey (official but longwinded)

Possible conventions for categories
Here we seem to have the same issues as lists - simply map "List of As" to "Category:As" or "List of As in B" to "Category:As in B". There are also those who say categories should be "Category:B state highways" no matter what the other naming conventions for uniformity in Category:State highways.

Comments
Why not have it be called "California State Routes" for example? Or whatever it is called, like "Florida State Roads". Therefore we don't have any problems. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  03:23, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Because they are not "Florida State Roads"; they are "State Roads" related to Florida. This is the same issue as with article titles. The road is not "Florida State Road 50"; it is "State Road 50", and the Florida is only necessary to disambiguate. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates! ) 07:23, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Or how about having it depend on the state then? Like "California State Routes" because that is what they are called, yet "State Roads in Florida" since they are called "State Roads"?--Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  04:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Image conventions
Should images be listed above? Just for convenience, so we know what they are located at. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  04:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Stub conventions
Should they be made? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  04:27, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization
We should have a convention that settles this once and for all. If the highway system of a state or country is known by a capitalized phrase or is best distinguished by a capitalized phrase from a different classification of highway, then the phrase, when used in naming anything (including categories, templates, lists, or stubs, must be capitalized.--Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  04:27, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
 * IMO we already have one, but if it's necessary to make it explicit one way or another, or to establish an exception, then very well. However, that should be done on a naming conventions page, not the subpage of a wikiproject.  Alai 01:38, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Further response to rewritten comment: that's likely to settle nothing. I already cited the Iowa DoT referring to "Iowa state routes", and you were seemingly entirely unswayed in your "capitalise anyway" argument.  You'd need to be a good deal more specific than "is known by".  Alai 04:02, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
 * To begin, that's just Iowa. Many states' DOTs explicitly use capitals. To continue, would any road maintained in the state by the state be a "state highway" then? Such as a forest road or something not notable like that? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  04:25, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
 * So you now agree that Iowa's should not, then, on the basis of your proposal? Or did you have a different "known as" criterion is known?  But my real point is that this isn't sufficiently clear, either way.  As I understand it, state highway, with that capitalisation, has a specific meaning.  If there's any evidence that "state highway" means "any road run by a state", and "State Highway" is in fact the term with the more specific meaning, I haven't yet seen it.  Alai 04:46, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I never said I was conceding Iowa. Regardless, "state highway" should not be capitalized. It's when a state is added before it such as "Kentucky State Highway" that it should be capitalized. Just as you capitalize it as well when you add stuff to the end like "State Highway 19". --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  04:57, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I suspected not; but nor are you in any way clarifying why this isn't the implication of your own proposal.  "Regardless" is indeed the operative word.  You don't capitalise when you "add stuff to the end", you capitilise when a phrase appears as part of a proper noun.  You've suggested no consistent basis for the style you seem to favour, much less any evidence for such a rationale.  Alai 07:07, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Wait... what's this argument over? I vote that if it's generic ("I drove on a state highway last night." or "This is a list of Illinois state highways") keep it not capitalized, and if it refers to the specific ("Illinois State Highway 19 runs through Roselle", "U.S. Route 20 does too") then capitalize it. Or is that not what this is about? &mdash;Rob (talk) 14:34, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I believe this is actually about if it's something along the lines of "This is a list of California State Routes" it should be capitalized since California State Route is a specific type of state route.Gateman1997 00:41, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Normally I would agree, but some state routes (in Illinois at least) are not numbered and therefore don't carry that specific name all the time. So, I could say "Gary Avenue is a state highway" and still get the meaning across that it is a highway maintained by the state. &mdash;Rob (talk) 02:09, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Exactly, Rob, and thank you. This is about the generic.  Alai 00:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I disagree... take List of California State Routes for example. A state highway could be considered as any road maintained by the state. So would a road leading to a state fish hatchery be a state highway? The capitalization of the phrase "California State Route" means that the highway is maintained by the state DOT, is referred to as "California State Route x", is numbered, etc. There has to be a distinction made here. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  03:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * You keep saying that, and I keep asking you for a basis for it. You keep, well, saying it some more.  The article state highway certainly doesn't cite that usage.  If distinction/disambiguation is really required, why not "Cslifornia state-numbered routes", "Numbered California state routes", "State routes in California", or some such permutation.  Alai 03:08, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Who has heard of the phrase "California state-numbered routes"? I never have. And that goes with "common names"? The phrase "Numbered California state routes" is a lot to type. Why not go along with the rest of the Internet and use "California State Route"? What specifically is the problem with the capitalization? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  03:20, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Then you must not have read the article I keep pointing you to. It cites "state-numbered routes", go tell SPUI he's making it up.  Or is it somehow impermissible to qualify that with the name of a state?  This "rest of the internet" argument been refuted at some length, at which point you switched to the "What the DoTs say".  Now we're back to the first argument, and without any evidence for either, much less regard to the counter-arguments.  A bit of rigour and consistency would be much appreciated.  Alai 04:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * The reason I keep switching points is because there's just so much out there and so little time. Basically. It's a specific classification. Like "Springer Spaniel" is a type of dog. What specific harm is there in the capitalization of the highway phrase? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  05:19, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

And also the "Common names" policy does not apply here because we are asking for an exception to these rules. Hence... "naming convention"? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  05:37, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't see how this style of argument is saving either of us time; just the opposite, as it leads us to going around in circles over the same ground repeatedly, and a lack of any resolution.  It's not as if "Springer Spaniel" is a more specific type of dog than "springer spaniel", it's a matter of style and convention.  The harm is stylistic inconsistency.  The existing naming conventions are all relevant here, because they're the presumption unless there is some specific rationale for something different.  And once again, this isn't the correct place for proposing such an exception.  Alai 06:02, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * The reason it's here is for the road people to decide what we want before we go to the naming conventions people. If we don;t have that decided beforehand, then we will be shot down and people who have no expertise about the subject will be doing the deciding for us. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  06:10, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * That's entirely reasonable, just so long as we're clear that this is not a NC proposal per se. Alai 06:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * At this point in time. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  06:46, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Just my two cents: There is no reason for an exception for state highways from the more general common names should be in lower case policy. Blank Verse 03:08, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't believe anyone is suggesting that. When refering to a "state highway" it should be lowercase. What is being rightly suggested is that if it is a "Maine State Highway" then it should be capitalized per common English rules for proper nouns as it is a particular state highway.Gateman1997 20:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Folks, let's use the English sandard grammar rules here so that "California State Highway 17", which is a proper noun, is capitalized just like "Prime Minister Tony Blair", whereas "List of California state highways" is treated similar to "List of United Kingdon prime ministers", where the name of the state is capitalized because it is a proper noun, but the phrase "state highways" and "prime miniters" are not proper nouns and therefore not capitalized in these titles. The rules are already established in the language so just follow them and don't try to determine new rules just for the wiki highway project. --Censorwolf 18:56, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't believe we're fashioning new rules here, just applying existing ones. One solution that might work however is to make it "List of the California State Route System" or something along those lines or for those that are lowercase happy, "List of state highways in California"Gateman1997 19:53, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
 * It doesn't help the cats or stubs though. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  01:10, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * and would be perfectly feasible (though the latter sounds slightly awkward to my ear).  Gateman's other suggestions are also feasible as category names, and while I haven't checked for DoTs and google for consistency of caps of that usage, it's at least plausibly a proper noun.  Alai 01:46, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I know, that's why it's a bad idea for cat and stub naming. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  01:50, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * ... what's why? Alai 02:20, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * They're best known as "California State Routes". Having the prep phrase at the end sounds strange. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  02:22, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Are we having a discussion, i.e. where one point follows in logical succession from another, or just a series of intermittent assertions? If you want that phrase, capitalise it correctly.  I don't see on what basis you dismiss Gateman's suggestion.  Alai 02:30, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * We are requesting the correct capitalization here. "California State Route(s)" is a capitalized phrase. How many times do I have to say it? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  02:37, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Many, many, many, many fewer. Alai 02:41, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

The troubling thing is that you are pointing to other parts of Wikipedia that have the lowercase versions. But when we try to fix these pages/ categories/naming conventions, you oppose those too. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  23:01, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Exactly why is this "troubling"? You do the same, except that the ones I refer to are a) longer standing, b) were in no case proposed or created by me, and c) conform to the naming conventions.  And in the case of stub types, it's accepted to practice to follow the name of an existing permanent category.  If you try to "fix" something contrary to the naming conventions, I oppose it, yes.  What's troubling is surely proposing renames that "unfix" category names, and opposing ones that are in the NC-compliant direction.  If you want to change the NCs, do that first, rather than this get-them-through-under0-the-radar stuff.  Alai 23:29, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Which is why this page exist. Why is this troubling? "Heads I lose. Tails you win." --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  23:33, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Note that the comments on this page are so far very much against your capitalisation preference, and yet you're trundling ahead creating and renaming them with it anyway. I don't think I am the person with the double-headed coin here.  Alai 06:32, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Specifically, could we put this off for a few days or so? I have midterms that I'm supposed to be studying for and it seems like I'm under an onslaught of personal problems. Which is why I seem a bit cranky. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  06:40, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
 * As this is just an unofficial discussion page, I wouldn't worry about any particular timeline here. I have no immediate plans to do any "lowercasing nominations" for the time being (that can't wait until the end of next week, say).  Any I do make, btw, I shall list at the bottom of this page, so that interested parties have a "single point of contact".  Good luck with your exams!  Alai 07:04, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. I'm just going to have to agree to disagree as I said above. I see your point, I just don't agree with it. It's rare enough that I see a collective of proper nouns that should be capitalized (think Category:Yankee Candles or Category:United Airlines Flight Numbers for the easiest ones I could come up with). This really ought to be classified as a state-by-state basis issue. If all major California State Routes really are numbered, go with Category:California State Routes. No, it doesn't count state-owned driveways. Referring to a collective of Illinois state highways, I would still think of keeping it lower-case, even though 99% of the time I really am thinking of a specific numbered Illinois State Highway. &mdash; Rob (  talk  ) 03:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * We might have to go with that... I'll tweak the wording above. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  04:04, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah... note the "if" above in the bold. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  04:05, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Here's what I have to say, suppose state X uses "state route" as its convention, then we have... The reason for this is that the names of individual routes are proper nouns (names of individual things are proper nouns), but the generic term is not (X state route is a specific type of state route but not a specific state route in X, it is a generic term used for any X state route) An easier way to understand this is since we don't capatalize "state route" in the phrase "state route in X" there is no reason to do so in "X state route" -Jeff 03:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
 * For individual routes: X State Route ##
 * Articles using the generic term use: X state route, example: List of X state routes
 * But what if the DOT uses the capitalized phrase "California State Route"? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  05:27, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll use Florida as an example, because that's what I know best. Everything is called "State Road X". Everything has been "State Road X" from the earliest days. "Florida State Road X" is a neologism used to disambiguate. We disambiguate with parentheses, not prefixes, so we should use "State Road X (Florida)". This is also true in most other states. We should not be using "state type X" unless the state actually uses that. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates! ) 06:54, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, It's pretty much already established that State Route X should always be capatalized since individual routes are proper nouns, the question is whether the generic term "state route" should be capatalized when qualified with a state name, (are they "California state routes" or California State Routes"), the same debate is going on with other states.
 * also, given all the arguments I think I have a pretty decent suggestion for the overall convention that could render the capatalization debate moot:
 * for the generic term, we use whatever terminology the state uses, qulified with "of State" (ex: Maryland uses "state highway", therfore: "state highways of Maryland")
 * for individual routes, we use the naming convention the state uses, however, if the state's name is abbreviated in the route names (as in Marylands "MD X"), we expand it ("Maryland X"), and if the state's name isn't there at all (Florida's "State Road X"), we add it in parentheses ("State Road X (Florida)") -Jeff 01:44, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, OK. After seeing some of your other comments on the issue I see what you mean (I thought you were talking about capitalization), anyway it seems we agree on this convention, so anyone else care to comment on it? -Jeff 02:51, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not against the "State Route 40 (Florida)" naming if that's what the state actually uses. But for the states that use "California State Route" then we should actually use that phrase. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  22:49, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Google finds 18 unique matches for "California State Route" on the Caltrans site and 887 for "State Route". So while they may occasionally use California State Route, it appears they usually just use State Route. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates! ) 08:29, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Likewise with New York. the DOT pages (http://www.dot.state.ny.us) refer to "State Route X" (361) but almost as many refer to "NY Route X" (292). Then there are also "NYS Route X" (135) or even "New York State Route X" (124). Only 30 for "NY" or "New York" + "State highway" which is what the perponderance of articles on WP are now. So, I'm all for renaming/moving all the pages to be "State Route X (State Name)" and settle on that standard, as long as someone coming into WP would be able to find a route by searching on "New York Route X", which I think is my only concern. --Censorwolf 17:46, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * There is also "Route X", which seems to be the most common for at least some roads (5 9A 690). Anyway, I think it's more important to see if we can come to any consensus on using Type X (State) rather than State Type X, and then we can debate the individual states. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates! ) 18:53, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * In all honesty I would rather see "List of State Routes in California" than "List of California state routes." I'd rather have the uniform "State Route 33 (California)" than have the articles located at varying names such as California State Highway 17 and U.S. Highway 101[. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  20:09, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Well people will be all OMG COMMON NAMES whether we put it at California State Route 17 or State Route 17 (California). --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates! ) 20:23, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I know... but the sooner we get a naming convention approved the sooner we have a defense against them. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  20:28, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * There are very few of us involved on this, so can we reach a consensus at least on the article names? Starting with NY, I'd like to establish Route X (New York) as the standard. So if we can agree on that, then we can move all the articles from "New York State Highway X" to "Route X (New York)" with redirects to the route pages from the state highway pages so no links are broken. I don't believe we need to elevate this to Requested moves, and can work within this project instead, right? --Censorwolf 15:28, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * On second thought, I've been reading some of the discussions on moving/renaming road pages and the discussions get pretty intense. Maybe this does need to go thru Requested moves just to make things right. --Censorwolf 15:40, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I've started Naming conventions/Numbered highways. I'm not sure about the exact process, so if it needs to be submitted anywhere, someone should do so. But we should probably come to some rough consensus first that this is what we want. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates! ) 20:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Honestly I'm not sure what all the hubub is about. Let's just leave them where they are. No need to rename thousands of articles that have existed at their current locations quite nicely for years in many cases. So what if there is one route CA-17 that sticks out. It is hardly the end of the world. And frankly listing them as Route 17 (California) makes them even harder to locate to someone actually searching for the information. It also sidesteps Nohat's main concern which is the common names guideline. The road is most commonly known as Highway 17 and you know he and I will argue that it should still remain an exception even if State Route XX (State) is agreed as a standard because Common names policy overrides anything this discussion decides.Gateman1997 17:37, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
 * But this discussion will provide an exception to the rules to allow for the common sense principle: consistency. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  22:05, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Consistency is NOT a "common sense principle". It is merely an aesthetic, and a debatable one at that. Plus, there is no consensus-accepted policy that consistency should trump "common names". The world is not a consistent place and there is no compelling reason for Wikipedia to try to impose a consistent system on something that is inherently inconsistent, such as what people call things. Nohat 08:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, I might add that there are actual state-installed signs posted on Highway 17 that say "Highway 17". The bus line that goes over the highway is called the "Highway 17 Express" not the "Route 17 Express". And note also that Caltrans even sometimes calls it "Highway 17", so even they aren't consistent. The idea that we can impose a consistent naming scheme onto a complex system which is not referred to in a consistent way by anyone, not even Caltrans, is frankly just ludicrous. You just need to accept that the common name for roads in the same system isn't always the same, and their Wikipedia article titles should reflect that diversity. Nohat 08:38, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
 * The bus lines have nothing to do with this. And obviously they wouldn't post signs calling it "California State Route 17"- that just makes the signs more expensive. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  17:49, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Redirects
Redirects should be made from other common names to the chosen one. They should be coordinated on a page like WikiProject New Jersey/State Routes, probably after a naming convention is decided to avoid the necessity of fixing many double redirects.

Current nominations affecting naming or capitalisation

 * Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_January_25

Other comments
Georgia (U.S. state) has its own issues.

We should probably hold off on moving pages for a state until someone starts making a bunch of articles about that state, so we can be sure we have it correct.