Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Minnesota/Archive 2

County shield usage
WikiProject Minnesota State Highways/County shield usage

It's not complete yet, I've asked members of WP:MINN to fill in what they can. Anything else will have to be using the street view on Google Maps to find the shields as posted. --Sable232 (talk) 22:49, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Down to our last stub...
But I don't know what to do with it.

Falls-to-Falls Corridor

It's not a highway article per se, so I don't know how to expand it beyond what USRD considers a stub. I've looked around and there really isn't any information beyond what's in the article. Since the corridor follows a single highway, should it be merged into U.S. Route 53? --Sable232 (talk) 05:31, 18 September 2010 (UTC)


 * To paraphrase Sarah Palin: "merge, baby merge!"  Imzadi  1979   →  06:23, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * P.S. Then the next job is to get all of the Start-Class articles expanded to B- or C-Class! ;-)  Imzadi  1979   →  06:29, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Done!

I already got a little bit of a start on our Start-class articles... well, Highway 1 and U.S. 2. 300 miles of log points aren't quick to move through! --Sable232 (talk) 17:30, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If you can handle US 2 at your own speed, I'll handle US 2 for Michigan and we'll be on our way toward getting the western US 2 family of articles in shape for a future Good/Featured Topic Candidate.
 * Actually, I'd added the junction list on that a few weeks ago. --Sable232 (talk) 20:08, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Usage of "Trunk Highway"
Per a comment here, I'd like to bring this up before I'm too far along.

What terminology to use and where? I went through some earlier stub expansions I did and realized I wasn't even consistent, in the first paragraph of sections I used "Trunk Highway" on one, "State Highway" on another, and just "Highway" on a third.

I'm not sure I have an opinion either way on this, however, here's what I've got for background:


 * Mn/DOT uses "TH" (Trunk Highway) in their logs (for all highways).
 * Signs on street corners where they intersect state highways usually say "T.H. 1", "MN TH 1", or "State Hwy 1". I have on rare occasions seen "S.T.H." but that's pretty uncommon (standard usage next door in Wisconsin though).
 * "Trunk Highway" isn't in common vernacular, at least not today. --Sable232 (talk) 05:05, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * My current Mn/DOT map lists Trunk Highway as the term at the top of the map, but refers to "State Highway Route Marker" in the legend. My preference is to use Trunk Highway and the TH # abbreviation. (Style guides are moving away from the periods more and more, the newest Chicago Manual of Style is even ditching them completely in "US".)  Imzadi  1979   →  06:38, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

The term "Trunk Highway" is not used by the current generations today in Minnesota (in the present day) when describing state designated number routes. It was a term used by the "Greatest Generation", however it fell out of use primarily in the 1960s. For decades now, most Minnesotans simply refer to State Highways as literally "State Highways". There are many counties, cities, and municipalities throughout Minnesota that title signs (on street corners and intersections) and they simply say "State Highway XX". For example, Pine County follows this style at their intersections countywide. Even many Mn/DOT employees do not use the term "Trunk Highway", opting for "State Highway" instead. However, you are correct, Mn/DOT still does use "TH" in their route logs, etc. --Damon207 (talk) 18:26, 28 September 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.191.145.118 (talk)

Few Minnesotans today use the term "trunk highway" and many would not even be able to define it. "State highway" is the common term. Jonathunder (talk) 22:57, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think "state highway" is particularly common in general speech either, if that's the test we're going to use.
 * I think I'd favor using just "highway" since saying "Minnesota" and/or "state" (after the lead of course) is quite redundant anyway. "Trunk highway" should remain in the infobox and possibly incorporated into the lead sentence since that's official usage, but not thereafter. --Sable232 (talk) 16:46, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * How would this sound for the first sentence of each TH article?
 * Trunk Highway X (TH X) is a state highway in &lt;region&gt; Minnesota.
 * Right off the bat we would be equating state highways and trunk highways. Any further mentions would be simply "Highway".  What about abbreviations? –Fredddie™ 18:35, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Abbreviating to "TH" elsewhere would be ambiguous though. Any time the jct template is used it would be "MN", and using "TH" wouldn't specify whether it's a state or federal highway since, officially (under Mn/DOT), they are all trunk highways. --Sable232 (talk) 21:16, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That's because the only "federal highways" are National Park Service/National Forest Service roads. US Highways and Interstates have a separate abbreviation because they have a different name. Of course the way around this is "Trunk Highway # (TH #, MN #) is a state highway... " and leaving jct alone, even if that means the template is technically incorrect. If we go this route, there's the possibility that the articles should be moved to "Minnesota Trunk Highway #" with redirects from the current name.  Imzadi  1979   →  00:54, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

The history, the junction lists, and other things
There's a multitude of things I could try and ask about. Maybe it's just easier if I say to look at highways 1 through 13 and see if there's anything I did that I should change, or anything that already existed that I should be changing. --Sable232 (talk) 05:05, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, there's one thing I'd like opinions on right now since it's fairly substantial. Some existing junction lists, in the "location" column, denote a direction from a nearby city, rather than the township it's actually in. I've been using the township (or, if it's in an unincorporated settlement that has an article, I use that). Trying to determine what the closest city is isn't always simple and it probably borders on original research. --Sable232 (talk) 16:46, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Those directions should be pulled. The township should be used, and if the township can't be determined (say for temporary lack of information) that cell in the table can be left blank. With Michigan lists, I will use the name of an unincorporated community in place of a township name if that community is shown on the state map. If the location is a boundary, I use X–Y as the location (I even do the same for county line junctions). Basically, go with what your sources tell you, and anything else (N. of Z) should be removed as OR.  Imzadi  1979   →  17:56, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Lists of counties and communities
The first should be changed from a bulleted list and moved into the  parameter of the infobox. All of the counties will be listed in the junction list, so a list elsewhere in the body of the article is redundant. The second should be purged completely per USRD consensus. Any communities worth noting will be included in a well-written RD anyway.  Imzadi  1979   →  19:01, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

U.S. Route 8
Just a quick shout out to anyone who could be of assistance. US 8 is the only article that MN and MI have in common, and I've been working on overhauling it as part of my general drive to get all of MI's articles up to B-Class or GA. I found several old MN maps to re-cite parts of the history, but the collection stopped at around 1949. Does anyone know where I might find maps for around 1955, and the truncations in 1978–81? We also need maps to document the decommissioning of TH 98 in 1998 as well. If so, then Steve Riner's website will be totally replaced as a source. Other ideas are old newspaper articles that would document the changes from those time frames.

Second, related question, but I'd like to find a pre-1926 map of Wisconsin to document the highway designation used before US 8. (Odd enough, but unless Chris Bessert's research is very incomplete, there have been no substantive changes to US 8 in WI except the Rhinelander bypass in the 1990s.)  Imzadi  1979   →  15:22, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * How would we use maps to document a decommissioning? Just cite the maps before and after it was removed?


 * I don't know of any freely available scans, but there's someone online (just a hobbyist, not a retailer or anything) who has a huge collection of old maps for sale (and not particularly expensive either, around $3-$8 for most if I recall. I'll see if I can find the link. --Sable232 (talk) 18:25, 1 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yup, that's exactly it, same for any type of change. Show the map immediately prior to the change that shows highway location/condition/type/number A and the map immediately after the change that shows highway location/condition/type/number B. Of course that means we don't have exact dates of changes with this method, but we do have the time period. MN/DOT is scanning their entire collection of maps for the Minnesota Digital Library. After I posted here, I got a reply that the previous day the library asked the DOT for an update on the scanning status. It's looking like it's a matter of time then before more maps come available.  Imzadi  1979   →  19:08, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Complete map archive available
The Minnesota Digital Library's collection of state highway maps is now complete (almost, it's missing 1955 and 1985-86). It's available here: Minnesota Digital Library

See Minnesota State Highway 99 to see an example of these in practice.

One problem, though- it wasn't until 1948 that the maps were dated to January 1. This makes it somewhat unclear in earlier years as to which year a highway was paved. If it was gravel on January 1, 1948 and paved on January 1, 1949 it was unquestionably paved in '48. If the range is, say, April to April, is it reasonable to assume that they weren't paving in winter and it was done the previous year? --Sable232 (talk) 21:49, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Using session laws to reference dates
I've found and marked down the dates and sources for when legislative routes were authorized. However, I'm not entirely sure if and how they could be used in some cases.

The first issue is that all the law creating the 1949 routes didn't take effect until a couple months after it was passed. Do we use the passing date or the effective date?

The second is how to deal with cases where a highway number and routing was established in the 1934 renumbering that used a mixture of Constitutional Routes and new legislative routes. In these cases the date the statutory route(s) were authorized isn't particularly meaningful in part because by some indications they might have not been marked (at least not completely) until 1934, and because in those cases there were parts of the highway still marked under the old numbers. --Sable232 (talk) 21:49, 15 November 2010 (UTC)


 * For the 1949 routes, I would use the effective date. Down here in Iowa, most laws take effect on July 1.  For example, the law that killed off 700+ miles of spur routes took effect July 1, 2003, so that's the date I cite.  For the 1934 routes, if there's any doubt exactly when the new routes became effective, but certainty that it took place in 1934, just cite 1934. –Fredddie™ 00:20, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

US Collaboration reactivated & Portal:United States starting next
Casliber recently posted a suggestion on the talk page for WikiProject United States about getting the US Wikipedians Collaboration page going again in an effort to build up articles for GA through FA class. See U.S. Wikipedians' notice board/USCOTM. After several days of work from him the page is up and ready for action. A few candidates have already been added for you to vote on or you can submit one using the directions provided. If you are looking for inspiration here is a link to the most commonly viewed articles currently under the scope of Wikiproject United States. There are tons of good articles in the various US related projects as well so feel free to submit any article relating to US topics (not just those under the scope of WPUS). This noticeboard is intended for ‘’’All’’’ editors working on US subjects, not just those under WPUS.

The next item I intend to start updating is Portal:United States if anyone is interested in helping. Again this is not specific to WPUS and any help would be greatly appreciated to maximize visibility of US topics. The foundation has already been established its just a matter of updating the content with some new images, biographies and articles. Please let leave a comment on the Portals talk page or let me know if you have any questions or ideas. --Kumioko (talk) 19:15, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

"Minnesota Constitutional Route"
A little while back, another editor added "Minnesota" before the term Constitutional Route on a number of articles. (See here for an example. I feel this is unnecessary wordiness, and any uncertainty on the part of a reader would be solved by clicking on the wikilink, however, the other editor does not agree. I'd like some additional opinions on this. --Sable232 (talk) 00:27, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * If the context is apparent, the state is not needed, especially since I don't believe any other jurisdiction has "constitutional routes". From WP:USRD/STDS:
 * "For state highways used in prose, the name of the state should generally be left off when it is not part of the 'official' name and its use is straightforward, e.g. Route 76, not Missouri Route 76. (See WP:USSH for details.) If use of an official highway name in the prose would be ambiguous (i.e. a state highway in another state), the article title or other disambiguated form may be used."
 * Since the official name would be "Constitutional Route", the state name should not be used unless some ambiguity would be present. Even then, if you were working on a Wisconsin highway's article and needed to reference one of these, use the construction, "Constitutional Route X in Minnesota" to avoid creating a false phrasing.  Imzadi 1979  →   01:13, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Imzadi has it right. If you're writing in a Minnesota article, it's not necessary to specify that it's a Minnesota Constitutional Route. –Fredddie™ 01:36, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Junction list template
I created MNint, which works just like jctint, except that it specifies the state already. That means you won't have to add "|state=MN" for every template row.  Imzadi 1979  →   21:40, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
 * BTW, I've noticed a consistent error on junction lists where if there are two highway/CRs listed that aren't concurrent, the junction row will have "jct, jct" when these should really be separated with a line break. I noticed while I'm going through articles to fix the dashes in MP ranges. (They're using hyphens instead of en dashes.) In the future, please use  for the second MP number. The templates will be updated in early 2012 to implement automatic conversion of miles into a kilometer column, and a hyphen or a dash (or any non-numeric input) will cause the tables to break because the math formula can't deal with non-numeric characters in the mile inputs. You can see what the change will look like at jctint/testcases; the code is ready but we need to update the the articles to use mile/mile2 as needed and pull anything else like individual foonotes, parentheses or other highway names from the MP column.  Imzadi 1979   →   02:20, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * As an example, compare Minnesota State Highway 149 before] and after. The "MN 55:" note and the hyphens would have cause template problems. As well, the "MN 55:" note doesn't help our readers because they'd have to look at the other article to figure out that the junction is 0.816 miles from the other one; saying it's at MP 202.512 along a different highway is not useful. (It's not WP:OR to do simple arithmetic.)  Imzadi 1979  →   02:27, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * But the mileposts for Highway 149 aren't marked along Highway 55 (as far as I know). It's not OR, but it's not entirely accurate to show a distance from the nearest mile marker that doesn't necessarily exist. --Sable232 (talk) 03:46, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * When I looked at the before, I had no idea how far along the MN 55 overlap the CR 26 junction was. It doesn't do our readers any good to say MN 55 runs between MPs 2.906 and 3.381 and the CR 26 junction is at MP 202.512 along that overlap.  Without beginning and ending mileposts for the MN 55 overlap, MP 202.512 is useless.  Now, I could go to the MN 55 article and see at what mileposts the MN 149 overlap starts, or we could just do the math and show it on MN 149.  That being said, the current version of the list is still wrong. –Fredddie™ 11:14, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Fredddie hit the nail on the head: the MN 55 MP is a useless number in an article about MN 149, and when the day comes that the templates are switched to affect the automatic conversion from miles to kilometers, that cell of the table would have a really big red error message in it because of the "MN" and the colon. In addition to computing the MN 149 equivalent MP (which if my math is off, please fix it), I also switched the second MP in a range to be input through the mile2 parameter, which formats the range with an en dash, and uses a line break so that the column isn't extra wide. By doing that, not only is the formatting set up to be always consistent, but when the conversion is added, the template can convert each number separately and still consistently format the ranges.  Imzadi 1979  →   21:10, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying it's worthless for that reason at all. It's worthless without the context of the beginning and ending mileposts along MN 55. –Fredddie™ 22:23, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Statewide Trunk Logpoint
Mn/DOT has released a new logpoint file. It's a single PDF for the entire state located here and updated through September 2011.  Imzadi 1979  →   20:28, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Oldest sheild
Here is Minnesota's oldest state highway sheild: It is in public domain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Legolover26 (talk • contribs)
 * Yep, I made that. It's actually a template for making other shields. –Fredddie™ 21:23, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * PS: sign your posts! ~ –Fredddie™ 21:24, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Replacing Logpoint Districts to Statewide.
Because the all files for the seperate logpoint districts have been deleted I am replacing them with the statewide on, help would be appreciated. Please message me so I know which ones you would like to work on in advance JDOG555 (talk) 19:01, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

RFC on coordinates in highway articles
There is currently a discussion taking place at WT:HWY regarding the potential use of coordinates in highway articles. Your input is welcomed. --Rschen7754 01:58, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

1920-34 highway list
If time permits I plan to get started on creating the list of the 70 state highways that existed from 1920-34. However, I'd like some input on semantics before I get started.

I have here the first one written (ignore the second one, unless it's permissible to use the full infobox on a list article but it didn't seem to be). As for a title, does List of Minnesota trunk highways (1920) work? Would it be a good idea to split the article into multiple parts (1-35 and 36-70, for example)? --Sable232 (talk) 01:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The disambiguator should have the range of years in it, since both are known. In other words, I'd use List of Minnesota trunk highways (1920–1934). (Note the en dash; you'll need to make a redirect from the same title with a hyphen as well.) Other than that, I have a few comments. We normally stick to infobox road small in list articles like this, which also uses 40px for the marker image size. If you can make a suite of the needed images, or get someone else to, I'd set up a type code for them (if one doesn't exist yet) and just use the type/route parameters in IRS to get the markers to display. For these infoboxes, you might want to drop the markers for the termini and just use "location= X – Y". I hope that helps.  Imzadi 1979  →   02:49, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposed restructuring of USRD
There is a proposal to demote all state highway WikiProjects to task forces; see WT:USRD. --Rschen7754 05:09, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposed demotion to a task force of USRD
There is a proposal to demote all state highway WikiProjects to task forces. There seems to not be a clear consensus at this project whether to stay a WikiProject or be demoted to a task force; therefore I'd like to bring the question here. Please indicate your preference, and give some reasoning so we can work to a consensus. --Rschen7754 08:24, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Not voting as a non-member. --Rschen7754 08:24, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Support—my membership might not be formally listed on the project page, but I do work on MN highway articles. As for my reasoning, I do believe that consolidation will bring many benefits, and reflect the current reality of how things work. We collaborate on the national level already. Editors from other states can be helpful resources to solve questions. A question that might initially seem to be MN-specific may turn out a solution that benefits the other states.  Imzadi 1979  →   08:41, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Support project, oppose talk page Compared to other state projects, this talk page is very active.  I would hate for us to be hasty and just throw all that away.  That being said, I would be OK with moving the talk page, just not redirecting it to USRD. –Fredddie™ 18:53, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

A national discussion affecting this state TF
Please contribute over at WT:USRD where a discussion has been started about the 2012 update to the county road pentagon markers. Since some counties in Minnesota use this style marker, input from Minnesota editors would be valuable.  Imzadi 1979  →   12:09, 14 March 2012 (UTC)