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Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Assessment/A-Class review/Baltimore–Washington Parkway

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The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Promoted - 4 substantial supports, no outstanding objections. --Rschen7754 (T C) 02:37, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Baltimore–Washington Parkway edit

Baltimore–Washington Parkway (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) review

Suggestion: Promote to A-Class
Nominator's comments: I have worked on getting this article to GA and feel it has the potential to go farther. It has a lot of information and broadly covers the topic.
Nominated by: Dough4872 (talk) 01:56, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
First comment occurred: 03:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Resolved issues from Dave (talk) 02:53, 5 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Dave Currently I must oppose this nomination, has prose issues and MOS violations (mostly overbolding). However is fixable.

  • Lead
    • Fix the double period in D.C..
    • The (36 CFR 7.96 (f )(1)) needs explanation, and is probably better suited for a footnote
      • That appears to be federal regulation banning commerical vehicles in park areas, A link to the text of that legislation is here. I have added a footnote. Dough4872 (talk) 01:10, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • On second though the separate footnote looks odd too. How about a source? I.E. use a cite law or cite web template and treat it like any other reference.Dave (talk) 03:16, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Past MD 175, the Maryland State Highway Administration takes over maintenance, the truck ban ends, and the MD 295 designation becomes signed." This needs work. Maybe, after leaving park service boundaries the highway, now under state control, is signed with the 295 designation?
    • Unbold the street names, unless these are formal re-directs
    • "suburban growth in both Washington and Baltimore facilitated by the parkway took place." another awkward phrase.
    • three back to back sentences about the "state maintained portion" I think after explaining the road has 3 segments you can abbreviate with state portion or signed portion
  • Route description
    • "parkway sees" the parkway has eyes? (this is in multiple places)
      • I couldn't think of another appropriate word, will leave it that way for now as we need to have a discussion at WT:USRD concering the AADT in response to your comment below. Dough4872 (talk) 01:10, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • I have decided to remove the traffic counts per the discussion, so this is no longer an issue. Dough4872 (talk) 00:40, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Now maintained by the NPS" implies this is a new development and this section was maintained by someone else before, maybe, "The portion between the Tuxedo interchange and XXX is federally maintained, by the NPS" or something...
    • "is signed with standard MUTCD green signage, and is the only one to feature such signage" redundant, how about "this intersection is the the only place where the park service has used green MUTCD compliant signage."
    • immediately interchanging
    • which patrol this the portion of the parkway maintained by the NPS
    • employee-only access road into the
    • beyond this interchange, the route then enters
      • Changed, even though "then" shouldn't really be used in route description. Dough4872 (talk) 01:10, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Maryland Route 295 gains signage begins
    • "with no truck ban" this sounds wierd, maybe, where the truck ban ends, or maybe beginning here trucks are permitted.
    • Source for dumbell interchanges are rare. There's one less than 3 miles from my house, and IIRC there's a few in Arizona and Colorado.
      • Someone else added that in during the GA review, I have removed sentence as they do not seem that rare. Dough4872 (talk) 01:10, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • eventually interchanging with -> "reaching" maybe?
  • Route description (round 2) feedback
    • "with the median widening to include trees" sounds kinda odd, maybe "with a wide, tree-filled median"?
    • Need to spell out first instance of MUTCD; might sound better written as "signs compliant with the Manual on Unifo....."
    • I'd work on replacing some instances of interchange, although it's split up between using the noun and verb form, I'd still suggest using synonyms in some places, like crosses, joins, intersects, or exit for freeway portions.
  • History feedback
    • "The early days" sounds kinda unprofessional, maybe "planning" or "plans" or "early proposals"
    • "start construction designs" -> "design" or maybe "architect"
    • "proposed Anacostia Freeway" will leave people hanging. Need to either link to the Article (if it exists) or provide some context, such as "Anacostia Freeway, which would have run from X to Y".
    • "acquired at the same _____? as Greenbelt Park" missing a word, "time" maybe?
    • direct predecessor
    • "Even though the 1970 Federal Highway Act's provided" That doesn't make sense, is the apostrophe in error?
    • "this came to naught and trucks were eventually banned from the parkway again" re-word.
    • Is is really notable that the official name changed back an forth between "parkway" and "expressway"? Where I've lived the two words are used interchangeably. For example, it wouldn't be unheard of to see both used at the same time by competing map companies.
      • I mentioned it because I felt the old maps I have show labeling the NPS portion as "parkway" and the state-maintained portion as "expressway" showed how the different segements had different names in the past (As opposed to today, where the whole road is known as "parkway")
    • "the Federal Highway Consturction" ?
    • Prince George's County and National Mental Health Study Center should be wikilinked.
      • Wikilinked both, even though the latter does not have an article. Dough4872 (talk) 16:32, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I doubt Board of Commissioners should be capitalized, but might want to ask someone else.
      • I belive it should be capitalized because it is a formal title. Dough4872 (talk) 16:32, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Major events -> IMO Incidents sounds better. If it ain't major, it shouldn't be listed=-)
    • There IS and article for BWI, just need to search for the correct title.
  • Exit list feedback
    • This is redundant "MD 295 changes jurisdiction from National Park Service to MDSHA and gains signage northbound; changes jurdistriction from MDSHA to National Park Service and loses signage southbound" NPS/MDSHA jurisdictional boundary is sufficient. Same for second mention
      • TMF suggested that I make it that way to make the exit list bi-directional. I suppose your idea would work just as well. Dough4872 (talk) 16:32, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • General Feedback
    • I'm not a fan of the turn-by-turn description, I find it dry and redundant to a map. I prefer feature and context description. There is some of this in the article, IMO more of the turn-by-turn should be converted to context, especially given that one of the images used is a "places of interest" promotional map.
      • Would it help if I added more about local attractions that can be accessed from exits? Dough4872 (talk) 01:10, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Yeah, IMO the points of interest in the map should at least be mentioned in the Route description. Although this is not as big of an issue with the improvements made to the Route description section.
    • With so much of the route description focusing on AADT (BTW, the term is never explained or linked) maybe move to a table? Just a thought.
      • That is always a consideration. I have written many Maryland route articles that have traffic counts in the route description. I can start a discussion at WT:USRD to see if we should have tables for traffic counts. Dough4872 (talk) 01:10, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Per the discussion, I have decided to remove the traffic counts as it is unnessecary to list them for every junction. Dough4872 (talk) 00:40, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • IMO it reads better now. Maybe a single mention of the highest AADT number (i.e. the parkway carries up to XXXXX vehicles per day) would be good, but it was overkill IMO.

PARTIAL REVIEW I'll finish later, need to take a break.Dave (talk) 03:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have replied to the above comments. Dough4872 (talk) 01:10, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't forgotten about this. I had some stuff come up that has cut into my wikitime. Things will be back to normal in a day or two and I'll get back to this.Dave (talk) 05:02, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have finished the review. Please accept my apologies for putting this on the back-burner. It's a long story, but suffice it to say it's not been a good week.Dave (talk) 02:48, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support My major issues resolved, although I do have some minor ones. For the record I do now think the footnote should be converted to a source, but not that big of deal. Also, be sure the source actually says this is the first sign to be MUTCD compliant. Although I think it's obvious to anybody with an IQ over 40, I'm getting raked over the coals for OR in a different forum, and so probably should be ok this is on the right side of that line.Dave (talk) 02:53, 5 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved issues from – TMF 07:02, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Review from TMF
  • "This portion of the parkway, which is dedicated to Gladys Noon Spellman, a representative of Maryland's 5th congressional district has the hidden Maryland Route 295 designation. Commercial vehicles, including trucks, are prohibited within this stretch." - I'd drop the ", which" and add ", and" after "district". I also noticed that the second sentence has a reference. Is this because the information isn't in the article body?
    • Fixed. As for the reference, it is actually a footnote that Dave suggested I add. Dough4872 (talk) 17:33, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "After leaving park service boundaries the highway, now under state control, is signed with the MD 295 designation." - this sentence is somewhat choppy. I'd try to reword it so that there isn't a need for three clauses, if you will.
  • "Upon entering Baltimore, the Baltimore Department of Transportation maintains the parkway and it continues north to an interchange with I-95, where the Baltimore–Washington Parkway ends and MD 295 continues north unsigned on Russell Street, which carries the route north into downtown Baltimore" - I have a couple of issues with this sentence. The first is that it seems to run-on too long; it can be split easily at the I-95 interchange. Also, I'm not a fan of the how the first part of the sentence is worded (...maintains the parkway and it continues...).
  • "the entire road is today known as MD 295, despite only being signed on the state portion." - this is admittedly a bit of nitpicking, but if the NPS section of MD 295 is unsigned, I doubt it is "known" to the commuting public as MD 295. "Designated" is probably a better choice of words.
  • Does the Maryland SHA have a document that encompasses the entire state and not just by county? Perhaps I'm spoiled by the NYSDOT traffic volume report, but one mileage reference looks cleaner than four.
  • Several "B-W"s in the route description and history have hyphens instead of en dashes.
  • Per WP:MOSBOLD, bolding should not be used at all outside of the lead.
  • "...passing to the west of M&T Bank Stadium, where the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League plays" - should be "play".
  • "west of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, which is home to Major League Baseball 's Baltimore Orioles, as a four-lane divided street." - drop the "which is" and remove the space between Baseball and the apostrophe. If the space was added so that there wouldn't be two consecutive wikilinks, then that sentence needs to be reworded as adding a random space doesn't look good in the eyes of the reader.
  • "Immediately after Camden Yards, at the intersection with Washington Boulevard, MD 295 splits into a one-way pair with northbound traffic following Paca Street and southbound traffic following Greene Street." - I'd move the "at...Boulevard" to after "pair".
  • "north of Pratt Street; thr Heiser, Rosenfeld" - the?
    • Oops, spelling error I must have missed. Fixed. Dough4872 (talk) 17:33, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Spiraling accident levels on US 1, which was called one of the deadliest roads in the world at the time, combined with awareness of the need to mobilize national defense before World War II, provided additional motivation for construction of the parkway." - this is a bit choppy. When there's this many sections to a sentence, it sometimes loses its flow.
  • "Federal Bureau of Public Roads" should probably be just "Bureau of Public Roads" - the source likely just added "federal" to indicate what level of government the agency belonged to.
  • "with plans for a further parkway (now the John Hanson Highway)" - the relevance of this to the B-W Parkway isn't quite clear.
  • "was begun in" --> "began in"
  • "with the NPS segment being started three years later in 1950" - highly awkward wording.
  • "The land for the portion that was to be built by the NPS was acquired at the same time the land for Greenbelt Park." - should be "at the same time as". And is Greenbelt Park another NPS entity? Being from New York and having little knowledge of Maryland outside of the I-95 and I-83 corridors, I have no idea what it is, where it is, or how notable it is.
    • Changed. Also clarified that Greenbelt Park is owned by NPS. Dough4872 (talk) 17:33, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Despite this setback, however, plans still existed to widen the parkway to six or even eight lanes, but despite the 1970 Federal Highway Act's appropriation of $65 million (equivalent to $366 million in 2009)[22] for this purpose, funding was insufficient to execute these projects" - another run-on sentence; I'd try to split this into two.
  • Any idea when the NPS section was named for Congresswoman Spellman?
  • The "Modernization" section may be too short to warrant its own subsection.
  • "In 1989, an overpass being built at Maryland Route 198 over the B–W Parkway just east of Laurel, collapsed during rush hour, injuring fourteen motorists and construction workers." - I'd remove the comma after Laurel.
  • "...widen portions of MD 295 near Baltimore-Washington International Airport." - BWI should have an en dash and be wikilinked.
  • "expected to be completed in the later part of 2011" - maybe just "late 2011"?
  • "The widening will make use of the median, with the extra travel lanes added to the inside of each carriageway." - I'd try to reword this a bit, maybe like "The widening will make use of the median as the extra travel lanes will be added to the inside of each carriageway."
  • "In addition, MD 295 is planned to be widened to six lanes between MD 100 and I-195 and a new interchange is planned to be constructed at Hanover Road, the type of which has not yet been decided upon with choices including a diamond interchange, a single-point urban interchange, and a modified cloverleaf interchange." - another run-on.
  • "The project, costing $24 million, is still in the planning stages, which is expected to conclude in 2011" - I'd simplify this a lot - "The $24 million project is still in the planning stages and is expected to conclude in 2011."
  • The hyphens used to separate the local road names from the destinations in the exit list need to be changed to en dashes for consistency with the {{jct}} output.
  • The entire exit list is uni-directional, as all of the notes relate to the northbound direction only. I'd reword the colspanning rows to be bi-directional; see New York State Route 481 or the Lake Ontario State Parkway.
  • Non-breaking spaces need to be added throughout the article. – TMF 03:12, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Contrary to the reply above, from what I could tell no non-breaking spaces were added. However, I just added them as part of some touch-up tweaks so it's a moot issue. The article looks good; however, like Dave said, the items relating to signage in the route description ("containing brown signs featuring the Clarendon typeface.", "This interchange is the the only place where the park service has used green signs compliant with the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD).") need to be explicitly supported by the cited sources to get to FA, and they don't appear to be supported by the cited sources at all, which looks to be just the HLR and Google Maps. I'd also look at some more sub-section consolidation in the history; I've been told FA isn't fond of third or lower level sections containing just one paragraph. On the other hand, it may have no backing in the MOS so it may not be an issue. All of that said, the article looks good enough to me for now. Support. – TMF 07:02, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments - "Tuxedo Interchange" - shouldn't the i be lowercase?
    • It's the proper name of the interchange. ---Dough4872 17:18, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Commercial vehicles thing - you mention it in the lead and cite it; that's redundant since you mention it in the RD and cite it there.
      • Removed citation from lead. ---Dough4872 17:18, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The U.S. Park Police, which patrol this portion of the parkway, is located off this exit along MD 193 - the headquarters? Be more specific.
    • At the northern edge of the town, the route has employee-only access to the Goddard Space Flight Center ,the first NASA space flight center opened in 1958 that contributed majorly to many space missions; - misplaced space
      • Fixed spacing of comma. ---Dough4872 17:18, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Continuing northeast, the route curves to the northwest of Baltimore–Washington International Airport (the largest airport in Maryland), passing near an industrial park and entering woodland again, reaching Interstate 195, the main access road to the airport. - woodland? I would almost cut that out.
      • Removed mention of woodland. ---Dough4872 17:18, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Upon crossing into Baltimore County, MD 295 reaches a partial interchange with Interstate 895 (Harbor Tunnel Thruway), with access from northbound MD 295 to northbound I-895 and from southbound I-895 to southbound MD 295.[3][5] Past I-895, the road continues through wooded surrounding with residential developments behind the trees, before entering the city of Baltimore.[3][5] - cut out redundant cites
      • Removed first set of citations from phrase. ---Dough4872 17:18, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Spiraling accident levels on US 1 ... pick another word.
      • Changed to "increasing". ---Dough4872 17:18, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Capitalize one-way in jct list notes
    • Jct list - random rowspan in the notes column --Rschen7754 (T C) 08:01, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fixed. ---Dough4872 17:18, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Thanks for the review, I have replied to the above changes. ---Dough4872 17:18, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Interchange and junction, with respect to roads, are nouns. Interchange, as a verb, means to freely change back and forth or alternate. Junction simply is not a verb. This is a minor issue, yes; but, I see these words used incorrectly often in your writing. --Fredddie™ 06:56, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have fixed this in the route description. ---Dough4872 14:53, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I have no qualms with intersect, so you changed that one unnecessarily. Nevertheless, Support. --Fredddie™ 00:13, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
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