Talk:Causeway Street elevated

Maps please

A map would make this article much clearer. Perhaps modify the map from the Tremont Subway page? Theblindsage (talk) 06:23, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Reliable sources?

FYI, for those that ride the T regularly, subjective statements in the Boston Globe regarding the effects of service changes and improvement projects usually fail to reflect reality. In fact, the preponderance of articles like the one cited are just paraphrased MBTA press releases; rarely are counterpoints mentioned, much less investigated. Thus, a Globe article may be a reliable source for technical details or costs of a project, but is pretty unreliable when used to estimate quality of service. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.203.143.163 (talk) 04:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Remember, Verifiability, not truth. Unless you can provide a reliable source discussing the quality of service, we have to go with what this one says.--Loodog (talk) 15:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't mean to be taking this so personally, Loodog. Really, I know it's not that big a deal, especially in the context of such a minor article. It is just extremely frustrating to see Wikipedia reflect information that anybody who rides the Green Line between Lechmere and downtown on a daily basis KNOWS to be untrue.

Daniel Grabauskas and MBTA management certainly don't ride it. Nor do the Globe staff, who are famously car-commuting despite being pro-transit on their editorial page.

That said, I must yet again remove your inaccurate interpretation of the text of the Globe article, which clearly talks about improved track speeds on the Lechmere Viaduct but NOT in the replacement tunnel for the Causeway elevated:

"...the extension now continues above ground, up over Leverett Circle to Science Park station via what is now the steepest grade of tracks in the T system. FROM THERE [i.e. after Science Park station (emphasis mine)], new track and signal systems will offer a faster ride to Lechmere, with a posted speed limit of 20 miles per hour. Before the line was shut down for repairs, deteriorating track kept speeds on THAT SECTION [emphasis mine] of the line down to 6 to 15 miles per hour..."

P.S. Serious question, Loodog... What is one to do when the only three sources that might meet heightened "reliability" standards (in this case, the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, and official statements from the MBTA) are quite ignorant of the matter at hand (or in the case of the T, quite disingenuous)?

Oh, I see what you mean. I hadn't realized I was misreading it. Still, the bit about freeing up land and lowering ambient noise is pretty uncontroversial.

With regard to your question about sources, that's one of the imperfections of wikipedia. It's more important on the wikipedia model to having verifiable information/opinions from published sources than to have true information. Then again, if we throw that out, we're got an encyclopedia ruled by truthiness.--Loodog (talk) 20:35, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Whoops, I didn't mean to delete the latter (uncontroversial) part of the paragraph. And sorry for the general tone of frustration. The minutiae of public transit operations can seem very personal when one is reliant on the end result. Unfortunately, as disingenuous as the T is, the handful of "anti-T blogs" so frequently misinterpret information that I would be hesitant to cite them even when they represent a consensus counterpoint. There is simply NO reliable source on current MBTA issues that has done its homework.

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Requested move 25 December 2019

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. 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.

Moved as proposed. This is a very close case, but the fact that any significant number of lowercase uses exists at all shows that this is a permissible title, and consensus favors the change. BD2412 T 14:45, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Causeway Street Elevated → Causeway Street elevated – "Elevated" is a generic descriptor, not part of a proper name, as you can see by the fact that sources often use lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 05:43, 25 December 2019 (UTC) —Relisting. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 16:45, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose: That link is a wholly unrepresentative sample. Several trivial mentions, and a pair of 1930s magazines. Sources that actually discuss the Causeway Street Elevated in detail - notably the trio of Tremont Street Subway: A Century of Public Service (1997), Streetcar Lines of the Hub - The 1940s (2003), and Boston's MTA: Through Riverside and Beyond (2015) which are the gold-standard references about all Green Line topics - treat it as a proper noun with Elevated capitalized. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:03, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

  My link to 20th-century book usages is less representative than what? Modern overspecialized railfan histories? Dicklyon (talk) 04:09, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

  Yes, precisely. Per WP:TITLE, page names should be based on what is used in reliable sources; per WP:RSCONTEXT, tangential mentions in unrelated publications are not always reliable. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 02:43, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

• Support—consistent with the Rail Wikiproject's general approach (no "S" for "station", etc). It's just a portion of track, for heaven's sake. Tony (talk) 04:11, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

  The station naming conventions have been made specifically because there is no consistency in sources. That's not the case for railway lines (and other infrastructure like tunnels) - since midcentury, standard American (but not British) usage has been to treat them as proper nouns, which WP Trains follows per WP:ENGVAR. See Category:CSX Transportation lines for an example. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 02:43, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

  Are you saying that "Causeway Street Elevated" was capped thus from mid twentieth century? I'm not finding it. Dicklyon (talk) 03:04, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

• Support. Sources are not consistent in using "Elevated", so per MOS:CAPS WP does not apply the unnecessary capitalization. This is a descriptive phrase for a section of track; it is not a proper name of a transit system. Pi.1415926535's WP:SSF argument is completely unconvincing. Dicklyon is correct that WP cares about what independent and secondary sources with reputable publishers do, far more than we care about the mostly primary-source (and often user-generated or self-published) railfandom material is doing. Tony1 is correct that using "elevated" is more WP:CONSISTENT with the rest of the rail- and other transit-related article names (station, stop, line, etc., etc. - we're not capitalizing in them except where a proper name (like "Causeway Street" occurs). Pi.1415926535's "American (but not British)" claim is simply an additional reason to lowercase this, since that editor's argument can be distilled to "be inCONSISTENT on purpose, just to reflect unproven regional preferences that aren't even going to show up except in specialized railfan lit anyway". No thanks. MOS:ENGVAR doesn't work that way; it only applies, against MOS:COMMONALITY, when the difference is effectively universal within a national-level dialect of English, as with the colour/color split. PS: It's unclear why English wants to treat roadway names, en toto, as proper names (instead of, say, "Causeway street" with lower-case s), but it does, and every style guide says so. It's not WP's place to decide that we "should" be doing something similar with railway segments or anything else not consistently capitalized in the RS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:57, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
• Move to Causeway Street elevated railroad or something similar to that. While I agree that this isn't a proper noun, it doesn't make sense as a descriptive title to just call it an "elevated". That's an adjective, not a noun. It must be an elevated something. Other options might be track, rail, railway, section etc. but I assume being the US, that "railroad" is the correct description, no?  — Amakuru (talk) 16:37, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

• "Elevated" can be a noun in American English. See wikt:elevated. Dekimasuよ! 16:39, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

  Oh, I see. I guess that's OK then. Happy to support the proposal then.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:32, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

  Well, Amakuru, but then "Elevated" is part of its proper name, and capitalized accordingly. See below. --В²C ☎ 22:51, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

  User:Born2cycle, We were told above that sources are mixed, and regularly lowercase it. That's the basis on which I said to move the article. Is that assertion not true?  — Amakuru (talk) 18:12, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

  If reliable sources lower case it doesn't that mean that its not part of the name? similar to Mercury being a planet but that not being part of the name so its put in brackets namely Mercury (planet). I know in England the stations are generally titled "Foo railway station" but shouldn't they actually either be "Foo Railway Station" or "Foo (railway station)"? I know commonly sources drop capitalization in text (similar to the Beatles and the Solent) but that's arguably no different than sources abbreviating Newcastle upon Tyne as just "Newcastle", they're abbreviating "The Beatles" as just "Beatles" hence the lower case. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:45, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

  • Amakuru, please see my comments below. Just because some/many sources lowercase in running text doesn't mean the proper name of the topic is not uppercase. I mean, why use a descriptive title (with elevated lowercase) when the full proper name is available as a title (with Elevated in caps)? --В²C ☎ 20:05, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

    User:Born2cycle well I haven't looked in full depth at this topic, but one thing I have noticed is that Google hits and Google books hits when you do an exact title search are generally extremely sparse for this topic. Those hits, and most of our references in the article itself don't use the term "Causeway Street Elevated" at all, capped or otherwise. They call the structure by other names. Furthermore, of those sources that do use the term, it's not really a "substantial majority" that render it in title case, which is the bar for MOS:CAPS. To be honest I think your initial comment below, which you've now struck out, hits the nail on the head. There isn't a proper name for this, there isn't any stand out contender for common name, so we should just call it what it is, which is an elevated structure (or indeed an "elevated", if that's really a thing over in the US) and leave it at that. Descriptive title. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 00:30, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. Most of the sources listed at the search results linked by the nom are for uses that also append "structure": "Causeway Street elevated structure". I'm not sure that either the current title or the proposed title is the appropriate one for this article. It's not clear that it has a name at all, and it may be most appropriate to just give it the descriptive title, Causeway Street elevated structure. --В²C ☎ 22:26, 14 January 2020 (UTC) see below. --В²C ☎ 22:50, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, okay I now see elevated means elevated railway (in American English), but then it becomes part of its (proper) name, like bridge is capitalized in Golden Gate Bridge. In sources that refer to this topic by name, ignoring those that refer to "Causeway Street elevated structure", they generally capitalize Elevated, as referenced in this 2013 book. So I see no reason to lowercase it. --В²C ☎ 22:50, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

  A 2013 book is likely to have been influenced by Wikipedia's overcapitalization. Here is a 1979 book that calls it the "Causeway Street elevated". There are more. And "Causeway Street elevated structure" is another descriptor that wouldn't have been used if "Causeway Street Elevated" was its proper name. Dicklyon (talk) 03:50, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

  Do you think the 1912 Boston Globe reference in the article which refers to the East Cambridge Elevated Extension was influenced by WP? Well, it's not incorrect to refer to the Golden Gate Bridge that way or as the Golden Gate bridge in running text, even though Golden Gate Bridge is its proper name. The same applies to this elevated. Even though its proper name is Causeway Street Elevated some understandably refer to it as Causeway Street elevated or as Causeway Street elevated structure (presumably because elevated is not commonly used in English). But, never-the-less, the proper name is Causeway Street Elevated, and the article title accurately reflects that, and should continue to do so. See also: Atlantic Avenue Elevated, Washington Street Elevated. --В²C ☎ 17:31, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

  Born2cycle, that "analysis" is linguistically ignorant. logically faulty in multiple ways, sources-defiant, guideline-ignoring, ignoring of the transit/transport projects' and conventions' own consistent page-naming patterns (and RM routinely applying them), and not taking into account much less addressing a single argument presented above. "Bridge" is an intrinsic noun in names of bridges, which are complete/discrete public works, and which also (in very particular) are by convention capitalized in full; go check any major style guide on that, such as The Chicago Manual of Style. But "elevated" is a descriptive adjective tacked on (in backwards bureaucratese, in a style that would normally have a comma in it, before that word, making it even clearer that it's an add-on descriptive label), to refer to a section of track not a discrete public work; and there is no reliable source anywhere laying out a convention for capitalizing such things, while many style guides (in general rules and principles, not in specifics about transport system segments, of course – it's too trivial and micro-specific for anyone to ever want to make a rule about) are clearly opposed to such overcapitalization (CMoS, New Hart's Rule's, Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English, Garner's Modern English, etc.), which is the reason our own style guide is also against capitalizing unless it is provably and near-universally conventional to capitalize something.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:08, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. 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.