Talk:Control city

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Suggestion for trivia or facts, Interstate 605 which runs from Duarte, CA to Seal Beach, CA has no Control city markers at all, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_605_%28California%29

Quite a few 3di's don't. It depends on the state. —Scott5114↗ 17:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

...and the 3di. Some spurs of I-80 in the San Francisco Bay Area have control cities, including San Francisco (I-280 and I-580) San José (I-280, I-680, and I-880), Oakland (I-880), and some places beyond the Bay Area (I-680 Sacramento, I-580 Stockton and even Fresno and Los Angeles, and I-880 to Santa Cruz) even if the Interstates don't go to those locations. Of course the San Francisco Bay Area has only one 2id. These are relatively long 3di Interstates.

Look also at I-135, I-335, and I-470 in Kansas; I-376 and I-476 in Pennsylvania; I-476 in Massachusetts; I-295 in Virginia; and I-275 in Florida and Michigan. These highways are either connectors, bypasses, and/or through-city routes. Pbrower2a (talk) 22:56, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

3rd reason for non-compliance?

The published standard is not always followed, either because major destinations have since appeared that were not on the original list, or because of state highway departments' hesitancy to sign destinations in other states.

Well, there's a third reason, sorta: Because one state is loathe to sign a relatively insignificant destination in another state when it could sign a much larger, more distant destination. I guess that technically falls under the second category, but it seems like it could be clarified a bit.

For example, on Interstate 80 in Cheyenne I remember seeing signs for Omaha instead of Sidney. This was in the 90s so may have changed,. (For a more recent version, see interstate-guide.com with photos of I-80 south of Salt Lake City with signs to Reno rather than Elko; likewise, Nevada fails to sign its own control city in Reno, instead returning the favor to "Salt Lake.") The point is, Wyoming wasn't resistant to signing Nebraska cities -- just small NE cities. Technically I guess "hesitancy to sign destinations in other states" means hesitancy to sign Sidney, which is in another state -- but so is Omaha, so what that statement is implying, that Wyoming would rather not sign a Nebraska destination, is untrue.

Get what I'm saying? We're not talking about CA's "other Desert Cities" instead of Phoenix here, although I grant that I may be drawing an inference that's not there. Cheers, PhilipR 05:54, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

references and notability

While I'm not disputing the term - definitions belong at Wiktionary. Who has written significantly about the concept of Control cities? Providing images of highway signs is just original research to back up the fact that the concept exists, but to have an article about the concept it has to be shown that the term is an accepted general term.Garrie 04:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

It is an official term that appears in the FHWA's Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. AASHTO produces a list of them, "List of Control Cities for Use in Guide Signs on Interstate Highways". It's not just a "general term", it is actually a very well-defined, officially regulated one.—Scott5114↗ 10:07, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Added the relevant quote from the MUTCD to the article. I believe that this should satisfy notability. —Scott5114↗ 11:02, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I suggest the excision of most of the list of 'small cities' as control cities. I added material on I-77 that would be relevant (two cities named "Charleston" in opposite directions). I-40 eastbound in California is missed, and it could be explained as having Albuquerque, the first really-large city east of Barstow, itself not a large city, is roughly a third of the distance across the US. Needles is by default the control city for eastbound I-40 in most of eastern California.

Towns at intersections of major highways are some of the smaller cities mentioned. I-10 in New Orleans could lead to either Mobile, Alabama on I-10 or Meridian, Mississippi on I-59. Lake City, Florida and Albert Lea, Minnesota are obvious places at which many travelers make changes of directions. Mount Vernon, Illinois is a control city because it divides traffic headed east from St. Louis toward Louisville from traffic headed southeast toward Nashville. Van Horn, Texas is relevant because I-10 east of El Paso separates into highways that lead to several large cities (San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth, and Dallas) that are themselves likely destinations for long-distance travelers and that anyone who goes to any of those places from El Paso goes through Van Horn.

Some of the smaller cities may be examples of state chauvinism. That said, is St. Cloud, Minnesota that much smaller than Fargo?

Start cutting. Explanations are better than lists even if they are original research. Pbrower2a (talk) 07:21, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Change

IIRC, when I-5 was completed along the west side of the San Joaquin Valley in California, the northbound control city on signage in the Los Angeles area remained Bakersfield for several years, although SR99 continues to Bakersfield and I-5 does not. This was eventually corrected.LorenzoB 02:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Mexico

Mexico has the irritating practice on the federal highways of posting only one control city, and that is the very next town in that direction, however small. They also fail to post cardinal directions. Frequent reference to a map is necessary. LorenzoB 02:54, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

You haven't been to France, I take it? There they very commonly don't display individual cities at all, instead just putting up generic signs for "all cities" (meaning the last set of control cities shown) and "other cities" (meaning all other cities not specifically shown). The kicker? They are commonly used together!

Meaning you coast along nicely when all of a sudden no city names are shown anywhere. Instead you're faced with the choice between "Toutes Directions" and "Autres Directions" (you didn't expect these signs to be in anything else than French, did you?). Take the first choice (toutes = all) if you want to go to the city or cities last displayed (you memorized these, right?). Take the second choice (autres = other) if you want to go to a city you remember NOT having previously been displayed (assuming of course that signposts never break or fall down...)

SIMPLE! :-) CapnZapp (talk) 10:11, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Europe

The discussion can't be complete with at least a "see also" to the article on the International E-road network. CapnZapp (talk) 09:45, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Globalize

Repeatedly in the non-US sections, the sections begin with "In NNN, the term control city isn't used... but the idea is the same".

This is a highly US-centric way to explain things.

Suggestions:

• At a minimum, restructure this article to say "Control cities is a concept used in the United States..." and remove content relating to other parts of the world (possibly collect links to relevant articles under a single "See Also" header, see for instance my talk note above on "Europe")
• A more thorough fix would be to first explain the general concept, liberally sprinkling with terms & examples also from outside the US, and then move almost the entire header down inside the section on the US.

The above does not mean I am opposed to collecting Wikipedia's knowledge about this concept at this "Control City" page. Like in so many other places, using a local (US/UK/AUS etc) term is fine simply because it was first. But currently, the page focuses on the US way to do things, with only half-assed attempts at internationalization. Thus the template.

Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 09:55, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Just noticed this. Your proposed revision was rather provincial and not well-thought-out---the original structure was correct. The term "control city" is used primarily by U.S. transportation engineers and is found hardly anywhere else. Only the U.S. actually has enough professional civil engineers specializing in roads to develop sophisticated vocabulary for describing such precise concepts. It is a gross distortion of the concept to pretend that it is anything but an American English term, though it can certainly be applied by analogy to similar signage in other countries. --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:43, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Protection level change

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