Talk:U.S. Route 15 in Maryland/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Imzadi 1979 → 13:50, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   Overall, the writing is good, but there are some specific comments below, broken down by section.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   All references are RSs, but I have some formatting suggestions below.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   See below, but for a 37-mile highway, the RD is a bit dense with information.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   The map in the infobox really needs a caption to help geographically locate it for readers not familiar with the area.

   Caption added.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   I'll hold the article pending resolution of the concerns and issues below. Imzadi 1979 → 13:50, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

   Thank you for your review, Imzadi1979. I have addressed your concerns and made some updates to the article.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Lead

• "U.S. highway" → "U.S. Highway" throughout the article, as the former usage means any highway in the U.S. while the latter is specific to a component of the United States Numbered Highway System. As a second though, consider dropping the periods from U.S. per the recent updates to the MOS based on the current editing of the Chicago Manual of Style, which would also produce a better consistency with the US 15 abbreviation.
  • The AP Stylebook suggests using U.S. for United States. However, AP also suggests using U.S. Route 15 and U.S. 15 with periods. Since there is no consensus and (as far as I know) the MOS does not have a guideline, I am going to leave the periods as is. I will revise references to "U.S. Highway" after I finish making changes to sentences, paragraphs, and use of route/highway/state highway/etc.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
    • The MOS is advising US over U.S. now. It has always advised US when also using UK, because the US is the last English-speaking country still using the periods in abbreviations like we do. Now that CMOS has switched, the MOS is advising to follow that switch. Imzadi 1979 → 01:30, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
      • I am going to leave U.S. with the periods in "U.S. Highway" to maintain consistency with the article title.  VC  20:14, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
• I would change some of the "U.S. Highway" references to just "highway", "road", "roadway", or similar for variety as well throughout the article. In fact, I'd only repeat the "US" part when needed to differentiate from a highway of another type/classification.
  • I changed all instances of U.S. highway to U.S. Highway, and increased the diversity of references to the highway.  VC  20:14, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
• "When US 15 was assigned in 1927" I thought it was assigned in 1926 according to the infobox.
  • I updated the infobox entry to 1927 to match the History mini-lead.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
• "The modern Point of Rocks Bridge was built in the late 1930s after its predecessor was destroyed in a flood. After the Frederick Freeway was constructed in the 1950s, US 15 was placed onto the freeway; the old route of US 15 through downtown Frederick became part of Maryland Route 355 (MD 355)." Two usages of the word "after" in short succession. Which is only made worse by the next sentence:
• "After US 15's present highway between Point of Rocks and Jefferson was constructed, the highway was rerouted south of Frederick, to be replaced with MD 28 and MD 85." Change the first "highway" to "routing" or "alignment" for variety?
  • I rewrote the above sentences: "The modern Point of Rocks Bridge was built in the late 1930s after its predecessor was destroyed in a flood. The Frederick Freeway was constructed in the 1950s. US 15 was relocated to part of the freeway; the old route of the U.S. Highway through downtown Frederick became part of Maryland Route 355 (MD 355). US 15's present highway between Point of Rocks and Jefferson was constructed in the late 1960s; the old road south of Frederick was replaced with MD 28 and MD 85." I will make changes to highway/routing/alignment for variety later when I improve variety throughout the article.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Route description

• Based on [1], the various memorial names have redirects, so they should be listed in boldface text at least once. (The preference in the MOS is to restrict that to the lead, but in this case, I'd leave them in your RD mini-lead.) Catoctin Mountain Scenic Byway redirects here, for instance, so it should be in bold, if not added to the infobox using the |tourist=Catoctin Mountain Scenic Byway (I wouldn't add the others to the infobox.)
  • I bolded Catoctin Mountain Highway and Catoctin Mountain Scenic Byway. The infantry regiment name does not redirect here, so I left it standard. I left Frederick Freeway standard because while it redirects here, but it should not because parts of the freeway are not US 15.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
• "The two highways have a diamond interchange with Mt. Zion Road; access from northbound US 15 to westbound US 340 and from eastbound US 340 to southbound US 15 is provided through performing a U-turn at this interchange." I'm confused; I thought US 15 and US 340 were concurrent here.
  • US 15 and US 340 are concurrent at the Mt. Zion interchange. However, since the US 15–US 340 interchange is partial, signs direct motorists to U-turn at Mt. Zion Road. I will look into rewriting those sentences to remove the confusion.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
    • I removed the part of the sentence after the semicolon. Instead, I explained which movements are missing from the US 15-US 340 interchange at the end of the previous paragraph.  VC  05:25, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
• "The highway's partial interchange with I-70 (Eisenhower Memorial Highway) features ramps from eastbound I-70 to both directions of US 15 and US 340, a ramp from westbound I-70 to southbound US 15 and US 340, and a ramp from northbound US 15 and US 340 to eastbound I-70 for access to southbound I-270 just to the east." Could this be simplified to what movement(s) is/are missing from the interchange? Sorry, but that's a TL;DR description.
  • I mention four ramps here; there are four missing movements. Doing this the other way would not cut down the description much. However, I will take another look and see if I can cut it down.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
• Honestly, a lot of the RD reads very densely because it's a bit overpacked with details in places. I'd look at trimming some of the details out of the RD in places to refocus it a bit more on US 15 itself, and a bit less on the intersecting roads. By the time I hit the third subsection, my eyes were glazing over.
  • I will go through the Route description and look for things to cut down or rewrite. I am trying to strike a balance here between being engaging and not going into too much detail. In the first paragraph of the "Frederick to Thurmont" section, I am very detailed because US 15 is the closest state highway to all of the attractions; none of the streets are state highways or otherwise notable. Likewise, there is no other state highway that passes through the campus of Mount St. Mary's University.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
    • I understand that struggle, but in some ways, it's pushing to the side of being a travel guide. The stuff on the university is fine, because it summarizes what's visible from the subject roadway; some of the rest is excessive because reads as if it's miles off the subject road. Imzadi 1979 → 01:30, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
      • I cut down on the far-off-highway sites parts of the Route description.  VC  01:30, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
• I don't know if every interchange needs to be mentioned in the RD when they're all listed in the junction list.
  • I do not think mentioning ten to fifteen interchanges in the Route description is excessive, especially when some readers are not going to look at the Junction list.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
    • In contrast, I think I mentioned about the same number in the US 131 article, for a highway almost 10 times the length. Imzadi 1979 → 01:30, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
      • I still mention every interchange, but I removed a lot of the ramp details. In most cases, I stick to the intersection road and the interchange type.  VC  01:30, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

History

• MDSRC should be added after the full name so it's not as confusing the first time it's used.
  • Done.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
• The third paragraph of the Original construction subsection ends at 1933, but the fourth jumps backwards into the 1920s. Can you revise this to keep the prose in chronological order?
  • I will look into this again, but first I provide my rationale. I organized the paragraphs by turnpike era, original construction as a state highway, and improvements to the state highways. I thought it was more important to lay out the chronology of US 15's original construction south of Frederick to its completion in 1933, since the highway was built in chronological order from north to south, instead of jumping around geographically.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
    • I rearranged the Original construction subsection to integrate the fourth paragraph into the second and third paragraphs, which removes the chronological issues.  VC  01:30, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
• "The original interchange between the Frederick Freeway and Washington National Pike comprised two ramps between the north–south and east–west portions of the Frederick Freeway." I think there's a word or two missing in there, either way "comprised" in that usage sounds... off... to me.
  • I changed "comprised" to "included".  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
• Once again, I'm not sure that a listing of every interchange built is necessary since it can be assumed that the interchanges from the junction list were build along with the rest of the corresponding freeway segments. Now, if one was later substantially changed, I'd list its original configuration.
  • Are you referring to the following sentence? "The freeway north of Patrick Street featured interchanges with Rosemont Avenue, Motter Avenue, and a westward extension of MD 26." I understand your concern here, but there are two complications: one of the interchanges was built several years later, and I think it is important to mention MD 26 was extended west related to the freeway being built. Do you have any suggestions on a happy medium?  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
• Ok, another jarring moment when I got to the end of the "Relocation through Frederick" section with events from 2004, and then jump backwards to the 1950s.
  • I will try to reorganize the sections to reduce the chronological cliff.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
    • I moved the Frederick details from the 1990s on to the last subsection of the History. There is still a 20-year gap going from the Frederick relocation subsection to the Bypasses north of Frederick subsection, but I felt geographic continuity remained more important than chronological order.  VC  01:30, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
• In the "Future projects" section, MDSHA should be placed after the full name so that it too is not confusing when repeated as an abbreviation later.
  • Done.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
• "The new bridge will carry four through traffic lanes, a continuous left turn lane for traffic turning left onto either entrance ramp to US 15, a dedicated merge lane northbound, and full sidewalks on both sides." Since the new bridge configuration being described is not for US 15, I'd summarize the level of detail down a bit.
  • I rewrote the sentence to remove unnecessary detail. I also removed the last sentence in the paragraph.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
• You might want to link "right-of-way" to right-of-way (transportation).
  • Done.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Bannered route

• Since there is only one, and "bannered route" is arguably a neologism, I'd rename the section and combine the header with "Emmitsburg business route". Option two would be to combine "Auxiliary routes" with "Bannered route" as "Related routes" with "Emmitsburg business route" and "Auxiliary routes" as the subsections.
  • I combined the two groups of routes under a Related routes header.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
• If the business route is not signed, why is there a marker graphic in the infobox? Since there's a main tag for a separate article, the infobox could be pulled completely.
  • I removed the small infobox.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
• The text says the business route is "2.34 miles" but the infobox says 4.16 miles. Which one is correct?
  • Since the small infobox is gone, so is the discrepancy. The former figure is correct.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

References

• Fn 12, etc should have the hyphens replaced with an en dash in between the years in the volume number. (You might consider moving the years out of the volume field and putting them into the edition field, which would get them unbolded and make that more consistent with the maps' formatting.)
  • I replaced the hyphens with en dashes in the year-based volume numbers. I did not have a problem with bolded year volume numbers at FAC, so I am going to leave them as is.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
    • SandyGeorgia did question them, and frankly, it is a non standard formatting. Volumes in journal citations are in bold, but I've never found any style guide that bolds them for books, which is why she and I question the formatting. Imzadi 1979 → 01:30, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
      • I switched the volume numbers from the volume parameter to the edition parameter to remove the bold in the state highway report references.  VC  01:54, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
• Here's my obligatory comment against using ISO-style dates, especially when fn 13 contains a full date in the source's title. Fn 22 should have "January 1927" changed to "1927-01" if you're going to use ISO-style dating.
  • We continue to agree to disagree on ISO dates. I did not have a problem with them at my FAC once I resolved consistency issues, so I am going to leave them as is. I changed Fn 22 and the other three references with month-year to ISO for consistency.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
• I'm going to have to ask you if the all of the maps really lack grid references, because if any have them, they should be added.
  • I will add grid references to the maps shortly. Some of the maps do not have them.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
    • Grid references added for the maps that have them.  VC  05:25, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
• The NBI links have all gone dead with that website's recent revamp. While you're updating them, the revised website has 2010 data from the FHWA, and FHWA should be indicated as the publisher.
  • I changed the specific NBI link URLs with generic links to the front page. I understand FHWA compiled the national set of data (after soliciting it from the states) on their website. However, should FHWA be mentioned as the publisher if the linked website is not FHWA but presents FHWA data?  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
    • Yeah, they should. We still list the Bureau of Public Roads as the pulisher of the November 11, 1926, USNHS map even if the map is hosted on Commons or a state DOT website. Google might physically host an electronic copy of a book, but they aren't the publisher. In each case, we have republishers, and they need not be mentioned at all unless they substantially alter the content. Imzadi 1979 → 01:30, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
      • I added FHWA to the NBI references.  VC  03:59, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
• Fn 68–70 should have the ALLCAPS reduced to Title Case or Sentence case.
  • I changed the titles in the references to Title Case.  VC  22:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

External links

• The first link looks like an e-mail address with the "@" in use.
  • I changed the link text to dispense with the @.  VC  05:25, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Everything looks good, so it's time to pass the article. Imzadi 1979 → 06:14, 24 May 2011 (UTC)