Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vincent Zarrilli

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Keep, following no consensus. Topic is very thin, may be more notable culturally than as having to do with transportation infrastructure. Gwen Gale (talk) 04:52, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vincent Zarrilli

Vincent Zarrilli (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

this guy is not notable. he managed to get quoted by a boston newspaper, but nothing suggests that his boston bypass idea was even considered by mass highway Indexyears (talk)— Indexyears (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. 18:10, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Keep or Merge with the Big Dig (Boston, Massachusetts). There are 13 different articles cited, and The Boston Globe is definitely reliable source. Whether they considered his idea or not, he attained notability by being the guy behind the idea. Beeblbrox (talk) 22:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Merge: with the Big Dig. God, I remember those "Back the B.B" signs - they were hand-stenciled and nailed up to poles adjacent to highways in the Boston area for years, back in the day. That being said, Zarrilli was a lone wolf crank whose notion was considered by no one, and who got ink because the papers wanted to know who was responsible for the signs and what his deal was. To be honest, this ephemeral deal is the sort of thing WP:ONEEVENT was designed to address.  RGTraynor  02:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • let me go over some of these points: 1. 13 different articles about him. bear in mind that the time span is nearly 20 years. are we going to create articles for everyone who has gotten an inch in a local paper biannually? 2. just because he came up with an idea doesn't make him notable. in this context, anyone can draw a line across the map and declare it to be their idea for a road. luckily for him, he was loud enough on what was then an issue already getting a lot of press (big dig) that some reporter interviewed him. are we going to start articles for everyone who has been quoted in the globe saying bad things about the big dig? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Indexyears (talk • contribs) 18:19, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Merge - Merge the part about the Boston Bypass. RGTraynor explained this issue very nicely, Vincent Zarrilli is really not notable. ⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 20:56, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, PeterSymonds (talk) 11:11, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep -- WP:VER says "verifiability, not truth". Whether or not any of us personally consider him a "crank" is neither here nor there. Verifiable, authoritative links talk about him. So he satisfies the criteria for inclusion. Note, over half of a recent Washington Post article is devoted to Zarrilli. The Transport authority wrote him a letter, thanking him. The claims he is just a crank seem disrespectful to me. Maybe he has some form of OCD? But, if so, it didn't keep him from making a worthwhile contribution -- hence the letter. Geo Swan (talk) 01:42, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
There were 614 vehicle crashes in the O'Neill tunnel during a two-year period ending in February, compared to 28 crashes in the aging Callahan and Sumner tunnels, combined, during the same period, according to activist Vincent Zarrilli.
He obtained the accident data through a Freedom of Information Act request and shared his findings with The Associated Press.
The MTA has begun an evaluation of the accident data and the geometry of the highway and tunnel, authority chief of staff Stephen Collins wrote in a July 20 letter to Zarrilli...
The letter thanks Zarrilli for his "diligence and concern for public safety."
"I can assure you that public safety is of utmost concern to the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and that safety issues identified in the engineering analysis will be appropriately addressed by the Authority," he wrote.
Zarrilli, a longtime civic activist who once proposed an alternative project to the city's Big Dig project, which included construction of the O'Neill tunnel, said he wants to see the O'Neill tunnel speed limit reduced from 45 mph to 30 mph.
"They can erect signs before one enters the tunnel saying speed strictly enforced by video monitoring," he said in phone interview Monday. "If that signage were to take place the number of accidents per month would be reduced."
Zarrilli said he's pleased that state officials are taking his concerns seriously.
"I'll stay right on top of it," he said, referring to his frequent requests for public documents on accident data. "The public does deserve to know."
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.