Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Texas State Highways/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Lists, Articles and Categories

Yes, I know there are already some lists and articles out there, and one of the categories is yet-to-be-built. I'll rassle that down later this evening. DavidBavousett 23:59, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Farm to Market infobox

I have put together an attempt at a infoxbox for Farm to Market Roads. The template is {{TxFMBox}}, and a sample can be seen at Texas Farm to Market Road 511. 25or6to4 09:46, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Excellent! 25or6to4, it's good to have you aboard. I've been out-of-pocket the last few days, but am hoping to get started on west Texas roads shortly. That template looks good, and consistent enough with {{TxRouteBox}} to work just fine. Have you looked at the discussion here about the FM generalities pages? Any thoughts on that, before I move ahead with it? DavidBavousett 14:38, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Hey thanks! I read over the post about the FM generalities and I think the direction you proposed will work good. The only thing I am wondering is the FM page vs. the RM page and which redirects to which. I have no preference either way, but think that both names should be designated in the first line of whichever page is used. I also made slight change to the template where you can designate whether it's a FtM or a RtM road (use FM or RM), and it should load the pictures properly. When the sign images were loaded, were any urban Road signs added? Are there any Urban Road signs? 25or6to4 03:38, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for making the RM template variant; there are 185 RMs and 3639 FMs in the TxDOT files; URs are locatable by selecting "any" road type, and using the number; you'll get the FM or RM and the UR. As I understand it, there aren't any UR signs; they just use the FM or RM sign. My thinking on the FM/RM page is that FM will be the main page, since there are more of them, and RM will redirect. The opening paragraph will be a quick, quick summary of the difference between the two. Basically, I'll swap the current information at Texas ranch to market road and the redirect to it currently at Texas farm to market road. The more-general term farm to market road (with a redirect from ranch to market road will speak generally about this type of road, with links to those states that have such systems, as the pages are cooked up. Make sense? (If it does, and you have the notion, go ahead and make that edit; thinks have been *nuts* around here.) Once we've got that all straightened out, I'd say let's start rassling down some roads! DavidBavousett 03:08, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Texas

Some articles covered by this WikiProject lack photographs. As part of a subcategorization of the requested photos category, there is now a category for Texas articles needing photos - to use it, just add {{reqphotoin|Texas}} to the article's talk page. I have only added a few articles to the category so far, but it would be an easy way to make an extensive list California-related articles lacking photos. I hope you find it useful! TheGrappler 05:28, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Concerning infoboxen

I propose a standard that seems to be the general consensus elsewhere concerning what roads to put in the infoboxen for state highways, in the interest of simplification:

List only highways of the same type, or of a "greater" type. In the Interstate Highways project, it seems that (for the most part) only intersections with other interstates are listed. In US highways, only intersections with other US highways, or interstates, are given. In Texas, that would mean that State Highway infoboxen would include other SHs, US Highways, or Interstates, and only FM/RMs would include other FM/RMs.

Does this make sense? Look at this version of SH 114, for a good reason why not to include lower-designated highways on the infoboxen. The current version of SH 36, while long as-is, would be very unweildy if all of the FMs that intersect it were listed! Any thoughts, from anyone? DavidBavousett 04:24, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with that with one exception, if a state highway ends at a farm to market road, the farm to market road should be included. --Holderca1 16:59, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I can buy that; the terminus of a road should be shown in every case; if a US highway ends at a state or FM, etc etc.. DavidBavousett 18:47, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Hey all. I also agree with the above. I'm now back from honeymoon, so I will peck away at a couple of these from time to time. I will also continue with new SH information, when I can get around to it.25or6to4 17:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Changed the infobox to point to the SVG shields rather than the PNG version. --Holderca1 17:05, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm thinking this change may need to wait. There are some svg images that haven't been made yet (see SH 101 for examples). I'll leave it up to you all if you want to temporarily change back or not, or finish/fix the rest of the svg's. 25or6to4 18:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
What exactly does it take to convert the images from png to svg. This is something that I have never done. What software is required? Is this software freeware? --Holderca1 14:21, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Another thing I would like to bring up regarding the infoboxes is the length. See Highway 6 for example. The infobox is roughly 4 times as long as the written text. I think it would be extremely difficult to write enough on Highway 6 to fill in all of that white space. I propose we move a lot of the detailed information from the infobox to the article. We can include all the counties, all the junctions in the main article, and just leave the major juctions in the infobox. Any thoughts? --Holderca1 14:34, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Here is a couple examples of the infobox I think we should use on the articles, you use the ssame template regardless of what type of highway it is, in the type field you put in either State, Loop, Spur, Farm, or Ranch. All the information that is not listed in these and listed in the infobox currently in use would be moved to the main article, that way the article itself will have more content then the infoboxes, the way it should be. --Holderca1 15:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


State Highway 151
Length: 10.7[1] mi (17.1 km)
Formed: 1984[1]
West end: Loop 1604 in San Antonio
Major
junctions:		 Interstate 410
East end: US 90 in San Antonio
Highways in Texas
< SH 150 SH 152 >


Farm to Market Road 294
Length: 38.2 mi (61.1 km)
Formed: 1945
North end: State Highway 152 in Skellytown
Major
junctions:		 Interstate 40 west of Groom
South end: US 287 in Goodnight
Highways in Texas
< FM 293 FM 295 >

Old Texas road signs

Hey all. Noticed on Google that there are a couple pictures of the original Texas Route markers, and that they don't look like the images that are being used on Wikipedia. Does anyone else have any other images of either? Here's the link to the image I found. [1] 25or6to4 01:10, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I've done a little hunting, and there doesn't seem to be any firm references one way or the other that I can locate as to the "official" outdated form of the sign; photographic evidence, however, looks pretty concrete to me; I don't see the Wikipedia form of the sign *anywhere*. Anyone up for the (mildly tedious) chore of putting up more-correct images, or have any useful bits of wisdom? (Do we even care?) DavidBavousett 02:20, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I found an image of the road sign we're using now. image: US 77 US 81 US 84 TX 67 business route.jpg

Here's my thought. The sign I originally found was the original road sign circa 1920s/30s or so. Checking the history and location of the highways in the above picture, the picture was taken in Waco. Checking the history link of the image, it was taken in November 1939. There's also a secondary picture on the original site that was also taken Nov 1939, that has the signs for SH 6 and SH 31. So it looks like we're looking at 3 different sign types for Texas now... 25or6to4 17:00, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposed article ideas

Please see State Highway 151 (Texas) for my proposed article ideas. Mainly the infobox and the proposed template at the bottom of the articles. --Holderca1 14:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Clean-up tag

If you come across an article that needs cleaned up or has a generic clean-up tag, put this on instead, will make it easier to find the articles pertaining to this project that need cleaned up.--Holderca1 14:03, 18 August 2006 (UTC) {{Cleanuptxsh}}

Template:Cleanuptxsh

Wikipedia:State route naming conventions poll/Part2

Your state is invited to participate in discussions for its highway naming convention. Please feel free to participate in this discussion. If you already have a convention that follows the State Name Type xx designation, it is possible to request an exemption as well. Thanks! --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 00:40, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, since the previous discussions regarding the Texas projects got lost in the huge amount of discussion on the poll discussion page, I'm going to put my thoughts here, to minimize my confusion a bit. When I originally started editing some of the highway pages for Texas, they were at P1. I had seen some of the page reverting in other states, and watched from afar. One day, the pages began to be shifted to P2 without discussion. I, just wanting to write articles and not truly caring how they were named, took a couple days off and returned to work on articles. I even shifted one article, just so knew that I could do it right and for consistency ONLY. Ever since then I've been typing in P2 style, because that's were all the articles lie. I watched the arbitration, watched the vote on principle 1, made my vote known on principle 2. I personally prefer the P1 style. I just as surprised that there has been nary a peep from the Texas project on this discussion. I felt that P1 had been agreed on, including the <Texas> provision, and was willing to start moving articles to the P1 style manually as soon as it was ratified. I just want something decided so I can start writing new articles again. I don't know what else to say. This is my thoughts and my thoughts only, I needed to let my semi-frustrations out. 25or6to4 03:39, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
No kidding, I just this all to be over with. I don't care where the articles are but it appears that Texas will be <Texas> State Highway XX. I would go ahead and start making new articles at Texas State Highway XX, since that is the way it will be. I don't think there is any rush to move the pages currently in place. Since there is not a dispute over where it should be, they don't have to be moved immediately as long as redirects exist, which they do. --Holderca1 13:22, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Article assessment

I have added our project to the assessment system. It is fairly easy to use, in the our wikiproject template you simply add a class and importance field. The class field can be FA, GA, A, B, Start, Stub, NA(For non-articles such as template, categories, ect..). The importance field can be Top, High, Mid, or Low. The importance field is relevent to this project, not in general. Right now I have included the Texas state highways and Texas Department of Transportation as the only two that fit into the Top category. Now, it is not realistic to have every article in this project make it as a Featured Article, just the fact that there is only one FA a day and when complete this project will have over 3,000 articles makes it an impossible goal. It is possible to make them all Good Articles though. Also, I believe our Top articles can be Featured. Right now I am rating them all as Start or Stub class, simply because that is the easiest way to seperate them. For the importance field, all Farm roads are Low, State highways are Mid, this is the minimum though, it is certainly possible for some to be higher, Beltway 8 for example I would rate higher than a ordinary state highway. Here is an example of the code to input:

{{Texas State Highway WikiProject|class=Start|importance=Top}}

--Holderca1 14:28, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Maps in infoboxes

It is now possible to add maps to Texas highway articles. In the infobox code, simply type map=insert file name here.png, no need to add brackets or Image:, the template takes care of everything. To request a map, go here: Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Maps task force/Requests. --Holderca1 22:29, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Interstate 10 in Texas

Since this article is part of this project, I thought I'ld better discuss this here first. Basically, this article is nothing but an exit list (all the other info is already in the main Interstate 10 article). I would like to propose this article (and any similar ones, if such exist) for deletion, but I'ld like some input first. Do you feel that this article is indeed part fo the scope of this project (from the project description, I would say it isn't)? Do you think an exit list is encyclopedic enough to keep (as compared to what is described at WP:NOT and so on)? Could this article be saved by dropping the exit list but adding other info that is important enough to have in an encyclopedia, but not important enough (ortoo long) to have in the main article on Interstate 10? If the answer is three times no, I think the article should go. Fram 08:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The article hasn't even existed for 24 hours yet. It takes time to develop. See Interstate 10 in California, Interstate 10 in Louisiana, and Interstate 10 in Florida for other examples. --Holderca1 11:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm willing to work on the article, assuming it is kept. The Texas section does have some unique (or at least very rare) aspects such as 80mph speed limits, longest in U.S. within one state, a few non-controlled access points in West Texas, the soon-to-be 26-lane portion near Bunker Hill Road in Houston, 4-lane (2 each way) tollway in the median of the Katy Freeway, the soon-to-be youngest 5-level stack interchange ever demolished (at Beltway 8 West, 1989-2006), etc. .... There are also plenty of standard facts that could eventually be added (such as frontage road mileage), hurricane evacuation contraflow lane information, and information about the history of the road. Let's give the article more than one day to develop. Thanks. Ufwuct 15:12, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Allright, that's why I asked? No problem with an article about a section of a highway if it has remarkable info (26 lanes is pretty impressive). I still dislike the huge exit lists though, but that's a minor point. No worries, there won't be a ProD or AfD from me on these articles! Fram 15:14, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I am planning to submit this as a Did You Know? for the main page since this is a new article. Since you are more familiar with the Houston area than I am, do you mind expanding it a bit more? The majority of what is on there now is about the Katy Freeway. It is pretty close to being presentable as is, I have moved the exit list to the talk page pending its completion and the creation of all the needed shields, it is a bit of a red link eye sore at the moment. Getting ready to add on the auxillary route information. --Holderca1 15:31, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

It made it, this article is currently on the main page as a Did You Know? --Holderca1 19:38, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 22:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Loops and Spurs designation...

I noticed that the movement of the Highway articles to the naming convention is coming along smoothly. Thanks Rschen! I have one question about how Loop 1 was moved. Loop 1 was moved to Texas State Highway 1 Loop . On the completion page, all the articles seem to be set to go to Texas State Highway Loop # . Do we have any discussion on how we would like this? Personally, the Loop # option would be my choice (seems easier). Just a thought...25or6to4 16:19, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

It should be at Texas State Highway Loop 1. [2] --Holderca1 17:50, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


Shield requests

If you have shield requests, post a message on my talk page. Thanks. --Holderca1 03:59, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Highways without designation files

I was looking through the completion list at some of the highways we don't have articles for yet and several don't have a TXDOT designation file, the ones that I have found are SH 140, 196, 212, 215, 216, 221. Does anyone know if these ever existed? I know that some have existed but don't have a file since the files only go back to 1939, see SH 2 for example. It is entirely possible that these were designated and decommissioned prior to 1939. Just finding a source for them is the key. There are probably more, but quite a few of the higher numbers don't have articles yet anyway, so I didn't want to look through them all just yet. --Holderca1 14:59, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Here's what I have from my notes. SH 140 is on the 1933 Texas Highway map [3]. It is just west of Tyler, and seems to go nowhere. I have not been able to figure out where it led to or what road it is known as now, if at all. SH 221 is on this 1938 TX map [4], just south of Temple into Heidenheimer. I can't figure out where this road is now. The others I haven't been able to find. I'm always looking for more maps though. I'm wondering more about the highways that have been designated, but are nowhere to be found, SH 200, 363, 365 to name a few. 25or6to4 09:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, none of those have any mileage associated with them, you would see the mileage at the top of the designation file it existed. Most likely these are highways that were requested and planned but never built. I am not sure though. From the best that I can tell on 140, the closest to it is Spur 164, but I don't have anything to confirm that. On 221, the road on that map is colored differently, perhaps that means a future road and it never was built, can't be sure without a legend. But SH 29 has a different route from what is shown between US 281 and Llano. The 1938 map has a route over Lake Buchanan, the present day alignment is south of the lake. That is my best guess. --Holderca1 14:52, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:07, 30 December 2006 (UTC)



I'd like to jump in and help with this project.....I live in Texas. Buddpaul 20:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Pretty much done...

The main Texas state highways have articles now. There are only about 30 or so that either have no designation, or I can't figure out where/if they existed:

SH 140 - near Tyler, 1930's - don't know where it went or where it is now. Maybe Tyler airport road.
SH 169 - Austin - designated 1990, removed 1991 - was to replace FM 2222 and SS69?
SH 200 - designated north of Corpus Christi, not built
SH 210 - Houston - designated 1993 - Memorial parkway?
SH 221 - near Temple - not designated, but noted on 1938 map.
SH 331 - Corpus Christi - designated and cancelled 1940 - don't know location - possible Ocean Drive.
SH 363 - near Corpus Christi - designated but not built - do not know intended location
SH 365 - will redirect to SH 363

Not designated (24): 196, 209, 212, 215, 216, 221, 228, 229, 233, 241, 250, 252, 260, 262, 263, 266, 268, 271, 280, 281, 287, 296, 298, 306

25or6to4 02:12, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

210 is designated but has no certified mileage. Looking into it, possibly a planned highway that has yet to be built. --Holderca1 18:52, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Importance

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Assessment. --TMF Let's Go Mets - Stats 19:10, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Roads without articles

Although we have made great progress and have all the state highways with articles, the bigger problem is the roads without articles. Taking into account the spurs, loops, and farm/ranch roads that do not have articles, the number is over 4,000. There are roughly 6,000 currently for the entire U.S. roads project. Instead of creating articles for every single one of these, which for the most part, these are very minor roads that their isn't much to say, I propose we start doing List of highway in X County, Texas instead. There are 254 counties in Texas, 254 is much more manageable than 4,000. I have started a page on my user subpage at User:Holderca1/Farm to manage these new articles. I also think that each of the metro areas in Texas should have their own article, there are 25 total. Greater Houston and DFW already have articles and I just started San Antonio's. --Holderca1 21:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation Pages

It seems that the disambiguation pages for 4 digit highways (particularly FM roads) get speedily deleted with no discussion (or history). Shall we keep that as one of the goals of the FM/RM/UR project? I say no. Let's just hope that Kentucky (among others, I'm sure) highway buffs don't become more prolific... Dirtydan667 23:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Did you ask the admin that deleted them why? Also, I don't know what you are mean by keeping that as one of our goals, I don't see where we say that is a goal. Also, a disambiguation page shouldn't have just one article listed, just put a redirect instead if it is the only highway. --Holderca1 20:47, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of a couple obsolete infoboxes

Template:TxRouteBox and Template:TxFMBox have been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Holderca1 19:47, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Interstate 35 in Texas

I started putting together an Interstate 35 in Texas article in my sandbox. It's very Austin-centric right now, since that's where I'm from, but I think it might be in a state to be of use as a stub starter for a full article. I haven't been tracking this project very much (I'm a bit new to the WikiProject concept), so I thought I'd solicit some comments to see if this is suitable for dropping into place. --Vollers 23:41, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks pretty good so far. You can always use {{sectionstub}} for sections that need work. --Holderca1 23:55, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll see about moving it over tomorrow evening sometime. --Vollers 03:03, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
This move has been done. I've added the new page to a couple of appropriate categories, but I'm not sure what all boxes are appropriate to tag the article within the project as needing expansion, so that still needs to be added (hmmm...needed expansion about needed expansion - is that meta-expansion?). --Vollers 12:25, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of All USRD Clean-up Templates

All of the USRD Clean-up Templates have been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. master sonT - C 16:50, 5 August 2007 (UTC)