Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Washington State Highways/Archive 1

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Route maps

I was quite happy to find this WikiProject. I will start adding relevant content from my Washington State Highways site, which I haven't worked on in years because it got to be a pain to manage. Better that it should live on as a collaborative effort than continue to be neglected.

One thing that I've been doing as part of that effort is creating maps showing the route of each state highway, like this one for SR20. (The interstates are also shown for context.) Unless there are objections, I'd like to modify the routebox template to show a route map for each Washington highway, approximately the size of the route shield and perhaps located between "Highway in Washington" and the RCW statute. This would of course be a slight departure from the routebox format used for other states' highways, like California's, but maybe if enough people think it's a good idea it'll be adopted for other states as well.

I use Adobe Illustrator to create the maps and should be able to generate maps pretty quickly for all of the Washington highways that currently have articles. Please also chime in with any comments or questions about the colors, format, line thickness, etc. --PHenry 23:55, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

We'd love to have the maps, but I'm not quite sure if they should go in the routebox due to size. Maybe at the top or bottom of the article? I'd have to see how it looks though to make sure the routebox isn't too big. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs - count) 02:02, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
The routebox is 225 pixels wide, so I was thinking that maybe 180-200 pixels wide for the map would be appropriate (example). At that size it would be about as tall as the route shield is, and wouldn't cause the routebox to get any wider. --PHenry 02:12, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
For routes like Washington State Route 102 is there any way to zoom in on the map? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs - count) 04:48, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
What I typically do for short highways is zoom in on the region to the extent practical, with a locator map in the corner showing the area in relation to the rest of the state. See the SR-520 map for an example (this, too, would appear much smaller in the routebox). My source file is a PDF map from nationalatlas.gov that shows most of the state highways, so it's pretty easy to arbitrarily zoom in on part of the state for a better look. --PHenry 05:34, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I've uploaded the maps and updated the routebox. I think I've created maps for all the pages that currently use the routebox template, but if I've missed any please let me know. Next I'll create maps for the pages that don't yet use the routebox template, so that when the template gets added to a page its map will be ready to go. If you have a request for a specific highway, leave me a message and I'll make it as soon as I can. --PHenry 19:09, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Love the maps. However, I see that that many have some errors.

  • SR-525, travels too far up on Whidbey Island on the map. The actual route ends just above the point where the Island extends west after the long northward neck. TEG 20:20, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Fixed it... thanks. --PHenry 23:51, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

About WA-SR Signs

I have been creating SR signs using AppleWorks, and the Road Geeks Fonts (Similar to FHWA) at [1]. TEG 19:07, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Don't delete me

Don't worry, I'll come back and work on this. I just ran out of time. --Rschen7754 July 5, 2005 20:30 (UTC)

Improvement drive

The article on Transportation is currently nominated on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. Vote for Transportation there.--Fenice 09:11, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Title of the WikiProject

I've been thinking (a dangerous thing) and was wondering why this WikiProject is called Washington State Highways. Shouldn't it be Washington State Routes, since State Highways have not existed since the 1970s. I think it might make us look a little more organized to do this, and change the bottom of the route box, because it says Washington State Highways as well. TEG 20:03, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

In the law, they're still called highways. [2] --PHenry 02:27, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
They're "state highway routes" called "State Route X". [3] --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 15:10, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I'd say leave it because the other projects are called the same thing. But it doesn't really matter to me. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 02:32, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Counties

I think the current milepost format might be improved a bit. The current format was apparently inherited from the California standard, which uses a 2- or 3-letter code to signify each county. This is necessary in the case of California, because mile numbering on California highways starts over in each county--Route 1 has a mile 1 in Sonora County, a mile 1 in Mendocino County, and so on--and the three-letter codes are actually stenciled on each milepost in the state.[4] To copy this county system for Washington highways is, I think, undesirable for three reasons:

  • California has an official list of county abbreviations, but Washington has no such list, to my knowledge. (But please correct me if I'm wrong.)
  • Therefore, any such abbreviations generated for Washington counties are arbitrary, and two different editors working on different pages may unknowingly choose different abbreviations for the same county, causing confusion.
  • Someone familiar with the California postmile system might get the inaccurate impression that Washington uses a similar county-based system for mileage numbering.

Check out the SR-20 page to see my idea for a standard that would solve these problems while still providing information about the counties a highway travels through. If everyone hates it, it can certainly be reverted. If people like it, we can make changes to the existing pages as we get to them. --PHenry 02:27, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Looks good, the font is a little small though. What is the code you used? (So that it looks the same on every article) Sorry about the mess... California has become a model for WikiProjects, but the problem it creates is that CA is the exception when it comes to highway standards... --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 02:32, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I just created a template for it. The format is:
{{routeboxwa/county|Skagit}}
which produces
Skagit County
It uses font size 1. Font size 2 is the normal text size, which I was afraid would overwhelm the more important information in the routebox. If it does need to be bigger, at least we only need to change it in one place, instead of hundreds of places. --PHenry 19:20, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I like it, but I feel it is more overhead than what we need. I think we should just drop the idea of the county. All the junctions I've been doing have been based on actual mileage, not county mileage, as it would be nuts to do it any other way in Washington. TEG 14:24, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree that the county names are, at best, optional for every state but California. Do you think it will still require too much overhead, with the new template? My preference would be to leave the template in place for people to use if they want to, but not have an expectation that every highway needs to list counties.
On a related note, I made another change to SR-20--which I seem to be increasingly using as my own personal guinea pig article--so that the route shields in the mileage list all line up nicely down the center, a la most of the California articles. I think it looks a lot better this way. --PHenry