Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (U.S. state and territory highways)

This is a talk page to discuss current issues related to the established state highway naming conventions. These conventions were established through previous debates (see WP:SRNC) and any proposals to change such conventions would be contentious.

Highway shields in text

I haven't seen this directly addressed in either the US highway manual of style or the icon section of the MOS: What is the consensus on use of highway shields within the body of a non-highway article? See Dover, New Hampshire#Geography for an example. My feeling is that the shields don't belong in plain prose sections, but I haven't found guidance one way or the other. --Ken Gallager (talk) 17:47, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

The U.S. Roads project guidelines state not to use shield images in prose [1] although that city article is not technically under the scope of the U.S. Roads project. WP:MOSFLAG does say not to use them in prose when talking about flags of countries [2]. --Polaron | Talk 18:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

What I was looking for. Thanks very much. --Ken Gallager (talk) 18:45, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Abbreviations of names

Recently with the Interstate 68 article's FA nomination process, there's been a discussion of how to refer to state routes in successive references in the text. (See WP:Featured_article_candidates/Interstate_68/archive3.) User:Rschen7754 has suggested that "Route xx" nomenclature be used, but this is inconsistent with how the states abbreviate the names themselves. WP:USSH doesn't seem to really cover this issue currently. WP:USRD/STDS seems to support using whatever abbreviation the state itself generally uses.

I'd like to suggest we create another column on the state listing table showing standard abbreviations to use for each state. This information could then be used across WP:USRD articles and in the infobox and Jct template consistently. Brian Powell (talk) 00:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

This issue was recently brought up in a discussion at WT:USRD#USSH_violation_in_NJ. It seems that there is some indication (from users other than myself) that a listing of standard abbreviations/short forms would be helpful. --LJ (talk) 01:42, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I saw those comments over at WT:USRD#USSH_violation_in_NJ, too. It got sort of confusing (to me at least) what the course of action was at the end. Do we just want to set out an initial listing in WP:USSH and edit it from there? Brian Powell (talk) 02:22, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Before we actually put the short forms onto the guideline, we should probably create an initial listing here first. I'll work on this. --LJ (talk) 03:28, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Alright, so here is my attempt to get an initial list going for these. The "short form" column indicates a shortened form of the official name. In most cases, this is the one currently used in the {{jct}} template and in the browse portion of infoboxes. I have included notes where I've seen other nomenclature. Comments are encouraged, as the short form may need to be changed to match designations currently used by the state projects.

State/Territory/District	Official name	Short form	Notes
Alabama	State Route X	SR-X
Alaska	Alaska Route X	AK-X
American Samoa	American Samoa Highway X	ASX	American Samoa uses X with leading zero's, as in AS00X
Arizona	State Route X	SR X
Arkansas	Highway X	Hwy. X
California	State Route X	SR X
Colorado	State Highway X	SH X
Connecticut	Route X	Route X
Delaware	Delaware Route X	DE X
District of Columbia	District of Columbia Route X	DC X
Florida	State Road X	SR X
Georgia	State Route X	SR X
Guam	Guam Highway X	GH-X	inconsistent; some places use "Highway X"
Hawaii	Route X	Route X
Idaho	State Highway X	SH-X
Illinois	Illinois Route X	IL X	Some prose and the list page indicates use of "ILL X"
Indiana	State Road X	SR X
Iowa	Iowa Highway X	IA X
Kansas	K-X	K-X
Kentucky	Kentucky Route X	KY X
Louisiana	Louisiana Highway X	LA X
Maine	State Route X	SR X
Maryland	Maryland Route X	MD X
Massachusetts	Route X	Route X
Michigan	M-X	M-X
Minnesota	Minnesota State Highway X	TH X	"MN X" often used in other instances, such as non-{{jct}} lines of infobox and some prose
Mississippi	Mississippi Highway X	MS X
Missouri	Route X	Route X
Montana	Montana Highway X	MT X
Nebraska	Nebraska Highway X	N-X	"NE X" used in many non-{{jct}} infobox uses
Nevada	State Route X	SR X
New Hampshire	New Hampshire Route X	NH X	"Route X" used in some instances
New Jersey	Route X	Route X	Recently changed from "NJ X" via discussion at WT:USRD
New Mexico	State Road X	NM X
New York	New York State Route X	NY X
North Carolina	NC X	NC X
North Dakota	North Dakota Highway X	ND X
Northern Mariana Islands	Northern Mariana Islands Highway X	?
Ohio	State Route X	SR X
Oklahoma	State Highway X	SH-X	"OK-X" noted on many articles in lead, but "SH-X" is predominant usage
Oregon	Oregon Route X	OR X
Pennsylvania	Pennsylvania Route X	PA X
Pennsylvania Quadrant	State Route XXXX	SR X
Puerto Rico	PR-X	Highway X	Inconsistent; jct uses "Highway X", infobox links use "PR X"
Rhode Island	Route X	Route X
South Carolina	South Carolina Highway X	SC X
South Dakota	Highway X	SD X
Tennessee	State Route X	SR-X	Some prose usage as "SR X"
Texas	State Highway X	SH X	Other types: "Loop X", "Spur X", "FM X", "RM X"
Utah	State Route X	SR-X
U.S. Virgin Islands	U.S. Virgin Islands Highway X	Highway X
Vermont	Vermont Route X	VT X
Virginia	State Route X	SR X
Washington	State Route X	SR X
West Virginia	West Virginia Route X	WV X
Wisconsin	Highway X	WIS X	"Highway X", "STH X", "WIS X" called out in lead of articles; "WIS X" used in templates, "STH X" often used in prose
Wyoming	Wyoming Highway X	WYO X

--LJ (talk) 06:25, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Allow me to reiterate that establishing the common "short forms" of these names is not meant to usurp established naming conventions, but rather document and standardize the existing abbreviations used to achieve uniformity across articles of a given type. --LJ (talk) 06:35, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I would say Iowa is a short enough state name that it doesn't need to be abbreviated. Plus, Iowa DOT uses IA and Iowa interchangeably. --Fredddie™ 08:12, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

For the other states around where I live, here is what I know about what they call their roads. In Maryland (which is one of the states along I-68), "MD x" is used in the HLR (such as here) as well as other MDSHA documents (such as this newsletter for the construction of an interchange). Therefore, I would say "MD x" would probably be acceptable for Maryland routes. In Delaware, various abbreviations are used by DelDOT. In the Traffic Count and Mileage Report, the header for state routes uses "DE RT x" while the tables list them as "DEL x". This page on a construction project refers to state routes as "State Road x", "Route x", and "SR x". Clearly, it appears Delaware is inconsistent in what they call their state routes, and they don't seem to use "DE x" as we currently use. In Pennsylvania, "PA x" can be seen in use for state routes in documents such as this map showing the truncation of PA 82 whereas quadrant routes are called "SR x". From this glance, it appears the abbreviations for Pennsylvania are correct. Dough4872 (talk) 15:08, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Wait, is this intended for use in tables, or in prose? In prose, excessive abbreviation is often detrimental, and I would think using just "Highway XX" or "Route XX" (depending on state) would be sufficient. Powers ^T 17:24, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

If this is in prose, then this will be a long discussion. For example, Virginia only sometimes uses "State Route X" in common speaking and written language, preferring to use "Route X"[3][4][5]. "US" would most likely be okay since that's fairly common, especially since we have the same number US and state routes. --MPD ^{T / C} 17:45, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I had originally intended for it to be all encompassing, to standardize table/infobox links as well as shortened form in prose. The issue on Interstate 68's FA nomination above is what prompted me to make the list. (Now I'm starting to think I've bitten off more than I can chew...)

I agree that excessive abbreviation is detrimental, and shouldn't be used exclusively in prose. In writing Nevada articles, I often switch between "State Route X" and "SR X" in an effort to avoid repetition (although Nevada DOT doesn't use "Route X", so I don't either). I would concur that using a shortened form of the official name ("Route X" or "Highway X") should be an allowable alternative in prose, depending upon each state's usage. --LJ (talk) 18:57, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to see this be a standard list for the infoboxes. For prose, I think at the very least these forms should be considered acceptable uses. Personally, I think that having to formalize a list of all acceptable reference styles seems overly formalistic but the FA for I-68 seems to be forcing it. I'd be perfectly happy to just say that any "mainstream" style is OK as long as we are consistent with local usage and within the article. Brian Powell (talk) 05:36, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

As long as we're still allowed to use constructions like "... intersects Routes 53 and 107 less than five miles east ..." I'm fine with the proposal. =) Powers ^T 22:50, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

If "Route xx" is in common usage in an area, that seems OK. Admittedly, I've never been a fan of that style myself. I prefer to specify what type of route it is myself. Brian Powell (talk) 05:36, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm presuming that the type of route has been specified already, perhaps multiple times and reading "Massachusetts" or "Mississippi" over and over again is starting to get tiresome. =) Powers ^T 14:02, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with this grammatical construct, as long as the full "official" term has been used previously in the prose. --LJ (talk) 00:05, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

North Carolina

According to this MoS, North Carolina highways are officially "NC X", but the articles are named "North Carolina Highway X" Shouldn't it be one or the other? If it should be "NC X", should the articles be named in the style of Kansas and Michigan — NC X (North Carolina highway)? --Fredddie™ 18:09, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Note: I am NOT trying to restart the "fun" that was SRNC. I'm mostly seeking clarification. --Fredddie™ 18:23, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Your logic seems sound on this. I wonder how this escaped the provisions of SRNC for so long... --LJ (talk) 22:24, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Are there sources for this? --Rschen7754 22:44, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

1. The State Transportation map (14MB) calls them State Routes
2. The Primary Routes map] calls them NC Highways
3. The NCDOT truck restrictions lists their abbreviation as NC X and lists secondary roads as SR X.

Unfortunately, this tells us nothing. --Fredddie™ 03:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

While not an exact science, a Google Trends search shows North Carolina Highway or NC Highway is the more popular terminology.--Fredddie™ 03:27, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Merge road junction lists into this?

Since WP:Manual of Style (road junction lists) appears to be exclusively about US road junction lists, I see no reason it should not be merged with this page. Are there any objections? Tony (talk) 01:44, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not. RJL is used in Canada as well. It's intended for use in every country; due to some disputes about minor aspects of the format, the UK is not using it at this time, but we might discuss it with them again in the future. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 02:07, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with such a merger. This guideline was created out of the ashes of WP:SRNC, the State Route Naming Convention. SRNC was mandated by ArbCom back before I was actively editing. Anything to do with changing the results of SRNC is very taboo, which would mean that merging the two style guidelines together would effectively freeze changes to RJL, which was being revised to be an international standard. The fact remains that a few vocal editors in the UK have had objections to MOS:RJL, and when that simmers down, there is a compromise to be proposed to resolve the last vestiges of that dispute. Imzadi1979 (talk) 03:16, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

As an addendum, this (USSH) is more naming convention than MoS and could be demote out of the MoS. Imzadi1979 (talk) 03:53, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

The junction list guideline is US centric due to its origins. However, I've seen many attempts to internationalize it, with mixed results. Point being, any lack of internationalization hasn't been for lack of trying. However, this guideline (which is really more of a naming convention) really doesn't belong in the Manual of Style, as it truly only applies to the U.S. Roads wikiproject. That this is part of the MoS is more of an artifact of the arbcom decision. I would prefer to demote this guideline out of the MoS to a WP:USRD guideline and keep working on the junctions list until we have something that works for everybody. Looking at the discussions we're close, there's only a couple of points that need to be resolved.Dave (talk) 04:15, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

To buttress what Dave's said above, RJL is much less US-centric than before. Please don't hijack the progress that's been made, and is almost complete. Imzadi1979 (talk) 04:37, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

RJL is currently used in many countries. See User:Rschen7754/World for example. --Rschen7754 05:20, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

A further note from the RJL talk page archives, the revision of the only UKRD FA when passed followed the then-current version of RJL at the time it passed, it was taken to FARC, and followed the style guide. The list was only changed to the UKRD format at a later time. Imzadi1979 (talk) 05:36, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

It all seems very complicated. I don't see why all things to do with roads, highways, junctions, road bridges, can't be in a single MoS subpage. Our aim is to simplify the page structure of the sprawling MoS that is so daunting for editors to use. Tony (talk) 05:36, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

We've already said that USSH (aka this guideline) need not be part of the MoS. RJL is a style guide meant to provide a standardized format for road junction lists in a single place. The other things that impact road/highway articles are really just general provisions of the MoS (use of bold face, italics, how to format numbers and measurements, the usage of icon images, etc.) and need not be repeated in the MoS. We have project pages that spell out how the MoS applies to road/highway articles in our projects, and only RJL is road-specific. Imzadi1979 (talk) 05:42, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

How about this page be renamed Wikipedia:Naming conventions (U.S. state and territory highways), a name it probably should have carried all along? Imzadi1979 (talk) 06:52, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Tony, we're in agreement on that. The question is merge the two, or just get rid of one. I'm arguing get rid of one. Dave (talk) 07:18, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Forgive me, I'm at a distance to these topics, but all the same want to forge ahead with the larger rationalisation program. Tell me, is it the road junctions lists MoS you are suggesting should be deleted? Are you suggesting that it should become a section here? (I'd be very pleased with that: it makes a lot of sense.) But why is this framed only WRT highways? Why not roads? And why, if UK or Irish or Australian editors subsequently decide they need most of the text here but with a few local guidelines—can't there be scope for them to add their own sections? In other words, I'm suggesting that "US" not be in the page title, but be the very first section. Tony (talk) 03:42, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Mini straw poll

Option 1- Merge the two road specific parts of the Manual of style (the U.S. Highway naming scheme at WP:USSH and the junctions guide at WP:RJL) into a single guideline

Option 2- Remove the U.S. Highway naming scheme at WP:USSH from the Manual of Style and transfer it back to the WP:USRD project. Keep WP:RJL for now, pending resolution (or lack of) for the last few items being objected to by the UK Roads wikiproject.

• Support - Dave (talk) 04:30, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
• Support Imzadi1979 (talk) 04:37, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
• Support as second choice - provided that it carries the same level of ArbCom-given enforceability. --Rschen7754 05:20, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Option 3 - Make this a naming convention under WP:NC.

• Support as first choice. --Rschen7754 05:39, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I just don't know enough about this topic, but I can't see why, if this is to remain part of the MoS, it should be expanded in potential scope (i.e., it's title, to start with) to include all countries and all roads, not just highways. It's rather short; so is road junction lists. While both are almost entirely about US roads, is the project not better served by bringing road editors from everywhere together? What is wrong with structuring the new MoS subpage on roads into subsections (US highways could be one; US road junction lists could be another). Then guidelines for other countries would be more forthcoming, with these ones as models. Please think big picture.

BTW, I see talk of highway rest areas at the road junctions lists talk page. Again, why is it all fragmented? Tony (talk) 02:59, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Tony1, did you read my comments about how road articles are no different from other articles? Most of the content of an article on a road is covered by the rest of the MoS already. There are MoS sections related to article structure, lead sections, infoboxes, the correct usage of text formatting, etc. The only thing that a roads article would have that isn't going to be covered is the junction list. That's it.

This page is not a style guide. It's a naming convention, the results of which settled an ArbCom case related to page-move wars over the thousands of US highway articles. This page should NOT be in the MoS, as it is a naming convention, end of story.

As for your proposal about dividing a subpage into sections based on country, I say that is useless. There's nothing so fundamentally different about a road in the US from a road in India or the UK that requires such a division. That method of organization would fragment the same or similar information on the page into sections. Like I've said before, and I will say again, the only subject on which a roads article needs a specific style guide is the junction list. The rest of the article should be following the rest of the MoS, like any other kind of article. Are you telling me that all subject areas of Wikipedia need subject-specific MoS pages, even if those pages duplicate the guidelines on how to format text, graphics, infoboxes and the like? We are thinking big picture here, just that there's nothing else needed to craft a good article on a roadway that isn't in other sections of the MoS already.

One last comment concerning the rest areas question over at WT:RJL. That's actually already covered by the guideline. The US project just doesn't add that piece of information to junction lists, even though the guideline discusses and allows it. That new editor is really asking for a change in practice, which was settled by consensus long ago by the project, not a change in the style guide itself. Imzadi1979 (talk) 03:30, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Look, we're removing WP:USSH from the MOS. You've resolved your "duplication" concerns and poor organization concerns this way. What more do you want? --Rschen7754 03:32, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, if this is to be removed from the MoS, I'd be happier not to see the road-junction-list MoS remain—it is so narrow and localised and short. Is there some way it, too, can be merged with whatever this page becomes? Tony (talk) 03:46, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

PS It is a little more than just a naming convention, isn't it? Tony (talk) 03:47, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

... no, because then it wouldn't be in MOS? --Rschen7754 03:48, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that this page was written years ago in response to a directive fro ArbCom. The person that suggested it become part of the MoS probably did so under the impression that such a label would give it more weight. Now it's 2010, and we're re-evaluating things. This page shouldn't be in the MoS because it's really a naming convention. The fact that other stuff got put in here, yeah there's some stuff on page moves, redirects and links. That's a result of the origins of this from the ArbCom case. Imzadi1979 (talk) 05:05, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Page move

I've boldy moved the page and edited it out of the MoS. I've commented out much of the comment below the list of naming conventions. Most of that isn't relevant to this page as a naming convention, and they should be moved to appropriate pages under the USRD project. One final consideration should be that as written, this page excludes the Interstates and US Highway systems. I think it would be a good idea to incorporate those naming schemes into the chart. Imzadi1979 (talk) 07:00, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. We lost the Interstate/US Highway naming conventions when those project pages were merged into USRD a while back. -- LJ ↗ 15:55, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I created the table for the Interstates and US Highways. Let me know if I missed anything. I also moved the commented content over to WP:USRD/STDS since that was the most appropriate location for it. Imzadi1979 (talk) 22:46, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

US Route vs. US Highway

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Status quo was sustained by the discussion. Imzadi 1979 → 18:44, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Ok, a long time ago, all of the articles on components of the United States Numbered Highway System were moved to US Route # (in X) because AASHTO uses that nomenclature now, even though the system is named otherwise. Maybe that's an oversimplification, but when the table was moved here, in moving it out of the MOS (where it never really belonged) to make it a part of the NC, it was never amended to reflect reality. Some states are "Highway states" and others are "Route states". I'd like to propose one minor change, and possibly one larger change.

1. For state-detail articles in "Highway states", the "US Highway #" nomenclature is perfectly acceptable, as "US Route #" is "foreign sounding" to natives of that state. It's essentially an infra-national variation on WP:TIES/WP:ENGVAR. This guideline would be updated to list "U.S. Highway" as an acceptable alternate nomenclature. Parent articles would be updated to list "U.S. Highway #" as an alternate name as needed.
2. For state-detail articles in "Highway states", the articles could be moved from "U.S. Route # in X" to "U.S. Highway # in X", preserving the former name as a redirect, and the prose would be updated to reflect that fact. "Route states" and the parent articles would be unaffected except to list the "U.S. Highway #" as an alternate name as needed in the parent article.

In all honesty, the two words are interchangeable in terms of meaning, but not in terms of usage. Just as UK articles will call them "motorways" and North American articles "freeways", the local vernacular to each state should be followed in state-detail articles. The national-detail articles should reflect both usages as necessary. Imzadi 1979 → 03:48, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Inconsistent naming system, makes things really difficult to deal with. --Rschen7754 07:14, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose which, allowing vernacular differences in the text (#1) or moving the article titles themselves (#2)? Imzadi 1979 → 07:15, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Number 2. --Rschen7754 07:35, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
• I am okay with "highway" states such as MI using "highway" in the lead and for hatnotes for state detail US route pages; however, the article titles should be kept consistent with other articles by using "route". Dough4872 15:50, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
• Comments 1. I think that all U.S. and Interstate articles should maintain the consistent "route", even if they only cover a single state which might use "highway" locally, since the overall subject remains part of a national system. 2. I don't follow the logic of the English dialect argument. American DOTs all use American English; it's what words that they choose that makes the difference. For example, it's not like the dialect changes from Michigan to Indiana or Wisconsin (quite the opposite for the latter, of course); it's whatever the respective DOT has chosen to describe its road infrastructure components. It is more in the line of "freeway" vs. "expressway". Mapsax (talk) 22:04, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
  • There is a technical difference between a freeway and an expressway, so even if the name of a roadway is "Foo Expressway", we'd still call it a freeway in the text. Taking your argument further, we'd rename them all "State Route X" in text for consistency, which is wrong as in Indiana they are "State Road #", in Wisconsin they're "State Trunk Highway #" or "Highway #", etc. We recognize that there is no one, "right" English as we allow for the regional variations in terms of spelling and vocabulary on the national level (and sub-national in the case of the UK with British vs. Oxford English), it only makes sense to allow for the vocabulary variations inside the US. American English is not homogeneous in terms of vocabulary/vernacular. The dialect does change between Michigan and Wisconsin. Michigan is a "pop" state by and large, but Wisconsin is a "soda" state. I don't hear Wisconsinites, or "Trolls", using the word "eh" like the Yoopers. P.S. As much as we like to equate them, there is a fundamental difference between the United States Numbered Highway System and the Interstate Highway System. The former is a voluntary creation of the states, regulated through AASHTO which is powerless to compel changes or prevent changes for which it doesn't approve. The latter is federally regulated and in a numerical and routing context, federally controlled. Imzadi 1979 → 22:56, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
• I approve of #1 (allowing vernacular differences in text) and oppose #2 (moving article titles). In lieu of #2, I propose, if this has not been done already, creating redirects from "U.S. Highway X in State" to "U.S. Route X in State" so anyone searching using the term "U.S. Highway" gets redirected to the correct article. — Viridiscalculus (talk) 22:40, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

• Comment What constitutes a "route state" versus a "highway state"? I know there's certain parts of the Upper Midwest where we don't exactly pronounce the word "route" in the way that's considered correct, but I'd hardly think the term itself is "foreign." --Sable232 (talk) 00:39, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
  • It has nothing to do with pronunciation, but everything to do with how the state DOTs name their roadways. MDOT here in Michigan calls them "US Highway #", and Mn/DOT uses "USTH #" (US Trunk Highway) in their logs. It follows the SR vs. SH practices in a state. Imzadi 1979 → 01:19, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
  • I agree with the emerging consensus here even though Texas is a "highway state" as demonstrated here. Otherwise, Texas is never a "pop state"; instead it's either a "coke state" among Anglo residents where all soft drinks regardless of brand are generically called "cokes" and a "soda state" among Hispanic residents even when speaking English. Fortguy (talk) 18:11, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
• I thought #1 ("Route" vs. "Highway" in text) was already in place for those states that use the "highway" nomenclature...I support this idea where it is needed. I oppose #2, as I don't believe an inconsistent naming structure would really help in other ways. -- LJ ↗ 01:58, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
  • It's not officially listed here, and an editor has changed an article twice citing this NC as the reason for the change. That is why I proposed adding it concretely into the NC that #1 is acceptable if not preferred. Imzadi 1979 → 02:11, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Ok, it seems that #1, the true point of my proposal, has consensus, and it's already reflected in the page. See footnote #2 under the "Interstate and U.S. Routes" section on the page. That footnote has been in the guideline since this edit in April 2010. Imzadi 1979 → 18:44, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Regarding style of U.S. Route pages and subpages

This is essentially a continuation of the above conversation, an explanation of the background that led to the discussion and clarification of my comments, and my relevant suggestions.

I made an edit to the U.S. Route 27 in Michigan page (see the History page, 2010-09-21) to add text to the body, and decided to change the hatnote to match the actual title of the target page since I was already editing the article (I know that redirects are OK, so I probably wouldn't have done anything had I not already been editing); this was reverted with the reasoning of keeping wording consistent with the article ("highway").

This is where the relevance to the above is: I then changed all the instances of "highway" to "route" in the article, because, even though Michigan is a "highway" state, the article is still about a U.S. Route, and logically should contain the same prose as the related overall article about US-27. My opinion is that all such articles related to the two U.S. national systems with independent numbering (Interstates and United States Numbered Highways; the National Highway System is essentially an overlay and not relevant), even if isolated to a single state, should maintain the style of the highway systems as a whole, regardless of the nomenclature that the isolated states use, with the exception to references to state highways/routes which happen to cross or overlap the subject route. Mapsax (talk) 06:59, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

You've expressed your opinion, as have others. The guideline, as updated from April, and sustained by the consensus above, does not agree with you. Sorry. Imzadi 1979 → 07:43, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

The consensus above applies to the general nomenclature, not the specific instance that I clarified. If the consensus for that remains the same, so be it, but I wanted to separate the two principles. (I would have simply added another comment to the above discussion, but it was already closed.) Mapsax (talk) 01:14, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

See footnote #2 under the second section, which states: "The official AASHTO route logs and documents refer to these highways as "U.S. Route X". However, the term "U.S. Highway X" is used by many states DOTs, and may be used in article prose where this nomenclature is prevalent." (emphasis added) The prose includes all of the text in the article. Imzadi 1979 → 01:17, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

What is the basis for the footnote? It seems counter to the purpose of style guides, which is to make things uniform. Mapsax (talk) 01:53, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

This is not a style guide, it is a naming convention, to describe the correct way to name articles. Since it was previously included in the Manual of Style, many editors refer to "WP:USSH" to style matters, even though USSH has not been in the MOS for months. Style guides do make things uniform, but there will be exceptions. You can't make everything the same when they aren't. Imzadi 1979 → 02:31, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

When the prose is talking specifically about a particular US numbered route in a non-abbreviated form (i.e. "U.S. Route 95", "US Highway 27", etc.), the preference is to use whichever nomenclature is prevalent in that state. This does not mean that the word "highway" by itself can only be used in states where 'highway' is the preferred nomenclature--the same goes for "route". -- LJ ↗ 18:34, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

For Michigan, rather than repeat the abbreviated name (I-75, US 23 or M-28) every time I need to mention the roadway, I mix up the terms "highway", "trunkline", "roadway". "road" and even "route", although I do tend to use "route" to refer to the path or the alignment of the the road more than the road itself. Guess what, that's fine. Imzadi 1979 → 19:30, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion

For New Jersey routes, I think if the title of all NJ state routes begin with the state name, than the name used in the articles should too, to keep consistency. It just looks neater, in my opinion. MikeM2011 (talk) 02:16, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

The reason we use "Route X" because that is what NJDOT uses as opposed to "New Jersey Route X". Dough4872 02:20, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

RFC on coordinates in highway articles

There is currently a discussion taking place at WT:HWY regarding the potential use of coordinates in highway articles. Your input is welcomed. --Rschen7754 01:50, 26 December 2011 (UTC)