Talk:Michigan State Trunkline Highway System

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This article is part of WikiProject Michigan, a WikiProject related to the U.S. state of Michigan.

Talk:List of highways in Michigan/completion list

State highway numbers that inspire or are inspired US highway numbers

There are numerous state highways that have numbers inspired by US highway numbers. It ranges in sever reasons from using a state highway number that is the same as a US highway that formerly used it's alignment (e.g. Michigan State Highway 27) to Having 2 opposite termini of a US and state highway with the same number almost touching termini (e.g. US-24 and M-24, US-25 [now decommissioned] and M-25). Should we set up a denotation on the state highway list for that trivia? Also, there are some state highways identical to US highways in route number but aren't inspired by one another (e.g. US-33 [now decommissioned] and M-33); we should denote those ones too. There are also M highways identical to US highways in number that shared alignment with the US highway before it became a US highway (e.g. M-16 and US-16); those ones should be denoted too. --SuperDude 05:04, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Honestly, I think that kind of trivia is best left to specific pages about those highways rather than clouding up what is intended to be a simple listing of various routes in Michigan. The title is "LIST of highways in Michigan" after all. In my opinion, this information, while interesting to those of us with a fascination in highway designations, is very minor and would deserve inclusion only after individual pages have been created for those routes and all other more important and pertinent information has been assembled.

In addition, the situation where route numbers are simply "duplicated" (e.g. US-8 vs. M-8) don't even deserve any explanatory text at all, since there is no association between them and none is implied otherwise. (Of course, situations like US-10 and M-10 or US-27 and M-27 are related and do not fall under this discussion.) As for the M-16 (1918-1926) and US-16 (1926-1963) "relationship," that was purely coincidental, albeit an interesting coincidence, and may not warrant special attention outside of a minor notation on any specific route pages dedicated to US-16. CBessert 05:19, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Decommissioned Highways

There seems to be a push to list various decommissioned route designations, although only a few are being included and the inclusions seem to be sporadic. I have mixed feelings about including ALL decommissioned routes here, as that would make the list of highway designations unbearably long, in my opinion. Should this be broken into a separate listing? Should someone make a more concerted effort to include EVERY decommissioned route designation from 1918 to the present instead of just a few? (I welcome those interested in a complete listing of every route ever used in Michigan to wander over to my website's Master List: 1918-Present.) CBessert 02:55, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I think having a separate list for decommissioned highways is a good idea. Honestly, I think most of the stubby little entries on decommissioned highways are pretty sorry excuses for articles. In many of those cases, the content could probably be merged into and redirected to the list. I had been hoping to have some time and motivation to refer to your site to try and clean them up a bit, but the software project I'm working on has just begun functional testing and my brain has been too tapped out for the past several weeks to do much substantive work on Wikipedia. older≠wiser 01:40, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

Older Discussion

Interstates 127 and 131 are actually U.S. Highways. Could someone please fix these articles so that their titles are "United States Highway 127" and "United States Highway 131", and put links to them in the list of U.S. highways? -- Gregory Pietsch

I'm not really happy with this article as currently stands. I mean, does there really need to be separate pages for "Highways in Michigan" and a "List of State Highways in Michigan". I think I want to combine them somehow, but I need to think about it a bit. Any suggestions would be welcome. Bkonrad 16:58, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

oddball highway

The text below was added under the County-Designated highways section, but it is not of the same type as the other highways that have unique county DESIGNATATIONS. Personally, I do not think this segment of road merits a separate article. older≠wiser 22:31, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

• Old US-27 (between Grayling, MI and Indian River, MI), a relic of the old US-27 along I-75 that is now county-maintained.

What is Category:Michigan state highways for?

Please see Category talk:Michigan state highways for a question I raise about the use of that category. older≠wiser 13:20, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Naming?

There is no such thing as "Michigan State Highway X". All sources - state laws, MDOT, and michiganhighways.org - use the "M-X" naming. (This is the assumption I'm working from, so if there is in fact an expanded version in somewhat common use, please let me know.)

Thus, in accordance with naming conventions, the articles should be at "M-X (disambiguation term)". I recommend using either "M-X (Michigan)" or "M-X (Michigan highway)", with redirects from forms such as "M-X (MI)" for ease of linking (with the pipe trick). ("M-X (highway)" doesn't work because of motorways named MX or M-X.)

Any comments? --SPUI (T - C - RFC - Curpsbot problems) 15:10, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

You are correct that there is no such thing as "Michigan State Highway X" or "Michigan State Road X" or "Michigan Route X" or any similar variation. In the early 1910s, before the highways were signed in the field, the Department of State Highways referred to these designations as "Trunk Line X" or "T.L. X", but ever since they were posted in the field in 1918-1919, they have been referred to in print, speech and all other forms as "M-X". The only time you hear ANYTHING else is from out-of-state visitors who are unaware of the almost-ninety year old convention. CBessert 01:43, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

So the question remains of how to disambiguate when "M-XX" might mean something else. For example, see M-80. Since we all agree that the road is not called Michigan State Highway 80, it should be moved to something else, such as:

• M-80 (Michigan) — doesn't say what it is.
• M-80 (highway) — doesn't say where it is.
• M-80 (Michigan highway) — cumbersome.
• Michigan-80 — probably not even common usage.
• Highway M-80 (Michigan) — probably both awkward and wrong.
• etc.

I'd say M-80 (Michigan) is probably the best bet, because "(highway)" would still be ambiguous, as there's a similarly named route in Scotland. — Apr. 27, '06 [11:30] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

Naming the articles either "M-X (Michigan)" or "M-X (Michigan highway)" appear to be the most appropriate options. I would opt for (Michigan highway) as the parenthetical identifier, just because there may be occasions when "M-X" could related to Michigan in another sense also. Freakofnurture does have a good point that it is cumbersome, but in this case it might be better to be cumbersom than ambiguous. But either way, the "Michigan" part is important. -- Natalya 11:33, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Redirects will deal with cumbersomeness. --SPUI (T - C - RFC - Curpsbot problems) 13:50, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I just thought more about this. We can state without a doubt that these reads are located in Michigan. We can't prove that they are in fact "highways", as the state of Michigan never refers to them as such. Let's go with "M-X (Michigan)". — Apr. 27, '06 [14:05] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

State laws use the text "state trunk line highway system" - see [1] for instance. --SPUI (T - C - RFC - Curpsbot problems) 14:56, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Not sure if I'm really serious, but "M-X (Michigan road)" is SLIGHTLY less cumbersome, and covers highways and byways. I don't expect everybody to love this. Otherwise, "M-X (Michigan highway)" seems best. Chris the speller 15:52, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Getting really technical, M-185 isn't necessarily a "road", as it is banned to motor vehicles, but it is a "highway" by legislative fiat. Same for any ferries on state trunk lines (assuming they exist). Either way, redirects from one to the other, except in the very rare (if at all) case of something else in Michigan named M-X, will make it less cumbersome. --SPUI (T - C - RFC - Curpsbot problems) 16:53, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I think my first choice would be M-X (Michigan highway). M-X (Michigan road) is OK, but it does seem odd as the article are about the state trunkline highway system. older ≠ wiser 02:09, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I just moved M-1 (Michigan highway). I'm probably going to do others soon if there are no objections. The completion list is for coordinating redirects. --SPUI (T - C - RFC - Curpsbot problems) 22:23, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Leave the articles where they are. Good grief. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 23:08, 3 May 2006 (UTC)