Talk:List of state routes in Washington

Original routes

From a 1925 map:

WASHINGTON STATE HIGHWAYS

PRIMARY HIGHWAYS

• 1 Pacific Highway Oregon (Portland)-British Columbia (Blaine)
• 2 Sunset Highway Seattle?-Idaho (Spokane Bridge)
• 3 Inland Empire Highway Teanaway-British Columbia (Laurier)
• 5 National Park Highway System Seattle-Yakima, west of Ethel-east of Mt. Rainier, Kosmos-Tacoma
• 6 Pend Oreille Highway Spokane-British Columbia (north of Metaline Falls)
• 7 North Central Highway Ellensburg-Davenport
• 8 North Bank Highway Vancouver-Buena? Zillah?
• 9 Olympic Highway Olympia-west of Olympia (loop)
• 10 Chelan and Okanogan Highway Quincy-British Columbia (north of Oroville)
• 11 Central Washington Highway Pasco-west of Spokane
• 12 Ocean Beach Highway Kelso-Chehalis, northwest of Naselle-Oregon (Astoria)
• 13 Willapa-Grays Harbor Highway Raymond-east of Aberdeen
• 14 Navy Yard Highway south of Potlatch-Harper?
• 15 Inland Empire Highway Eastern Route Idaho (Lewiston)-Malden

SECONDARY HIGHWAYS

• 4 Tonasket-San Poil Highway Tonasket-Wilbur
• 21 State Road No. 21 Charleston-Port Gamble? Kingston?
• 22 State Road No. 22 Davenport-Kettle Falls
• 23 Methow Valley Highway southwest of Pateros-Ruby?
• 24 Cascade Wagon Road Marbremount?-Twisp?

A few more and details at [1] and of course [2]

Beach driving

I can't find an "official citation" I'll look for one later, but this shows up on a simple google search [3].

I have a few pics of beach "street signs" but they are too foggy to read, and plenty of pics of my car sitting on the beach, but that isn't a cite. I'll find a WSDOT page later, because they used to have a good one about it. SchmuckyTheCat 08:45, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Here we go:

• Beaches are public highways, RCW 79A.05.693 [4]
• Parts of beaches are reserved for pedestrians certain parts of the year, 79A.05.655. [5].

There is still a better WSDOT page. SchmuckyTheCat 08:59, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, a WSDOT reference would be better - the law says nothing about them being state highways, just public highways. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 09:47, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

public highway = state highway. cite from ocean shores police dept [6]. SchmuckyTheCat 19:23, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

"(b) "Public highway" means the entire width between the boundary lines of every way publicly maintained when any part is open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel." "Public highway" means every street, road, or highway in this state. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 19:25, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Massive change to list

Why was this list changed to link to a whole bunch of redirects? What's more, this is starting to resemble the fiasco that happened in California. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 20:57, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Because those are the correct names. They will be moved there eventually. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 21:02, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Add this to the med cabal case. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 21:05, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Hahaha, you're just looking for anything to use against me. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 21:08, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I've found plenty at CA. I don't need this to make a case. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 21:12, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

As someone who lives here, in addition to your citation of the RCW, I can verify they are indeed always called "State Route XX" (and more often, but informally, "SR XX") and never "Washington State Route XX". Once the articles are all moved, the redirects won't be an issue. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:01, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Internationally they are "Washington State Route x". Also, SPUI needs to gain consensus for these mass moves. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 05:03, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Hang on.. he needs consensus for correcting the articles? So if an article about a President has the wrong birthdate, and SPUI has a source for the correct date, he needs to gain consensus for the change before he can make it? And what's this "internationally" deal? Do you have a source that overrides what Washington state (and Washington media, and Washington locals) call their state routes/etc? —Locke Cole • t • c 05:09, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

No but SPUI needs consensus for 300 page moves, don't you think? Especially when people oppose them and revet them back. Specifically, WP:AN/I has now placed a highway page move ban on all of us for this massive edit warring. We've discussed at WP:NC/NH and SPUI has no consensus. We've had discussions regarding the infobox at WT:CASH and SPUI has lost. We've tried mediation and SPUI does not want to cooperate. We've filed an RFC and so far SPUI does not want to either. You get the picture? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 05:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Not if he's moving the pages to the correct names (and taking into account Wikipedia guidelines for disambiguation per the Manual of Style). Unless your position is that a consensus of people can, for example, have George W. Bush's birthdate changed to the wrong date in the face of evidence/proof indicating it's wrong. Also, please don't see debates as "win" or "lose"; that's when you lose sight of what really matters here: making sure Wikipedia is correct (and regarding the MoS concerns, consistant). And back to consensus for page moves; if page moves were such a huge problem, I imagine the facility would be restricted to sysops (in other words: regular editors wouldn't be able to do it if it wasn't supposed to be doable). —Locke Cole • t • c 05:28, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Specifically, people disagree that they are called "State Route x (Washington)". Read my response to SPUI's RFC in a few minutes. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 05:33, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

He is not moving them to the correct names. Under the law, is called "state route number 3."[7] SPUI is full of reasons why this correct name is not actually the correct correct name, but regardless of which side you come down on it is clear that the question of what constitutes the "correct" name does not have a clearly and unambiguously right answer. Moreover, "correct" isn't even the standard to be applying here; naming conventions (common names) is, and I would suggest that the average user is much more likely to search on "Washington State Route 3" than on "State Route 3 (Washington)." Because there is in fact no definitively "correct" answer either way, any change in the convention is subject to consensus... so why are you seeking to exempt SPUI, alone among the 1,000,000+ registered Wikipedians, from the process? --phh 05:58, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Stop confusing the issue. The laws use "state route number X" but WSDOT uses "State Route X" or "SR X". --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 07:58, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

WSDOT doesn't own the highways, or create them. The DOT can use whatever jargon it wants to refer to them, but that does not make it "correct" if it doesn't align with the law. You are the one who is confusing the issue. --phh 14:02, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

WSDOT maintains, manages and signs the highways. They also de facto create them - if they were to post a route that's not defined by law, the legislature can't go out and remove the signs. (This does happen with some spurs and business routes.) "state route number X", "state route no. X" and "state route X" are equivalent, and there's one that's clearly used regularly. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 19:04, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Protection requested. 50+ reversions this month is a bit much; I think a cool-down period is in order. I don't care either way which syntax is used for routes, but having this constantly appear at the top of my watchlist is kind of silly. Travisl 23:49, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Any chance everyone here could agree to stop the silly revert war until a consensus is reached? There are obviously two conflicting opinions here, but is there some reason discussion won't work? Constant reverts certainly don't make things enjoyable for anyone here. .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 06:44, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Since I saw the protection request, I've gone ahead and protected the article due to the constant edit warring. Has anyone here tried any dispute resolution? I didn't see an RfC for the article (my internet connection is acting funny at the moment though, so it wasn't a thorough look) -- would that be a good place to start? .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 07:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

We've tried discussion, mediation, user RFC, everything. The other side just doesn't understand naming conventions. --SPUI (T - C - RFC - Curpsbot problems) 11:29, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

SPUI's hostility toward any potential solution that differs from his personal preference in any way is amply documented here, here, here, here, here, here, and in many other places I don't have the time to look up at the moment. --phh (^t/_c) 12:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Make that "hostility towards the WRONG solution" and you're spot on. --SPUI (T - C - RFC - Curpsbot problems) 14:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I rest my case. --phh (^t/_c) 15:32, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Does this mean you'll stop revert warring? If so, thanks, glad we got this worked out. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:46, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

We have standard naming conventions that articles should follow (especially for the case of disambiguation). Until there's a consensus to override these standards, we should follow them. SPUI isn't trying to force his "personal preference", he's trying to force the standard naming convention that the community has decided we should use (I note that WP:NC/NH did not result in a uniform naming convention standard for highways; it only agreed that each highway system should be handled on a case by case basis). —Locke Cole • t • c 14:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

You're simply wrong. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) is really quite clear:

When choosing a name for a page ask yourself: What word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine?

Rationale:

…We want to maximize the incidence that people who make a link guessing the article name, guess correctly; people guessing a different name may think there is no article yet, which may cause duplication. Using a full formal name requires people to know that name, and to type more.

And in fact, the page is full of examples—I count at least 13—where the common name is favored over a more "correct" version.

So take an average user, selected at random from the million-plus user base of English Wikipedia. Inform the user that there is a state highway in California that has been assigned the number 7, and ask her to locate the article on the subject. What will she type into the search box? I submit that in the vast majority of cases, she is going to type either "california state highway 7" or "california state route 7". If she is a moron or perhaps a crazy person, she might type "route 7", but no rational person is going to believe that that is the best way to reach an article on a local highway in California. If she is familiar with the Wikipedia disambiguation guidelines, and if she believes that "route 7" is likely to be a popular enough search term to warrant disambiguation, she might go out of her way to type "state highway 7 (california)" or "state route 7 (california)". What percentage of users is likely to do that? My guess: it's pretty small. Use common sense.

So even if we concede that you're right about the "correct" names, which you aren't, at best it's a case where two naming convention policies conflict with each other: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision). If you'd like to have a civil discussion about the applicability of each policy to this situation in the interests of finding a solution that everyone can live with, then let's go. But don't try to pretend that you have the only possible correct answer and that therefore no discussion is necessary. --phh (^t/_c) 18:13, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

The average visitor to Wikipedia would probably try "State Route XXX" first. Since many states have routes, those of course conflict. Proper disambiguation says we put the specifier in paranthesis (so "State Route 520 (Washington)"). That a visitor might try "Washing State Route XXX" after realizing that there are numerous overlaps for "State Route XXX" means, to me, that we should try and cover those via redirects (and SPUI has suggested this repeatedly; this covers the search field issue and also allows us to have the actual article at the correct name). But the correct name, the name used most commonly, is "SR XXX" (which is an abbreviation for "State Route XXX"). KING-5 news calls them "SR XXX", the Seattle Post-Intelligencer call them "SR XXX", locals call them "SR XXX" (or more likely, just "Route XXX"), and I wouldn't be surprised to see media outside Washington call them "SR XXX in Washington state" or "State Route XXX in Washington state". —Locke Cole • t • c 18:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I really, really doubt that someone in, say, Ohio would believe that, in a global encyclopedia, the most logical place to find an article about the state highway that runs past Microsoft in the state of Washington would be "State Route 520." But hey, at least this is an actual discussion! I could live with your proposed convention if it were arrived at through a process in which interested editors discussed the matter, civilly and assuming good faith, and determined it to be the best way to apply the binding WP:NC policy. What I don't like is being steamrolled by two people who've decided that no one else's opinions are valid because they've decided for themselves what's "correct," so everyone else can go fuck themselves. I resist that attitude, and if I have to keep resisting it, I will. Nonetheless, I'd very much prefer to resolve this some other way. --phh (^t/_c) 19:21, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

News flash, SPUI was right all along

Thank you for your e-mail to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) asking about the official name of a state highway in Washington State. I do apologize for the delay in responding to your e-mail.

The official name is State Route #, not Washington State Route #

Again, I am very sorry for this late response. We do appreciate you taking the time to write to us.

Kimberly Colburn Customer Service WSDOT Communications PO Box 47322 Olympia, WA 98504-7322 (360) 705-7438 hqcustomerservice@wsdot.wa.gov^[8]

— May. 13, '06 [06:48] <freakofnur_xture|talk>