Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads

Welcome to the U.S. Roads WikiProject!
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Features This month's featured article from Portal U.S. Roads: Portal:U.S. Roads/Selected article/July 2024 Archive - Recommend Task forces Assessment • Infoboxes and Navigation • Maps • Shields Subpages Collaboration on selecting/improving articles: Article Improvement Drive Guidelines for creating/designing exit lists: Exit list guide General info about IRC channels for roads (WP:HWY): Internet Relay Chat Road length sources: Lengths Newsletter: Newsletter List of members of this project: Participants List List of XFD debates/discussions: Precedents Discusses potential GA/FA: Quality articles Redirect completion list: Redirects Discusses when projects are to be opened: Subprojects Discusses status of projects: Status Guidelines Manual of Style for the naming of articles: Naming Conventions Guideline for exit lists: Exit list guide Guideline for infoboxes: Infobox guide Guideline for browse boxes: Navigation guide Notability guideline: Notability Shortcuts: WP:USRD U.S. Roads Portal U.S. Portal

Scope

This project covers all roads in the United States.

Goals

1. Standardizing the existing state highway WPs listed below.
2. To some extent, standardizing the state highway articles for which a WP does not exist yet.
3. Categorization and improvement of general U.S. highway-related articles, e.g. Good Roads Movement.
4. Assessment and classification of all project and subproject articles for both informative and WP:1.0 purposes.

Naming conventions

• For Interstates, see Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Interstate Highways.
• For U.S. Highways, see Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Highways.
• For state highways, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (U.S. state highways).

Resources

For state-specific resources, see the individual projects.

Historic maps and routings

• 1926 U.S. Highway system
• University of Alabama Historical Map Archive, including old USGS topos from all over the U.S.
• Maptech: Historical Topographic Maps
  • Historic USGS Maps of New England & NY, a subset of the above
• Broer Map Library - Online Historic Maps, including many after numbers were assigned
• A Handbook of New England, a 1916 book that describes the color-banded routes marked by the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire

• /Inter-state route completion lists

• /Map database, a database of what historic maps users have

• Colorado 1923 numbers (move to the Colorado project when it's created)

Relationships

Parent WikiProjects

Highways | U.S. WikiProjects

Sibling WikiProject

Canada

Descendant WikiProjects

U.S. Highways | U.S. Interstate Highways

Alabama | California | California County Routes | Connecticut | Florida | Georgia | Illinois | Indiana | Iowa | Kansas | Kentucky | Maryland | Massachusetts | Michigan | Minnesota | Missouri | Nebraska | Nevada | New Hampshire | New Jersey | New York | New York County Routes | North Carolina | Ohio | Oklahoma | Oregon | Pennsylvania | Rhode Island | South Carolina | Texas | Utah | Vermont | Virginia | Washington | West Virginia | Wisconsin

Participants

See Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Participants.

Quality statistics

U.S. road transport articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
FA	1	3	74	6			84
FL		5	5				10
FM					13		13
A			17	4			21
GA	2	1	1,059	122			1,184
B	4	4	1,190	381			1,579
C	7	3	3,336	408		1	3,755
Start	18	22	3,942	472	1		4,455
Stub	4	2	1,070	245			1,321
List	12	192	309	471	43	5	1,032
Future			36	12		1	49
Category					2,757		2,757
Disambig				1	357		358
File					832		832
Portal					104		104
Project					797		797
Redirect			5	14	14,954		14,973
Template					463		463
Other			4	4	3		11
Assessed	48	232	11,047	2,140	20,324	7	33,798
Unassessed					76	3	79
Total	48	232	11,047	2,140	20,400	10	33,877
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 52,347			Ω = 4.22

Structure

Each state is to have a state highway WikiProject of its own when enough interest (i.e. multiple editors willing to commit to said project) to warrant such a project arises. Specifically, each should have a routebox and a standardized structure of some sort. A stub type is also appropriate in any case where there are 30 road stubs or more (or, if no WikiProject, at least 60). A state law and external links section is optional.

However, it is not possible to be doing 50 WikiProjects at this time. Therefore, this project will coordinate the starting of new WikiProjects for states without one and will determine the efficiency of each existing subproject. Contributors may weigh in on which state should be started next and which projects are least efficient/active on WT:USRD/SUB.

All stub articles should be tagged with one of the stub templates listed below. All of the articles are to be named as prescribed on WP:USSH.

Interstate and U.S. Highway articles may be classified as follows: Multi-state and primary routes belong in the U.S. Interstate or U.S. Highway WikiProjects. Single state, secondary routes belong in WP:IH or WP:USH as well as the respective state's WP, or if one does not exist, solely in the U.S. Interstate or U.S. Highway WikiProjects.

All articles not covered by a subproject are to use the below structure. Sections can be added or modified as necessary. Articles covered by a subproject should use the structure specified by the subproject instead.

Infobox

Articles should use Template:Infobox road, and all known info should be supplied. See the Infobox section on applicable flags as well as standards for the routebox.

Lead

Untitled section that describes the route. It might be helpful for formatting to use {{TOCleft}} at the top of this section to display the table of contents on the top left, followed by the main description of the route. Depending on the route this section may just name the direction (E/W or N/S) and termination points, or may go into considerable detail. However, the majority of detail, such as progress by town or county, should be reserved for the next section.

Route description

This section is for describing the route itself and its progression across the state. Regardless of the route's length, progression should be described from south to north, west to east.

Communities along the route

List of communities, which can range from small hamlets to large cities, along the route. Depending on the length of the route this may include only major communities, or just the few hamlets the route passes through.

History

Any historical information known about the route should be noted.

Miscellanea

Any trivia or facts about a route (any interesting information that doesn't belong in the History section) should be placed in this section.

Major intersections or Exit list

The contents of this section may vary by route. Refer to the table below for the appropriate section header and further instructions.

Route composition	Section header title	What should be here
All grade-separated interchanges; no at-grade intersections	Exit list	An exit list designed in accordance with the exit list guide
Mixture of grade-separated interchanges and at-grade intersections	Major intersections or Exit list	Depending on the route in question, either a junction table or a "combo" exit list featuring exits and intersections can be used. See Pennsylvania Route 60 for an example.
All at-grade intersections; no grade-separated interchanges	Major intersections	A junction table for at-grade intersections as specified in the "Junction table" section below

See also

Place all internal links here.

References

Place all references here, using the <ref></ref> tags in the article and the <references/> tag in this section.

External links

Place all external links which are not references here.

Categories

All state highways should include the category tag: [[Category:{{{category}}}|nnnA]] where nnn is 3-digit route number, and A is the letter designation if any (e.g. Route 1A is "001A", Route 2 is "002").

Talk pages

{{U.S. Roads WikiProject}} should be placed at the top of all talk pages of articles related to U.S. Roads and not covered by a subproject.

Subproject delegation

Subprojects are to be formed to customize and supplement this standard to the requirements of the particular state. Unless otherwise specified, when this project's standards and a subproject's standards conflict, this project has priority.

Infobox

For states with their own state highway WP, see that WP to determine what infobox to use. For Interstates and U.S. Routes, {{Infobox Interstate}} and {{Infobox U.S. Route}} are to be used with the exception of intrastate routes, which use either {{Infobox Interstate/Intrastate}} (Interstates) or {{Infobox U.S. Route}}/{{Infobox road}} (U.S. Routes).

State Road 3
Route information
Maintained by INDOT
Length	223.55 mi (359.77 km)
Major junctions
Major intersections	US 50 in Vernon I-74 in Greensburg US 52 in Rushville I-70 near Spiceland US 36 in Mount Summit US 35 in Muncie, US 224 in Markle, I-69/US 27/30/SR 1 in Fort Wayne US 6 in Kendallville
Location
Country	United States
State	Indiana
Counties	Clark, Scott, Jennings, Decatur, Rush, Henry, Delaware, Blackford, Wells, Huntington, Allen, DeKalb, Noble, LaGrange
Highway system
Indiana State Highway System Interstate US State Scenic
← SR 2 → SR 4

This is the basic syntax you need to get a complete routebox on the article page, just place this before any other text and fill in the variables. Note that this is a complete list of every variable that can be used with Infobox road and that many are unnecessary in most cases. Variables that are empty can be omitted.

{{Infobox road
|marker_image=
|state=
|highway_name=
|name_notes=
|type=
|route=
|alternate_name=
|maint=
|section=
|map=
|length_mi=
|length_round=
|length_ref=
|length_notes=
|established=
|decommissioned=
|direction_a=
|starting_terminus=
|beltway_city=
|junction=
|direction_b=
|ending_terminus=
|counties=
|cities=
|system=
|previous_type=
|previous_route=
|next_type=
|next_route=
|browse=
|commons=
}}

For the above parameters here's what you should fill in:

• marker_image: shield image to be displayed
• state: two-letter abbreviation, state that the article route is located in
• highway_name: road name to be displayed; only use this if the road is unnumbered. If it has a number, use alternate_name.
• name_notes: foot notes that will be displayed in small text underneath the highway name
• type: usually the two-letter state abbreviation for state roads; see the state WikiProject for more details
• route: This is the number of the route the article is about
• alternate_name: Use in situations where the entire route has another name (i.e. NY 590 is called the Sea Breeze Expressway for its entire length)
• maint: The agency that maintains the highway
• section The section of code that defines this route. Only CA and WA use this, and the appropriate subpage [[/CA law]] for example must be set up.
• map: image name of a map for the route, width should be 290px; see the maps task force for maps
• length_mi: This is the length of the route in miles. If you specify beyond integers (i.e. add a decimal value) you will need to set the following paramater, length_round
• length_round: If your value for length_mi is a whole number, you can omit this. Otherwise it needs to be set to the decimal precision of the length_mi paramater.
• length_ref: To do what a good article writer should, provide your reference for the length of the route using standard <ref> method.
• length_notes: see below
• established: This is the date the route was commissioned or assigned to its current alignment
• decommissioned: date the route was decommissioned
• direction_a: This should be either south or west to keep in accordance with the U.S. Roads parent project, which lists termini and junctions in progression travelling from West to East and South to North.
• starting_terminus: This is where the route begins and is either at the southern terminus or western terminus.
• beltway_city: for beltways. This is the city that the beltway encircles
• junction: a list of major junctions. Each WikiProject has different standards for major junctions, so consult the relevant WikiProject for more details.
• direction_b: The opposite of direction_a
• ending_terminus: where the route ends, in accordance with the guidelines set forth with starting_terminus
• counties: a list of counties that the route enters
• cities: a list of cities that the route enters
• system: the highway system that the article route is part of
• previous_type: This is the type of route that preceeds the current one in the system. The value for this is: Interstate, US, or (State) for Interstates, U.S. Routes and other state roads, respectively. Each state has a different parameter for state roads, so consult the WikiProject if in doubt.
• previous_route: The number of the route preceding this one
• next_type: Same as previous_type but for the route following this one
• next_route: The number of the route succeeding this one
• browse: use to add additional browse lines
• commons: use to add link to image gallery or category in commons, input should be gallery, category, or left blank

If neither length_mi nor length_km exists, no length is displayed.

Otherwise, if length_first is either mi or km, that one appears first. Ensure that this one is defined, or it will show up blank.

Otherwise, if only one of length_mi or length_km is defined, that one appears first. The other is calculated and rounded to length_round (default 0) places. Be sure to avoid false precision.

length_ref, if defined, appears after the first length. Use a citation or {{fact}} here. Be sure that the first length is the one for which you have a reference.

length_notes, if defined, appears as a note below the length. This can be used to show former length, or future length, etc.

By completing the infobox as follows, you'll get a routebox like the one above.

{{Infobox road
|marker_image=
|state=IN
|highway_name=
|name_notes=
|type=IN
|route=3
|alternate_name=
|maint=[[Indiana Department of Transportation|INDOT]]
|section=
|map=
|length_mi=223.55
|length_round=2
|length_ref=<ref name="illi-indi">[http://illi-indi.com/EndsPage.php?id=1003&section=1 Indiana Highway Ends - SR 3]</ref>
|length_notes=
|established=
|decommissioned=
|direction_a=South
|starting_terminus=[[Image:Indiana 62.svg|20px]] [[Indiana State Road 62|SR 62]] in [[Charlestown, Indiana|Charlestown]]
|beltway_city=
|junction=[[Image:US 50.svg|25x20px]] [[U.S. Route 50|US 50]] in [[Vernon, Indiana|Vernon]]<br>[[Image:I-74.svg|25x20px]] [[Interstate 74|I-74]] in [[Greensburg, Indiana|Greensburg]]<br>[[Image:US 52.svg|25x20px]] [[U.S. Route 52|US 52]] in [[Rushville, Indiana|Rushville]]<br>[[Image:I-70.svg|20px]] [[Interstate 70|I-70]] near [[Spiceland, Indiana|Spiceland]]<br>[[Image:US 36.svg|25x20px]] [[U.S. Route 36|US 36]] in [[Mount Summit, Indiana|Mount Summit]]<br>[[Image:US 35.svg|25x20px]] [[U.S. Route 35|US 35]] in [[Muncie, Indiana|Muncie, ]]<br>[[Image:US 224.svg|25x20px]] [[U.S. Route 224|US 224]] in [[Markle, Indiana|Markle, ]]<hr>[[Image:I-69.svg|20px]] [[Image:US 27.svg|20px]] [[Image:US 30.svg|20px]] [[Image:Indiana 1.svg|20px]] [[Interstate 69|I-69]]/[[U.S. Route 27|US 27]]/[[U.S. Route 30|30]]/[[Indiana State Road 1|SR 1]] in [[Fort Wayne, Indiana|Fort Wayne]]<br>[[Image:US 6.svg|25x20px]] [[U.S. Route 6|US 6]] in [[Kendallville, Indiana|Kendallville]]
|direction_b=North
|ending_terminus=[[Image:Indiana 120.svg|25px]] [[Indiana State Road 120|SR 120]] near [[Brighton, Indiana|Brighton]]
|counties=[[Clark County, Indiana|Clark]], [[Scott County, Indiana|Scott]], [[Jennings County, Indiana|Jennings]], [[Decatur County, Indiana|Decatur]], [[Rush County, Indiana|Rush]], [[Henry County, Indiana|Henry]], [[Delaware County, Indiana|Delaware]], [[Blackford County, Indiana|Blackford]], [[Wells County, Indiana|Wells]], [[Huntington County, Indiana|Huntington]], [[Allen County, Indiana|Allen]], [[DeKalb County, Indiana|DeKalb]], [[Noble County, Indiana|Noble]], [[LaGrange County, Indiana|LaGrange]]
|cities=Charlestown, Vernon, [[Westport, Indiana|Westport]], Greensburg, Rushville, Dunreith, Spiceland, New Castle, Mount Summit, Muncie, [[Eaton, Indiana|Eaton]], Hartford City, Markle, Fort Wayne, [[Huntertown, Indiana|Huntertown]], Avilla, Kendallville
|system=
|previous_type=IN
|previous_route=2
|next_type=IN
|next_route=4
|browse=
}}

Junction table

The junction table, to be located in "Major intersections", is for listing all of the intersections, both actual junctions and over/underpasses, that this route has with state routes, U.S. routes, Interstates and, optionally, county routes.

This is the basic syntax you need to get a complete junction table for routes that only has at-grade intersections. Just copy and paste the code below into the "Major intersections" section:

{{Jcttop}}
{{Jctint
|state=
|county=
|cspan=
|location=
|lspan=
|type=
|mile=
|road=
|notes=
}}
{{Jctbtm}}

...and fill in the variables! For more entries, use this:

{{Jctint
|state=
|location=
|lspan=
|type=
|mile=
|road=
|notes=
}}

For the above parameters, here's what you should fill in:

• state: the state the intersection is at, do not use if cspan or lspan is specified for the row (use the state's postal abbreviation)
• county: name of the county without wiki markup - the county is automatically linked by the template
• cspan: number of rows the county spans - if value=1, omit this parameter
• location: name of the location without wiki markup - the location is automatically linked by the template
• lspan: number of rows the location spans - if value=1, omit this parameter
• area: (optional for use with location) used to disambiguate between town, city, village, etc.
• ctdab: (optional for use with location) further disambiguation by county (Brighton in New York is an example where this tag would be used)
• location_special: (replaces location) location where the junction is located - use for custom entries only. Wiki markup is required.
• type: noaccess, mplex (for concurrency), decomd (for decommissioned), unbuilt, closed
• mile: milepost of the junction. If unknown, leave blank.
• road: road that the article route intersects at this junction. To generate the proper coding, use:
  • State:[[Image:State num.svg|25x20px]] '''[[State Route num|SR num]]''' (refer to naming conventions)
  • US:[[Image:US num.svg|25x20px]] '''[[U.S. Route num|US num]]'''
  • Interstate:[[Image:I-num.svg|25x20px]] '''[[Interstate num|I-num]]'''.
• street: (optional for use with location) Used to break up monotony in sections where the route has the same town name six or more times over (see NY 33 for an example of appropriate usage).
• notes: any notes regarding that junction.

Any parameter which is empty can be omitted.

Shields

Shields for most state highways have been created. See Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Shields/Database for the naming convention and Commons category for state highway shields.

Articles

Featured content

• Pulaski Skyway is currently a featured article. It appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on January 29, 2005.

Collaboration and review

• Article Improvement Drive
• Highways peer review (also Wikipedia peer review)

IRC

The IRC channel for this project and all subprojects is #wikipedia-en-roads. Feel free to join to discuss/collaborate about anything U.S. Roads.

Templates

Stub

Stub templates are used for tagging articles with very little detail - place on bottom of main article. A collection of U.S. Roads related stub templates can be found on Stub templates subpage

Project notice

{{U.S. Roads WikiProject}} (see for documentation of how to use)

Designates the current article as part of the U.S. Roads WikiProject. Place on the article's talk page. Use on all articles not covered by a subproject.

Browse numbered routes

There are two methods of implementation, depending on how many states the highway in question enters.

One state

Type the following code in the browse parameter of the infobox, if the infobox supports this.

{{XX browse|previous_type=|previous_route=|route=|next_type=|next_route=}}

where XX is the two-letter abbreviation of the state in lowercase (California is ca, New York is ny, etc.).

For the above parameters here's what you should fill in:

• previous_type: previous route (by number) in that state. Interstate, US (for U.S. routes), and (state's 2-letter abbreviation) (for state highways).
• previous_route: route number.
• route: a link to the list page for that state's highway system (optional if the infobox already has said link)
• next_type: the same as previous_type, but for the next route.
• next_route: same as previous_route, but for the next route.

Some state infoboxes, particularly {{Infobox road}} and those derived from it, also have a browse "built-in", in which case it is not necessary to manually add a browse.

Multiple states

Type the following code at the bottom of the article after all article content (including links, footer templates like {{Interstates}}, etc) but before category links.

{{start srbox}}
{{end box}}

In between the start and end templates, the state browse templates should be added. These templates exist in the form

{{XX browse|previous_type=|previous_route=|route=|next_type=|next_route=}}

where XX is the two-letter abbreviation of the state in lowercase (California is ca, New York is ny, etc.).

For the above parameters here's what you should fill in:

• previous_type: previous route (by number) in that state. Interstate, US (for U.S. routes), and (state's 2-letter abbreviation) (for state highways).
• previous_route: route number.
• route: a link to the list page for that state's highway system.
• next_type: the same as previous_type, but for the next route.
• next_route: same as previous_route, but for the next route.

User templates

All members of this and descendant projects should consider placing {{Project U.S. Roads}}, {{Project U.S. Roads East}}, {{Project U.S. Roads West}}, or a single-state template on their user page.

These templates contain news for all of the U.S. Road WikiProjects. The west/east templates split the country in half for size reasons, with the Mississippi River acting as the west/east boundary. To see the full template in action, scroll to the top of the page.