Wikipedia:Peer review/LYNX Rapid Transit Services/archive1

LYNX Rapid Transit Services

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I have previously listed it for peer review as part of the WP:Trains/PR to no avail over two years ago and I have on and off been working on improving and expanding it. I think it has GA and FA potential. But I would also like people's opinions on whether the history section should be separated out as an independent article in addition to thoughts on areas missing or lacking in the article as it presently stands.

Thanks, Patriarca12 (talk) 20:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: A new subject area for me. Seems a well-researched piece, but there are numerous mainly prose problems with the text as it stands. At present I have only reviewed in detail to the end of the "Ridership" section, so a second tranche of comments will follow when I have your responses to these:-

• Use the dablink tool (in top r/h box) to identify and deal with redirect
• Lead: Possibly overdetailed. For example, I would question whether the following sentence is necessary in the lead, which should be a broad summary of the article, leaving details for the main text: "LYNX uses a proof-of-payment fare system, and is policed by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department with CATS Fare Inspectors present to inspect fares."
• Information should not be cited in the lead if the same information is cited in the text, e.g. the 20,000 daily passengers, the 2034 completion etc.
• History
  • "Local leadership" needs clarifying
  • "...the region's rapid growth." Can the nature of this growth also be clarified, e.g. population, economy, etc?
  • It is not immediately clear why a rail link is a "means to control growth".
  • The phrasing "was to have become the first major rapid rail service of any kind" suggests that the intention was not achieved. Is this so? Otherwise the phrase "was to have become" should be reworded (perhaps "would be" or "would become")
  • Second para: I imagine the task force arose from the renewed debate, though the text suggests the reverse.
  • "The task force received $185,000..." Who provided this?
  • Try to avoid repeat of "envisioned" in a single sentence. Possible synonyms are "visualized", "anticipated", "contemplated", "foreseen", etc
    • Note: you still have "envisioned to consist of" which is verbose. I have altered this to "consisted of".
  • Third paragaph, first line: "estimated" is the wrong verb. You need another of the synonyms, above.
  • Say who the $101 million bond issuer was. The sentence should say "The cost of the plan was significantly more..." etc. (Why the odd total, incidentally?)
  • "This combined with being unable to obtain rights-of-way..." Needs punctuation and clarity for "This". Perhaps "The cost factor, combined with..." etc. And I don't believe "rights of way" is a hyphenated term.
  • "By March 1990, CATS only allotted $14 million..." This should either begin "In March 1990..." or ""By March 1990, CATS had only allotted..."
  • I am getting a bit confused by the financing details. Was the rail to be financed by a bond issue, or was it dependent on a federal grant? Then we have a half percent sales tax. Can we have further clarity here?
    • City bond issue + sales tax + matching federal funds - is that it? Still needs clarifying Brianboulton (talk) 22:27, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
• Blue Line
  • "would not commence until 1999" → "did not commence until 1999"
  • "the low projected ridership figures for station." Something missing - what station?
  • "By March 2004, costs of the line were increased..." I think this should read "estimates of costs had increased", and at end of sentence "in January".
  • "...attributed to both rising land and construction costs" → "attributed to rising costs of land and construction."
  • "With construction underway for a year,..." "Under way" is two words, but I think "in progress" reads better.
  • "...LYNX Blue Line would open..." → "LYNX Blue Line opened..."
• Ridership
  • A few prose tweaks, see edit history
  • Link dial-a-ride
  • "Ridership would continue..." → "continued"
  • "10 millionth passenger tip" Typo?
  • "daily ridership at 20,000 passengers a day" - spot the redundancy.
  • "twentieth largest" is two unhyphenated words, and would be better expressed as "20th largest"

Please let me know via my talkpage when you are ready for me to look at the rest. Brianboulton (talk) 19:36, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time for such a thorough review. I have addressed all comments as best as I could. Hopefully everything looks good to you too.Patriarca12 (talk) 02:16, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid I can't solve the redirect problem thrown up by the dablink tool. This might need admin help to resolve. Responses so far look OK. I'll post my remaining prose comments soon. Brianboulton (talk) 22:27, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Further comments

• Controversy
  • I have copyedited the first two sentences into a more concise form. But we need to know when the American Foundation for Prosperity made their report. This whole section lacks any time references, so we don't know where we are in terms of time.
  • "Opponents claimed that $8.9 billion is slated for transit out of a total of $12.7 billion for all transportation projects slated for the Charlotte Region's Long Range Plan, with most of the cost attributed to rail."
    • Opponents of what, or who?
    • Tenses: "claimed" followed by "is slated"
    • "slated" used twice in the sentence.
    • The reader needs to have a clearer idea of what you mean by "transit" and "rail" in this sentence.
  • "The opponents also alleged..." Reading this sentence, the oppnents of the scheme didn't "allege"; they used findings published by Professor Hartgen. The sentence should be redrafted.
  • Second para: after "alleged" you revert to the present tense: "Wendell Cox cites", "Sam Staley says" etc. The present tense is only appropriate here if the controversy is current, and without any time guidance I don't know if this is so.
  • Forms such as "aren't" are non-encyclopedic. Use the full form "are not".
  • I have copyedited the last paragraph for clarity.
• After opening
  • "the line was averaging 80% over initial projections..." Is this passenger numbers, or revenue?
  • I wouldn't capitalise "Huge Success"; that's just headline capitals.
  • "co-leader of the recall" What does that mean? Is this a reference to the tax repeal campaign?
  • "Still, LYNX still has vocal critics." Quite apart from the ugly "Still ... still", this remark sound like a conversational aside, and seems detached – does it refer to the next paragraph? It doesn't seem to serve a useful purpose. and I sugest you drop it.
  • "...and that low estimates were made with lower gas prices." What is the point at issue here?
• Remaining sections: I'm sorry, but I simply don't have the time to give the final sections the kind of line by line treatment I've been giving the article so far. However, there have been significant prose problems thus far, some but not all of which I have fixed, and I imagine these will continue in the remaining sections. I am pretty impressed with the level of detail; I think the article is comprehensive and it appears to be reliably sourced. So I would concentrate now on the prose; try to get a non-involved editor to give the article a top-to-bottom copyedit. Just a few sample prose errors in the final sections:-
  • "Each vehicle contains 68 seats and have..." Should be "has"
  • "Car 101 arrived via flatbed truck to Charlotte..." Things arrive at, not to.
  • "while the corridor still under construction." Missing a "was"

There are, unfortunately many more. I hope this review has helped, but after several hours i really must move on. Good luck with it. Brianboulton (talk) 00:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to look at this as the prose was the primary issue I wanted looking at. I'll take your advise and get additional eyes on the article in the future. Cheers. Patriarca12 (talk) 03:41, 31 January 2010 (UTC)