Talk:33 Ashbury/18th Street

Threshold for substantial coverage?

Nearly every statement is cited from a third party (except Callwell and the ridership statistics). some with material explicitly discussing the subject. some from other countries. I think this article meets the qualification for notability as written. are there any further objections to notability? as a comparison, several of the articles under Category:Philadelphia-area trackless trolleys were created in 2008 and have less detail than this article. -MJ (talk) 23:06, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

None of the text of those Philadelphia articles establishes notability, so someone could delete them at any time. (I am definitely not a deletionist, but also not particularly an inclusionist.) Most of the independent references in those five articles were added (years ago) by me, but Philadelphia only had five trolleybus routes that lasted into the 21st century (now down to just three). If you are planning to create standalone articles on every Muni route (or even just every Muni trolleybus route), you should not expect my assistance in adding magazine citations – even though I did so for your first two Muni trolleybus articles (30 and 33). I am reluctant to spend time working on WP articles that could be deleted at any time. A good notability case can be made for a few of Muni's trolleybus routes – such as the 24, which has the steepest existing grade of any trolleybus route in the world (and has held that distinction for at least 38 years, since its opening as trolleybus) – and 33 (which you have mentioned in the lead) and whatever the heaviest-ridership ones are (maybe 30?), but not all of them, in my opinion. SJ Morg (talk) 12:21, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

You're welcome to contribute or not as you choose - that's your prerogative, of course! - but I doubt that any articles on Muni trolleybus routes are in any danger of deletion. All of them have >80 years of history, with substantial discussion in historical sources. Just with what I have on the shelf (and a sudden influx of free time), I could probably get most of them to GA. The 2, 3, 6, 21, and 31 would be more difficult (no coincidence that those were the routes suspended during COVID), but they still would pass GNG. As a point of reference, this is a former Boston streetcar line that I got to GA; there's an equal amount of good sources for any of these trolleybus routes. I do agree that most of the diesel bus routes probably aren't notable, though a few of the high-ridership/historical routes (38/38R, 9/9R) certainly are. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 18:32, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

started the 6 Haight/Parnassus article, and here's the problem with trying to cite it: they built it, then they made it a bus line forty years later, and it's still running today with pretty much the same route with very few people talking about it because it just works. -MJ (talk) 00:23, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Good to hear. No offense to MJ, but knowing that you, Pi.1415926535, may be assisting in developing these articles (I can only infer) – or at least defending them from possible deletion if needed – makes me much more optimistic about the odds of long-term survival of these articles on individual Muni routes. From my (very unscientific) observation on Wikipedia, probably 95% to 98% of the WP editors who are transit fans do a relatively poor job of following WP's guidelines, particularly about citing sources, but I do not have any concerns about that with you; that article on Boston's former Ipwich Street streetcar line is, as far as I've seen, a rare case of a WP article about a single transit route even reaching better than Start class, let alone GA class. Heck, even the vast majority of WP's articles about entire transit agencies seem to be relatively poor in quality. The transit-related articles for the Boston and Seattle areas (e.g.), by contrast, are atypically good, thanks apparently to a few individual editors with much higher standards (and better skills) than most transit-article editors on Wikipedia. Anyway, your comment is encouraging, and makes me inclined to be more willing to help out occasionally with these articles on individual Muni trolleybus routes – but unfortunately I don't have nearly as much time for WP editing in general these days as I once did, so my personal editing to-do list has become ridiculously long (many items on it have beeen waiting for several years). – SJ Morg (talk) 11:06, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree that there's not much to be said about the likes of the 52 Excelsior or 66 Quintara, but a good number of these routes have the history and current use to necessary to establish (adequately cite) notability - especially the trolley routes as they do use fixed infrastructure. Sorry I don't have fancier libraries to work with, but I guess my threshold for starting articles is not "will eventually be GA-quality". I'm just doing what I can. -MJ (talk) 00:18, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Curtailment to 25th Street

@SJ Morg: I'm trying to sort out the history of the southeast end of the route. The change on August 24, 1983 extended the route on Potrero to "25th Street". Trolleybus #164 notes From November it was planned to curtail route 33 to the former terminus of route 47 at 25th Street. thereby making redundant wiring installed only in 1983. Trolleybus #166 says Route 33 was curtailed to 25th Street from 21st December. Where exactly was this curtailment from - did route 33 use the pre-1976 route 47 loop (Army, Hampshire, 25th) from 1983 to 1988? Unfortunately, the magazine archives I can access only go back to the 1988 issues. Thanks, Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:58, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Too busy right now. I'll get back to you in a few days, sooner if possible. SJ Morg (talk) 09:20, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I have added information to the article. See issue #320, which it sounds like you have access to. Route 33's extension on August 24, 1983, was from 16th to Army, not to 25th. (At the time of that opening, Trolleybus Magazine mistakenly reported that the 33 was extended from 16th to [only] 25th, probably because of confusion over signage; the Trolley Coach News No. 60 article I have now cited says that after the August 1983 extension, route 33 trolleybuses displayed "25th St" rather than "Army St" on their rollsigns [for reasons too complex to warrant detailing here]. So, I had to find other sources for that extension's being to Army, and I found two – and have cited them in the article.) The route ran to Army Street (now César Chávez) from 1983 to 1988. Your "pre-1976" reference to Army for route 47 is incorrect. The wires south of 25th (on Potrero and Hampshire and Army) were only first installed in 1982–83 (and brought into use on 8/24/1983); I even photographed them during a September 1982 visit, when they were still only partially complete. Maybe you meant "pre-1967" (a typo?); the 1982 book Inside Muni (p. 234) implies that route 47 ran as trolley coach to Army Street between 1951 and 1967 (it was motor coach until 1951), but I am not sure that is correct. It was always my understanding that the wires south of 25th were completely new, not reinstated old wires, in 1983, but I don't live in S.F. and am not an expert on that period. SJ Morg (talk) 09:06, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Thank you so much! I'm very thankful for your knowledge, library, and attention to detail. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 17:39, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

You're welcome. SJ Morg (talk) 06:22, 19 April 2022 (UTC)