Talk:El Cajon Boulevard

U.S. Streets Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject U.S. Streets, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of streets in the United States on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.U.S. StreetsWikipedia:WikiProject U.S. StreetsTemplate:WikiProject U.S. StreetsU.S. city street articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

California Low‑importance

	California portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject California, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of California on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CaliforniaWikipedia:WikiProject CaliforniaTemplate:WikiProject CaliforniaCalifornia articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

San Diego Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject San Diego, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics related to San Diego and San Diego County on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.San DiegoWikipedia:WikiProject San DiegoTemplate:WikiProject San DiegoSan Diego articles

Mid

This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

WikiProject San Diego To-do:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Assess : Rate San Diego related articles from Category:Unassessed San Diego articles and Category:Unknown-importance San Diego articles with the {{WikiProject San Diego}} project banner.
Cleanup : A cleanup listing for this project is available: clean-up listing for San_Diego
Expand : San Miguel Mountain, Most articles from Category:Stub-Class San Diego articles.
Photo : Request photos that are needed from Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in San Diego County, California to include in each article.
Stubs : Work on articles in Category:San Diego County, California geography stubs.
Other : * Add {{WikiProject San Diego}} project banner to related articles' talk pages and assess.
- Maintain and further improve articles already of high-quality.
- Get San Diego into Featured article status.
- Improve groups of articles to meet the standards for a Good or Featured Topic.

Don't merge with I-8 article[edit]

I don't know who "suggested" that this article be merged with the Interstate 8 article, but it's a bad idea. The two subjects have nothing in common except that El Cajon Boulevard served as the major east-west road through San Diego before I-8 was built in the 1950s. But they are separated from each other by several miles. El Cajon is not a frontage road or even near the freeway, and they don't intersect. There is no way that a person looking for information about El Cajon Blvd. would expect to find it by looking up I-8. El Cajon Blvd. remains an important city street in its own right. --MelanieN (talk) 23:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC)MelanieN[reply]

El Cajon Blvd. serves as a business route to Interstate 8. It is common USRD practice (see WP:USRD/NT) to merge business routes with their parent routes. El Cajon Blvd. can serve as a redirect to Interstate 8, ensuring that a person can find the information. --Rs chen 7754 23:23, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't actually find where it said that in your link, but I'll take your word for it. However, at your link it also says "City streets are outside of the scope of this project and are handled by Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Streets." El Cajon Boulevard is a city street, and is notable as such according to the criteria listed at that project. I don't think the noteworthy segment - the City of San Diego portion, referred to as "the Boulevard" - is even signed as Business 8, although the (non-connected) portion in the city of El Cajon is. --MelanieN (talk) 03:34, 11 January 2010 (UTC)MelanieN[reply]

For all it matters, keep the article and don't merge, but this article doesn't get very much traffic as it is.--Jojhutton (talk) 03:51, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's a similar argument made about 8 Mile Road vs. M-102 (Michigan highway). They're both the same piece of pavement. There's no reason to have two articles that describe the same piece of pavement, even though the former name is more popular and the latter designation is only one piece of the entire roadway. The two articles were merged together with both titles bold-faced in the lead. I would support merging El Cajon Boulevard into an article called Interstate 8 Business (San Diego, California), which would be the name given to a business route of I-8 in San Diego. Of course, unless that article could be fully expanded out along the lines of M-28 Business (Ishpeming–Negaunee, Michigan) or Capitol Loop (Lansing, Michigan), I'd merge the business loop content into the parent article, like M-32 Business (Hillman, Michigan), or a list like Interstate 196 Business (Grand Rapids, Michigan) (which redirect to M-32 (Michigan highway) and Business routes of Interstate 196 respectively.)

So, to summarize, this city street is part of a business loop of a state-maintained highway/freeway. There's no reason not to merge the street designation together with the highway designation, and business loops are typically merged with the parent highway article. So yes, I support this merger at this time. Imzadi1979 (talk) 06:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That would make sense if not for one thing. Both roads are not the same piece of pavement. They parallel for miles, but are seperate.--Jojhutton (talk) 12:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So? Look at California State Route 58 for an example. --Rs chen 7754 17:37, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But here's the question: This article is primarily about the segment of El Cajon Boulevard in San Diego. Is the San Diego portion of El Cajon Blvd. actually designated as I-8 business, or isn't it? I think t is not. Check out the Interstate 8 in California page. Exit 13-A, the exit for this portion of El Cajon Blvd. - the La Mesa-San Diego portion - is cited as "former I-8 bus. west." The El Cajon Blvd. segment in El Cajon, exit 15, is labeled as "I-8 business east" (but not west). The two segments of El Cajon Boulevard do not connect, they are no longer the same road, and it looks to me like there is no such thing any more as I-8 business west, contiguous with El Cajon Boulevard in San Diego/La Mesa. I have written to the city councilman for the area, and to the El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement District, asking whether the Boulevard is "I-8 business" or not.

But meanwhile here's a posibility: what if we tagged this article like this:

and I would write a little thing on the I-8 page about the I-8 business loop in El Cajon.

One of you administrators could even change the name of this article to El Cajon Boulevard, San Diego, California if you wish. That would follow the naming pattern of other San Diego neighborhoods, such as Mission Valley, San Diego, California, and it would make it clear that this article is about the city street, its neighborhood and its history, rather than about a segment of highway. --MelanieN (talk) 18:14, 11 January 2010 (UTC)MelanieN[reply]

P.S. If you follow this suggestion, I wil rewrite the opening paragraph as follows:

"El Cajon Boulevard is a major east-west street in San Diego, California. It was formerly part of U.S. Route 80. It has been cited as a prime example of a commercial strip whose development was shaped by the automobile.(reference) It is approximately 7 miltes long and runs through the San Diego communities of University Heights, North Park, Normal Heights, City Heights, Talmadge, El Cerrito, Rolando, and the College Area." (links to neighborhoods)

And to the Interstate 8 in California article, after the section about the El Centro business loop, I will add a section "El Cajon business loop: Another business loop of I-8 is found in El Cajon, California. It follows the former route of U.S. Route 80, running roughly parallel to I-8 for approximately 3 miles along El Cajon Boulevard and Main Street."

And this page should be deleted from road/highway projects and placed in San Diego-related projects instead.--MelanieN (talk) 18:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)MelanieN[reply]

P.S. again: would it be simpler if I simply created a new page called El Cajon Boulevard, San Diego, California and transferred this content to it? Then this page could become a DAB page for the new article and the I-8 article. That way we wouldn't have to re-do all the categories and projects. --MelanieN (talk) 18:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)MelanieN[reply]

Jojhutton, El Cajon Blvd would be merged into the section of I-8 on business routes, not the main article. I never said that it was I-8, it is a business route for I-8. Past practices are to merge city street names with concurrent highway designations. Past practice is also to merge business routes with their parent articles unless they can be split out as a fully-formed article. Combining the two practices together, you get El Cajon Boulevard → Interstate 8 Business (San Diego, California) → Interstate 8 in California.

According to my Rand McNally atlas, it is "BR I-8" in San Diego and El Cajon, complete with the little green shields. There's no need to make "city-detail" articles for a single street. M-102/8 Mile Road isn't split apart by city, it's covered all together. M-28 (Michigan highway) isn't split apart by county, even though it is 290 miles. I saw leave all of the boulevard together in one place. My opinion remains that the merger idea is viable. Imzadi1979 (talk) 19:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yet another thing to keep in mind: These two roads were likely the same road before Interstate 8 was constructed. (Look at the map closely). Another argument for merging this article is that El Cajon Blvd. was the historical routing of what was to be Interstate 8, and it is common USRD practice to merge such articles together. --Rs chen 7754 20:23, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

From looking at the article, it appears El Cajon Boulevard is a major road in San Diego that is worthy of its own article. The road is a city street that is also tagged for WP:USST. Just because it is a business loop of I-8 does not automatically mean it should be merged there. ---Dough 48 72 00:14, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Folks, my point was that I don't think it IS a business loop of I-8. It may once have been (and yes, there was a time when both segments of El Cajon Boulevard were connected, before I-8 was constructed), and it may still be designated as such on old maps, but I have presented my evidence that it is not part of any business loop any more. However, it IS a significant city street in San Diego, both commercially and historically, and deserving of its own article on that basis. Also, information which is interesting in a city street article like this would be simply clutter in an article about an interstate freeway. --MelanieN (talk) 04:32, 12 January 2010 (UTC)MelanieN[reply]

Infobox?[edit]

Just out of all this argument; whether the route is a BL or not; should an infobox with the I-BL shields be added? --P C B 02:02, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox improvement[edit]

The infobox for the article needs improvement, so it can display on the page. Also, a "|carries=" line that reads {{jct|state=CA|BL|8|dab1=El Cajon}} should be added to that line, so it will show the shield and name (with link) of the roadway. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 17:15, 29 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]