Talk:Washington State Route 11/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: – TMF 15:32, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   See detailed notes below.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   See detailed notes below.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   "A map of Skagit and Whatcom counties with highways highlighting SR 11 in red." needs to be rewritten.

   Still needs a rewrite. Changing the word order and adding commas doesn't really help.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Detailed notes

Resolved issues

• Lead:
  • "SR 11, or the Chuckanut Drive" is a bit of an odd way to introduce the road name. "known as" or simply "named" would be better choices. Also drop the "the".
  • "SR 11 was originally added to the state highway system in 1895 as a Blanchard–Whatcom County line road, later State Road 6 in 1905 and named Waterfront Road in 1907." - a bit wordy. I suggest adding a full stop after county line road and rewording the resulting second sentence.
    • The resulting second sentence still needs copyediting.
  • "The road was incorporated into the Pacific Highway and later U.S. Route 99 (US 99) by 1926." - since the dates that modern SR 11 became part of both entities is known and given in the history, I would prefer to use those instead. So, a better sentence would read "...Pacific Highway in 1913 and U.S. Route 99 (US 99) in 1926."
    • Saying "later US 99 in 1926" is redundant.
  • "After an inland bypass was added in 1931" - I can infer that the highway being referenced here is US 99 (and that "adding a bypass" means that US 99 was realigned), but that should probably be clarified for the average reader.
    • The wording still needs revising. Using "the highway" where you did could confuse some readers: is "the highway" Chuckanut Drive or the "inland bypass"?
      • This is still somewhat poorly worded: what exactly does "added" mean? Was it built? Was it a pre-existing highway taken over by the state? Also: as it's worded, it's not clear what the bypass was added to.
  • ", later being realigned through Bellingham in 1975." - this comes across as a tack-on statement with the way the first half of the sentence is worded. I suggest replacing the comma with a full stop and rewording the start of the resulting second sentence, dropping the word "later" in the process.
  • "Blanchard–Whatcom County" - spaced en dash.

• RD:
  • "SR 11, named the Chuckanut Drive for its whole route" - drop the "the" again.
  • "The highway travels through a hairpin turn and crosses into Whatcom County and continues through dense forest." - a bit of a run-on sentence. Also it should be "forests".
    • Changing one word doesn't resolve the run-on issue. In fact, the sentence reads a bit awkwardly now.
      • OK, I'll be a bit more blunt: the sentence needs to be split and rewritten. Changing one word or a couple of words doesn't really help.
        • Much better. A suggestion: "SR 11 travels northwest through dense forests, parallel to the shoreline" would be better as "SR 11 travels northwest through dense forests as it parallels the shoreline". Also: the shoreline of what? The Pacific Ocean? A bay? The article doesn't mention what the waterbody is at all.
  • "SR 11 then goes east" - it's a general rule to not use "then" in route descriptions.
  • I would move everything from "SR 11 was formerly routed through Downtown Bellingham" on to a new paragraph in the history. Describing the current route and subsequently describing the old route is a bit odd and possibly confusing to readers. It also needs a good copyedit.
  • "Interstate 5 (I-5)" - abbreviation already established in the lead.

• History:
  • "and encompassed SR 6 into the Pacific Highway in 1913." - slightly odd wording.
    • The "new" wording is still odd. As far as I can tell, you only changed one word, and generally that doesn't get the job done.
  • "The Pacific Highway became SR 1 in a 1923 restructuring of the highway system and SR 6 was replaced completely." - "and" --> ", at which time" and flip "replaced" and "completely" around. I think the resulting sentence reads much better.
  • "U.S. Route 99 (US 99)" - abbreviation already established in the lead.
  • "the former route of Chuckanut Drive became U.S. Route 99 Alternate" - unless I'm missing something Chuckanut Drive doesn't have former alignments; instead, Chuckanut Drive was the former routing of US 99. So, the sentence should read "...former route of US 99 on Chuckanut..." Also replace "U.S. Route 99" with US 99 since "US" has already been established as an abbreviation for "U.S. Route".
  • "US 99 Alternate became the Chuckanut Drive branch of PSH 1" - no SSH, just a fork in the PSH?
  • The history uses "SR" for "State Road" and "State Route" interchangeably, which is a bad idea. To be consistent with the rest of the article, "SR" should be used only for "State Route".
    • It's still being used interchangably at least once.
      • "The Chuckanut Drive branch of PSH 1 became State Route 11 (SR 11)" - since the history has been revised to use SR only for the post-1970 state routes, you can just use SR 11 here.
  • "In 1970, US 99 Alternate was co-signed with SR 11.[1] Interstate 5 later replaced US 99 and US 99 Alternate became SR 11." - regarding the last part of the second sentence, if US 99 Alternate was already cosigned with SR 11, how could it become SR 11 later on? You could say that the US 99 Alternate designation was removed from SR 11. Also, is the date of US 99 and US 99 Alternate's elimination known?
  • On that same note, the caption for the US 99 Alt. assembly reads "U.S. Route 99 Alternate [...] was the former designation of SR 11 from 1931 to 1967." The latter point isn't mentioned anywhere in the history itself.
    • The history bounces around a lot now. In five sentences, you go from 1964 to 1970 to 1967 to 1970 to 1967. I suggest reorganizing it to be more chronological.
      • It's better, but still has a big logical flaw. As it currently reads, SR 11 was assigned in 1964 and re-assigned in 1970. "A 1964 renumbering introduced a new system of sign routes." should be revised to state that the new numbering didn't take effect until 1970. The next sentence - "The Chuckanut Drive branch of PSH 1 became State Route 11 (SR 11), co-signed as US 99 Alternate." - should be rewritten in future tense and revised to make it clear that this was what was planned, not what actually happened (since US 99 Alternate was eliminated prior to 1970). The last sentence - "In 1970, the SR 11 designation went into effect, running from Burlington to Downtown Bellingham." - has no reference.
  • "In 1987, the northern terminus of SR 11 was shifted south to follow the route of former SSH 1F." - did former SSH 1F carry a designation at any point from 1970 to 1987?
  • The history should be split into multiple paragraphs; the current paragraph is a bit long for my tastes.

• Junction list:
  • The list's current notation is a bit odd, specifying the interchanges at each end (which is OK) but also specifying that the junction with old SR 237 is an at-grade intersection, when every junction on the highway outside of its termini is an at-grade intersection.
  • Terminus notations are unnecessary.

• Other:
  • The references use a variety of date formats; since this is an article on a U.S. topic, all dates should be in M D, Y format.
  • File:SR11Chuckanut.jpg has something reflecting in the windshield. I'd send it over to the graphics lab and see if they can do something about it. This isn't necessary for GA status, but any improvements to the image would also improve the article's quality, which could help it down the road.

Placing  On hold. I'll take another look at the article when these issues are resolved. – TMF 16:20, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

• I've addressed all of your comments and also requested the Graphics Lab clean-up the image. –CG^Talk 20:28, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Many issues remain, including some that were not addressed at all. I've revised some issues where applicable. – TMF 03:32, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
    • I've addressed the remaining issues as closely as I could, except for the image issue. –CG^Talk 04:07, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
      • Some resolved, some remain, and at least one - my comment listed in the checklist under criteria 6b - hasn't been touched at all. – TMF 17:24, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
        • I've addressed your 6b comment and all the other concerns as best as I can. Also, the image problem has been solved. –CG^Talk 21:02, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
          • Getting there. I made some slight copyedits to resolve some of the issues, but a couple of things still remain. – TMF 16:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

• I've reworded the caption completely and added a reference to Samish Bay as the paralleled shoreline. –CG^Talk 06:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
  • OK, that was basically the same wording from before, so I decided to reword it myself. The redlink for the bay made me a bit curious for some reason, so I decided to check out a topo map of the area. While it confirmed the bay's name, it also told me that you can get a lot more out of the RD than what's there. Not only does the road follow Samish Bay, it also follows Chuckanut and Bellingham Bays at different points. In Whatcom County, it parallels and enters Larrabee State Park, which was the first state park in Washington according to its article. Finally, the RD doesn't really convey the kind of terrain that SR 11 is shown crossing on the topo. From Blanchard to Bellingham, the topo indicates that the route runs along a narrow strip of land between the shoreline and the base of high mountain peaks directly to the east. All of this can and should be integrated into the RD in some way. – TMF 12:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Added some more information to the RD with refs for Larrabee's distinction as the first state park. –CG^Talk 23:20, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
      • OK, the detail is there now, but it needs a makeover. For 21 miles and a route that traverses as much stuff as this one, the RD should easily be two paragraphs. The current RD's paragraph is too long, but the amount of detail can also be expanded a bit. Take the list of bays that the RD runs off: all three are listed before the route enters Whatcom County, but it doesn't pass Chuckanut Bay until it reaches the town (hamlet? village?) of Chuckanut, and it doesn't run past Bellingham Bay until it gets to Bellingham itself. Also: the RD goes from the Whatcom County line to Fairhaven in one sentence that tries to cram in a boatload of details. I'd split this into two or three to better describe the area. – TMF 21:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
        • Split the paragraph and added details. –CG^Talk 23:04, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
      • Also, I've since learned that reference 28 is a map owned by another user. Are you sure that 1) you used the correct map here and 2) if so, that it shows what's being cited? – TMF 22:01, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
        • Removed the ref. Probably left over from copying/pasting the other refs (online maps that I use all the time). –CG^Talk 23:04, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• The last sentence of the RD's first paragraph is unreferenced.
• "several suburban neighborhoods" - I'm not seeing them on the aerial. Waterside communities, perhaps, but hardly suburban neighborhoods. Additionally, the reference for that sentence doesn't back up what the sentence is saying - in fact, the aerial view that I assume is the reference for most of the RD is only cited once at the very end of the section.
• The second paragraph of the RD still seems a bit rushed to me. I suggest taking a substantial amount of time to look over that part of the route, and rewriting the RD in a way that flows in more of an orderly fashion. It might be helpful to have someone else copyedit the section. – TMF 03:31, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I've addressed your concerns and The Utahraptor (talk · contribs) did an excellent copyedit. –CG^Talk 19:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
    • That user's copyedit was very good indeed. However, the RD still lacked the kind of details I was looking for. For some reason, whether it's the season or the thorough copyedit, I was inspired to flesh out the details myself - especially in Fairhaven, which the old RD kind of blew off. Now that the RD is to my satisfaction, I believe that this article is GA-quality and ready to be passed. Merry Christmas. – TMF 07:22, 24 December 2010 (UTC)