Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Interstate 355

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 00:15, 28 January 2008.

Interstate 355[edit]

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I'm nominating this article for featured article because I feel it meets the criteria. —JA10 Talk • Contribs 01:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've meant to add early data from an excellent, well-referenced report by former Cook County member of the policy committee for the Chicago Area Transportation Study. It covers the first long-range transportation plan from 1955-1962 for the Chicago metropolitan area. It's also 36 pages of mostly text. If you'd like to chime in, feel free to with this source: [1] I have no qualms about hearing about other FAC issues. —Rob (talk) 15:40, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support This was fun to read. I never heard of this highway before. Maybe the article can get even better with the following suggestions. Most can be fixed very easily:

  • Introduction says "Chicago, USA". Isn't putting Illinois usually done?
    •  Done. I hope "Chicago, Illinois, in the United States" works. —JA10 Talk • Contribs
  • Maybe include a map showing where in the USA the highway is located. See the Interstate 80 article. There you can clearly see where the highway is. The current map is good for detail. But it doesn't help completely because I don't know where Joliet is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Congolese (talk • contribs) 02:24, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well this might be tough, I-80 is a national road so that's why the map shows it that way, I-355 is located in one state. I'll try requesting a map, and see what happens. —JA10 Talk • Contribs 03:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Good idea - would work well as the infobox map. I'll see what I can pull together unless someone else gets there first. —Rob (talk) 18:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • A "good enough" map has been put up, showing I-355 in relation to the general Chicago metro area. If you want the state on there, I or someone else can edit the map for that. —Rob (talk) 23:12, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Explain ISTHA so you don't have to search for it. Put (ISTHA) after the first time you put Illinois State Traffic and ...
  • US$ the first time is suggested, then use $
  • Are there special lanes for buses or cars carrying shared riders? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Congolese (talk • contribs) 02:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • No - and as an aside, there aren't any in the entire Chicago metro area! (Some were proposed to be on I-55/Stevenson Expy, but Mayor Daley (of the late 1990s era) killed it in favor of an Orange Line extension. (Bad idea.)) —Rob (talk) 18:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • BTW, I don't know that the above needs to be mentioned in the article. —Rob (talk) 21:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Did travel time decrease as promised by the politicians? Reference?
    • Yes... I'll find that reference. —Rob (talk) 18:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fixed. Those two sources are the only ones I could find... I don't think anyone ever did a detailed study to validate prior politicians'/officials' claims. —Rob (talk) 21:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Completely free", is that different from "free"?
  • There is mention of different areas but if you don't know the area, it takes a lot of searching the list. Since there are no exit numbers, why not add mile numbers to the description (when exits are mentioned?)
  • What were the environmental concerns? References?
    • I'm guessing this refers to original construction? There's multiple references, but I forgot to mention terms of the deal between the arboretum and the tollway authority. Whoops. Tribune and Sun-Times refs exist, and I'll put them in. —Rob (talk) 18:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fixed - much better and makes more sense than the glib sentence that had been there. —Rob (talk) 21:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Home Depot and others were a result of I-355 or just politician's spin and patting themselves on the back? References?
    • The article (ref 22) connects the projects and the tollway directly (according to my read)... if the tollway wasn't there, neither would the commercial developments. I could mention that local politics had a hand in terms of pro-development policies, but I'd have to find the ref for that, plus I think it's not necessary. —Rob (talk) 18:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Those who pay by cash have to exit the mainline? Photo? Does that mean you have to drive off the highway?
    • Hmm. Hadn't thought about this. Might bring in a photo, or find a diagram/explanation on the tollway website. —Rob (talk) 18:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fixed. Tried to word it so it made sense. :) —Rob (talk) 19:57, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Southern Extension, paragraph 6, notable according to whom?
    • That first sentence should be rewritten. That said, it's been reported on in at least 3-4 articles in local papers as some sort of an engineering feat. I'll hunt down the ref. —Rob (talk) 18:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fixed. Found and cited. I rarely quote directly from a newspaper source, but I think "one of the most impressive engineering feats on the state's 274 miles of toll roads" is appropriate to quote directly. —Rob (talk) 21:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Does the signage mention cities the way the Interstate 80 article does (and has a figure in the article)?
  • References. Need a consistent style. Not quite there yet.
  • FAC criteria says "exemplifies our best work". Being an obscure topic makes it hard for me to think it is WP's best work. Being a nice article and well written is achievable. Being better than major topics is hard. Just a thought.
    • I've thought about that for some time... it's something that affects millions of travelers a year and was a major turning point in the suburbanization of DuPage County, and will soon change Will County from farming to second-most populous county in Illinois. If the article manages to transcend the technical and tells the complete story of the highway's place in its history, it can become one of Wikipedia's best works. Thanks for the comments! —Rob (talk) 18:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since you are the expert, you may find some of my novice comments not helpful. If this is the case, sorry. Overall, a nice article about a highway that I knew nothing about until recently.Congolese (talk) 02:20, 17 December 2007 (UTC) Addition: Before I gave the article a polite support. It's better now, so I give it full support. Congolese fufu (talk) 05:28, 29 December 2007 (UTC) (I'm User:Congolese, just changed the name so it wouldn't offend anyone)[reply]

  • Oppose. the early history isn't cited. There aren't any details on what the 1988 lawsuit was over. When did the FHWA add it to the Interstate Highway System? The "major cities" box in the route description is unnecessary. --NE2 15:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yeah, that was a typo - it was before 1985, and unfortunately, that's the limit of online news article from the Chicago Tribune. Looking for stuff on FHWA though - that's the stuff newspapers don't cover, and I was hoping the FHWA website would be more helpful. I'll contact the standing committee responsible for route numbering and see if I get something, quickly. Lawsuit information may have to come from a microfiche. —Rob (talk) 17:07, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I was the GA reviewer, and the article was great then. It meets FA criteria in my opinion, well written and backed up comprehensively by reliable and verifiable sources. Rt. 14:16, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Switched back to support. Rt. 22:08, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: please review the dead links per the external link checker linked at the top of this page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:33, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see. I'll put my support "on hold" - as it were. Rt. 14:35, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, interesting, only one link remains but I think the external link checker is making a mistake. "Bridge to southwest around the corner" [ref 24 in the article] does not lead to a dead link in the article, as shown here. But in the external link checker, it leads to a different link, a dead one. I don't know what do here. —JA10 Talk • Contribs 17:05, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No mistake in the linkchecker; the Tribune link was dead, and the link you provided above is live. I switched them for you. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:41, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, so there really was a dead link, sorry about that, thanks for fixing it. —JA10 Talk • Contribs 19:02, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Whoops. I guess I copied the address bar URL for that one, not the OpenURL link. Infoweb requires authentication to get in (via a local public library, for instance) but it provides individual articles to users (presumably to check references) for free via an OpenURL at the bottom of the page. I've changed that link to the OpenURL link. —Rob (talk) 05:07, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some comments (I haven't looked above). More non-breaking spaces are needed, such as 20 percent, $2.5 million, 55 minutes, 200,000 cars, etc. 189 acres should have a metric conversion. The reference is awkward; I don't think that it should reference the Google search. For the broken links in the search, you could use an internet archive website, such as the Wayback machine. For figures involving money, you should indicate the year of the cost, as well as an inflated cost, to provide a modern perspective; this site is used by the Tropical cyclone Wikiproject. I believe 99-year should be 99–year. --♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Problem is that the google archives lead to dead links, so I'd rather provide a link as proof of the source on google. I'll try using the wayback machine. —JA10 Talk • Contribs 21:06, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've put in a few non-breaking spaces, but you have no idea how much I wish Safari/Firefox/anyone could show those more easily. I've also put non-breaking spaces in things like "Illinois 53" and "75th Street". Is there some sort of template that handles inflation for me? I'd hate to have to have editors go in there yearly and update dollars to modern equivalents. Also fixed the ndash in 99–year. Exit list might need to be converted to ndashes as well. —Rob (talk) 23:15, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed the google references problem, thanks for the comments. —JA10 Talk • Contribs 17:32, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Inflation numbers have been added for years prior to 2000. I'm not sure if there's value in putting in numbers from more recent dates than 2000. —Rob (talk) 16:54, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Stability

Although it's curious to declare stability after a nomination, I'm declaring the article largely stable. (I hadn't expected to be doing this much editing during a nomination... but it wasn't me who nominated the article. :-D That's OK though). Of course further editing will be necessary to address further concerns, but in terms of things I felt were missing from the article when initially nominated... I think those have been added.

The following items may be added at a later date:

  • 1962 Chicago Area Transportation Study info, if any (remember, the highway was at this point more a concept than even an engineering plan) - see link at top
  • FHWA designates north-south tollway as I-355 on completion. Chicago Tribune no help on this one, but the first mention of I-355 in the paper is April 26, 1988 (see below) which strongly, strongly, strongly points to an AASHTO decision in fall 1987 or spring 1988
  • Brief mention of 20-year pavement life span here: Mehler, Neil H. (1988-04-26). "Tollway tries to get rock-solid pavement". Chicago Tribune.
  • Morton arboretum initial lawsuit and resolution might need to be made clearer. Comments?

—Rob (talk) 20:43, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll see if I can find the FHWA thing for you. —JA10 Talk • Contribs 17:39, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. All my issues have been been fixed. This is a well-written article. Karanacs (talk) 14:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for now. It seems to be a well-written article, but there are some WP:MOS issues that need to be fixed.
    • An image should not have been placed directly below the infobox. This means that the TOC is not appearing where it should and you have a lot of blank space.
      • Looks perfectly fine on my computer. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 17:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'm glad it looks good for you, but it doesn't on my machine if I have the window maximized in IE. I've moved the image to be just inside the History section instead of outside, and now it appears correctly in my browser; hopefully it still looks nice in yours too. Karanacs (talk) 15:29, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • In the section Opening, you have a missing number where you tried to convert $2.5 million to 2007 dollars (it reads $3 to $ million in 2007)
      • Whoops. Done. —Rob (talk) 18:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Please note that image captions should not end in a period unless they are full sentences.
    • "Veterans Day, 2007 (November 11, 2007)" should probably read "Veterans Day (November 11) 2007.
      • Fixed. —Rob (talk) 18:41, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • That would break date prefs. As it is, it had a nbsp in there preventing date prefs from parsing; that was fixed.—Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 17:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Month-day combinations should always be wikilinked even when there is no year to allow date preferences to work. Please check all the instances of November 11 to make sure they are wikilinked.
      • Done, and checked. —Rob (talk) 18:57, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • All newspaper references need to have the date field filled out. You also need to have the title of the newspaper article. For example, reference 6 does not give the title or author (if available) of the particular article that you are citing. It should be reformatted similar to this {{citation|title=Article Title Here|last=Author Last Name|first=Author First Name|date=[[April 25]], [[1963]]|newspaper=The Daily Herald|publisher=Newspaper Archive|accessdate=[[2007-12-22]]}}
    • newspaper names need to be italicized in references
      • See note below. —Rob (talk) 18:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Need access dates for all web links, and there aren't any for the Chicago Tribune articles
      • Didn't know this was policy. Will check. —Rob (talk) 18:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Done. Checked, and double-checked. —Rob (talk) 19:07, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • No publisher listed for reg 24
      • Oops. Done. —Rob (talk) 18:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Your Chicago Tribune refs aren't formatted consistently. Ref 54 is the preferred way to do it
      • It sounds like you want the refs to not have quotes around the article name, and to have the publisher be italicized. These changes would have to take place in {{cite news}}, and I'll post the results of that request here. —Rob (talk) 18:20, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • As it was, there were also some random cite webs in there instead of cite news - I fixed that too. —Rob (talk) 18:57, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:NBSP - I second the need for nonbreaking spaces.

Karanacs (talk) 15:20, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On a revisit, it looks like most of my concerns have been addressed, but please note that the articles taken from the Newspaper Archive need to have the actual article title (and authors, if present) cited. Karanacs (talk) 15:29, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Problem is that "newspaper archive" either doesn't show the title or the actual stories don't have titles, I don't know what to do here. —JA10 Talk • Contribs 21:06, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed replaced the newspaper archives. —JA10 Talk • Contribs 19:06, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments—It's good, but the prose needs fixing here and there throughout; please don't just fix these random examples—get someone fresh to go through it (a word-nerd found from the edit histories of similar good articles).

  • "Illinois" appears three times in the first three lines now, so I'd have rejected that advice to add it after "Chicago" (that little-known town). Also, it's linked TWICE in the same sentence ...
    • I tend to do the "read this article aloud to myself" test, but a peer editor would be very, very nice. I fail grammar. —Rob (talk) 15:59, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "North-South" should have an en dash here ("North–South", even if the owners of the highway were mitaken in using a hyphen. It will google just the same. See MOS. Same issue for "Schaumburg-Wheaton-Bolingbrook corridor", which needs to be piped into proper formatting, despite the wrong punctuation in its article title. And "north-south transportation corridor"—audit all compounds that are to -->
  • I'm wondering why you bothered to put a tiny, squinty map in the infoblot at the top, and then to duplicate it at a better size immediately below. Why not provide a photograph at the top? That would be more interesting.
    • Mostly stylistic - the teeny tiny map that every other Interstate article has is useful for determining general location, but I found it unusually annoying to have to click the map to read the words. Hence, the larger map. It will be moved off to "Route description" and a pic can be bumped to the top. —Rob (talk) 15:59, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • We don't need "US" dollars linked (twice in a row, hello?). MOS says not even to bother specifying US dollars in US-related articles (with good reason). Good conversions into 2007 dollars.
    • Suggestion from above... (Congolese). I agree, it's a US article. —Rob (talk) 15:59, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "April of 1985"—MOS breach; spot the redundant word.
  • Why is a common word such as "earmarked" linked? It's not wiktionary.
    • Earmark is a common word? —Rob (talk) 15:59, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, "earmark" is common enough, and is certainly not jargon or a technical item. Next we'll have all three-syllable words linked. Tony (talk) 04:29, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "decided to pave I-355 with pavement"—ungainly repitition; I can't think of a solution, but one is needed.
    • Whoops. s/pavement/concrete. —Rob (talk) 15:59, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The concrete on the tollway was 12 inches (30 cm) thick and an 8 inches (20 cm) sub-base"—with an 8-inch sub-base? Ungrammatical as is.
  • "The new pavement also incorporated"—remove "also".
  • "at a cost of $2 million to $2.5 million (1990, $3 to $4.0 million in 2007)"—MOS breach WRT decimal points. And even three point nought dollars won't do—that's a huge range.
    • Is "around $2 million" better? It may be possible to narrow the range, but without looking at the original bids, it may not be possible. And for something relatively ancillary, too. —Rob (talk) 15:59, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • If you know that it was $2.0–2.5 million, don't sacrifice that level of precision; do it to one decimal place in both units, though. Three dollars to four million is surely not what you mean (range of $3,999,997). Format as I did in the first sentence here.

Plus lots more. Tony (talk) 08:01, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Please note that graphics, including coloured ticks and crosses, are discouraged in the instructions for this process.Tony (talk) 13:33, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - there are some issues to address before this article meets criterion 1a:
    • "From 1963 to 1970, a new expressway was built..." - passive voice obscures subject, who built?
    • Some long sentences are extremely hard to read: "Of these corridors, the vast majority, including the Des Plaines River expressway, the Crosstown Expressway running north-south along the west side of Chicago, and most of a proposed northern extension of Illinois 53 ran into intense local opposition and were never built."
    • Why is "earmarked" wikilinked?
    • "The $100 million (1979, $284 million in 2007) remaining was then earmarked for the new freeway to replace Illinois 53. However, this amount was found to be insufficient for construction. The project was then converted into a tollway, and the money spent on other projects in the county." All passive voice, all sentences whose subjects the reader might like to know. Who earmarked? Who converted? Who spent?
    • "In addition, earthen berms would be built along the tollway to prevent salt spray from damaging arboretum plants, which had already been affected by salt spray from the then East-West Tollway, which itself was 0.25 miles (402 m) away." Too long, too many prepositional phrases.
    • "Under the agreement, Morton Arboretum would charge DuPage County residents a lower prices for admission one day of the week, built a bicycle path connecting the arboretum to nearby forest preserves, and begin a joint clean-streams program to improve the water quality of DuPage County's lakes and streams." Mixed verb tenses.
    • "Concerns were somewhat alleviated when the tollway agreed to..." Passive voice again, and how does a tollway agree to do something?
    • "The tollway agreed to..." Same comment as above.
    These are just in the "Early history" section and I have not read further because it's clear that the article needs a thorough copy edit by a fresh editor. Please pay particular attention to writing in the passive voice; its use here frequently obscures the subject of the sentence. --Laser brain (talk) 19:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Tollway" and "Illinois State Toll Highway Authority" are used interchangeably to refer to the entity that manages the toll roads - yes, that causes confusion. If earmark really is such a common word, I'll just delink it. —Rob (talk) 20:22, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Ooooh, thanks for clearing that up. One of those local colloquialisms that aren't clear to the rest of us :) --Laser brain (talk) 14:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for the help so far. It really does need a more thorough copyedit though - your changes were fairly minor. --Laser brain (talk) 14:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

JA10 and Rob, have you asked Tony1 (talk · contribs) and NE2 (talk · contribs) to have another look? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:22, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Negative - their root concerns haven't really been addressed yet. I've never opened up an article to edit specifically for active vs. passive verb tenses, subjects and whatnot, but I will do that very, very soon. I will ask NE2 to re-review his vote, as the FHWA date is a small chunk of information, and the amount of effort that has gone into trying to find it now outweighs the value of the date itself. —Rob (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support This is the best interstate article I have ever seen. Nice job on on it. Tavix (talk) 01:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Exit list needs clean up. If that is taken care of, I'll change my vote to support. ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 00:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Other than the exit list, the rest of the article looks fine. ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 21:10, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I just cross-checked the list against the exit list guide... everything conforms (with the possible exception of the head and tail rows, which just haven't been discussed). The ramp types are there as a result of a suggestion. What are you referring to? —Rob (talk) 03:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Mileage and exit number should be switched, according to WP:ELG. Also, the exit number should be labeled #, not Plaza #. ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 03:34, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • What are you talking about? this highway doesn't have exit numbers, it states that above the exit list. —JA10 Talk • Contribs 03:50, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • I crossed out my second sentence of the last comment. However, number and mileage needs to be switched. ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 04:14, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • Ah, that. There's a reason for that - the destinations more closely associate with the milepost, not the plaza number. It reads better in the current fashion. If instead of plaza numbers, the tollway had exit numbers, I would agree with your assertion. —Rob (talk) 13:49, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I still don't get it, you mean "plaza number", that only violates ELG as a minor problem, and its a special case for this toll road because it has plazas and shouldn't be that big of deal to oppose. Other than that I have no idea what you're talking about. —JA10 Talk • Contribs 05:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Change to provision support: I hope this gets through, but everywhere I look there are glitches.
  • Someone has gone wild changing all of the hyphens to en dashes. Please read MOS on both. "two–lane wide Rohlwing Road"—no "two-lane-wide Rohlwing Road". "limited-access".
  • "In an effort to head off problems"—Spot the three redundant words".
  • Three problems: "a 8 inches (20 cm) sub–base" --> "an 8-inch (20 cm) sub–base".
  • "As a Christmas "gift," the first two days of"—comma after the quote mark. See MOS.
  • "$3 to $4 million in 2007"—no, "$3–4 million in 2007"; et al.
  • Clumsy: "As one of the newer tollways in the system, the Veterans Memorial Tollway has also seen considerable toll–collection related improvements"—remove "also"; "considerable improvements in toll collection" better than what should be a two-hyphen unit (not one hyphen, and certainly not one en dash, which means -->"to"-->).

These are just odd samples. So much work has been done, and just an hour by someone else who's good at copy-editing and knows MOS will do. Tony (talk) 04:29, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Yeah, at this point, memorizing the MOS would probably just be a better use of time. At least now I know where en-dashes should be... —Rob (talk) 04:42, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.
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