Talk:State highways in New Jersey

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1 Legibility
2 References to NJ Routes
3 Playing around with the format of the list
4 Merge with List of New Jersey highways
5 Auto trails

[edit] Legibility

I find the current table difficult to follow. Would anyone mind if we move back to the list format? Thanks. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 04:38, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm assuming there is a reason for it. It appears that SPUI first changed it in December '04, but I don't see why. The routes in each row do not appear to be related aside from that they are in the same group of 10. At a glance, a list would make more sense than a table, but I'd like to hear why it was changed in the first place, since there is probably a valid reason that isn't apparent. By the way, even if New Jersey State Highways#List of State Highways doesn't make sense, there's always Category:New Jersey state highways, which is much easier to maintain than this. --Chris 20:57, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I did it so it takes up less space vertically. Feel free to test out other stuff. --SPUI (talk) 16:55, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

You have a good point there. Perhaps a list broken up into colums would be easier to read while not being huge vertically. I'd do it myself if I had the time. If noone opposes the idea, I'll probably do it within the next few weeks. If anyone has the time before that, feel free. --Chris 00:34, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] References to NJ Routes

There seems to be a variety of formats to refer to New Jersey's numbered roadways. SPUI has started renaming the pages from the format of New Jersey State Highway 123 to Route 123 (New Jersey) which makes for much more readabale names. Additionally they make sense to the general public who refer to these as "Route 123" and not some technically valid name that no one uses. But there are also a number of formats for how to refer to the highway. There are a whole bunch of us doing edits all over the state of New Jersey. Should we refer to the roads as "Route 123" or "NJ 123" or "NJ Route 123" or is there some other format we should use? Should we use these different formats in different places? Should the titles of the page Route 123 (New Jersey) be New Jersey State Highway 123 as before, or should it be Route 123? Your collective guidance (especially SPUI's thoughts) would help greatly with this task of renaming the pages and the many references to our state's roadways. Alansohn 13:32, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

An alternative that I think is clear and avoids the use of parenteticals: New Jersey State Route 123. Compare with List of Arizona State Routes, List of California State Routes and several others at List of United States numbered highways. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 21:01, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I went with the names that everyone, even NJDOT, uses. The (New Jersey) is then added on for disambiguation; putting it before the Route keeps one from using the pipe trick. --SPUI (talk) 21:31, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Nice. I wasn't aware of that. It's useful with Interstates, so one could just say [[Interstate 495 (New York)|]] and get Interstate 495. --Chris 23:03, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Pipe trick is neat, but if we go with the Route 123 (New Jersey) version, we should at least have the conventional names (New Jersey State Highway 123 and New Jersey State Route 123) as redirects. Most wikipedia-experienced users will look there, as it is the convention for most other states. Shall we put it to a vote? --ChrisRuvolo (t) 23:26, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed on the redirects; I can set up a page like I did at User:SPUI/Roads (which I need to process again) to make it easier to ensure that we make all the redirects for pages that don't yet exist. I guess we could make this a wikiproject, though I'm not sure how useful that would be. Or it could just be a subpage of Wikiproject New Jersey. --SPUI (talk) 23:47, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Sure, a subpage on WP:NJ would work. Let me know if you want me to generate the info, it shouldn't be more than a couple lines of perl. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 00:12, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject New Jersey/State Routes; please edit the templates if you feel any other redirects will be useful. --SPUI (talk) 00:55, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed as well as on the redirects. Route 123 (New Jersey) will be the primary articles, as SPUI is hard at work on (and yes I will stay away from Route 17). We should have the New Jersey State Highway 123 and New Jersey State Route 123 as redirects. From a highway fanatic standpoint, should we refer to our sample road in non-link contexts as Route 123 (which allows for pipe trick use), or should we use NJ 123 or some other format? I'm happy using the Route 123 version (which I agree virtually everyone in New Jersey uses). It seems that SPUI's highway articles use a mix of these two, with a tilt towards NJ 123 in an article about highways, or in an article where its not obvious that it's a New Jersey highway. Any thoughts out there? And thanks to SPUI for putting tremendous time, effort, insight and knowledge on a most unenviable task. Alansohn 03:23, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd say go with Route 123, with some possible different wordings when dealing with a route keeping the same number across a state border. "Route XX" seems to be preferred by NJDOT and certainly by locals. As for US Routes and Interstates, U.S. Highway 123/Interstate 123 or US 123/I-123 should be best. Or we might want to make redirects from U.S. Route 123 and use that? NJDOT uses "Route" for those too, but we probably want to be a bit clearer than that. --SPUI (talk) 03:34, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that is another objection I have to Route 123, it is not specific enough. Yes, I know New Jerseyians refer to Interstate 80 as "Route 80" and US 46 as "Route 46", but I think we should chose a more clear name like New Jersey State Route 123 to be the main encyclopedic article. It leaves no ambiguity, and would encourage people linking to that article to not use a generic "Route 123" link. It may not always be clear from context what state the route is in. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 14:27, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

If it's not clear from context you can use the redirect at New Jersey Route 123 or another wording. US Routes and Interstates should not be called simply "Route". --SPUI (talk) 21:11, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

In regards to the WikiProject... if you have enough demand I'd say split it... then you can have your own templates and routeboxes and structure and stuff. Not that you can;'t now, but it makes it easier if you have your own project. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 06:46, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Playing around with the format of the list

How's the new one? --SPUI (talk) 11:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with List of New Jersey highways

The reason that article is separate, at this point, is that it's designed to include all highways and not just state ones. For example, US 1&9 is not really a state highway, but rather a US highway (or at least signed as such). The interstates are not state highways. County routes, in addition, are also non-state highways - they aren't even highways at all for that matter.Lensovet 07:13, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

A state highway is a road maintained by the state (or in the same system as others - for instance Route 347 is locally maintained), no matter what its system. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 20:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Auto trails

From this 1922 map - unfortunately the list of trails was not scanned:

2 Hightstown - Ocean Grove: Jersey Link
3 Camden - Point Pleasant: Camp Dix Way
4 Camden - Atlantic City: White Horse Trail/Lakes-to-Sea Highway
6 Fort Lee - Suffern and beyond: ?
9 Phillipsburg - Hackettstown - Morristown - Newark - Jersey City: William Penn Highway/Pikes Peak Ocean-to-Ocean Highway
14 Trenton - Hightstown - New Brunswick: Cranberry Trail
15 Penns Grove - Atlantic City: Harding Highway?
23 Camden - Millville - Cape May: Cape May Way
34 Philadelphia - Trenton - Princeton - New Brunswick - Newark - Jersey City: Lincoln Highway
52 Cape May - Atlantic City - Toms River - Long Branch - Perth Amboy - Staten Island: ?
53 Willow Grove - Morristown - Suffern: Tuxedo Trail