Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 14:38, 19 November 2007

I'm considering the fact-worthiness of the following:

At times the highway that the superhighway supplants may be demolished so that it cannot be used for such illicit purposes as impromptu drag racing or as an airstrip for drug traffickers, particularly in the thinly-populated areas of the western United States in which the resources of law enforcement might be pointlessly overstretched.

Is there any reliable source to back this up? —Rob (talk) 19:05, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Decommissioning

This seems an odd use of the word Decommissioning, inconsistent with other meanings. As the definition says 'remove something from operational status'. Could someone provide a source for this? --ReddyRose 12:02, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Ouch. I found a few uses: an outdated Wisconsin DOT trivia page, an Iowa DOT page copied from Misplaced Pages (compare to for proof of the direction of copying), and a news article written by the roadgeek that maintains the Iowa highways site. I thought this was a common use, but it's the new "multiplex". Turnback is one possible alternative. --NE2 15:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Another alternative (applying to either direction): jurisdictional transfer --NE2 15:16, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

This seems to be one of those subjects with wide / global usage but no common description. I'd never heard this term before. It seems to me that this is analogous to the UK term detrunking meaning the demotion of a trunk road, again another UK-specific term. It's not exactly in common use but it is the official term used in legislation e.g. .--ReddyRose 16:23, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Also see Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Language#Decommissioning.

I have started a new discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Highways#"Decommissioned". Can we please discuss this calmly? --NE2 23:49, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Category

Category:Demolished highways- Should this category be adapted to include roads described in this article? --ReddyRose 17:08, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Roads can be demolished deliberately and entirely(the former California State Highway 480). This would be a decommissioning and a demolition.

There are minor demolitions that result from re-alignments, such as to remove an at-grade rail crossing or a sharp turn... but these seem small in contrast to the majority of those discussed. Just as significant are abandonments of all or part of any old highway after a newer one supplants it.

Abandonment is another factor; all highways need some maintenance to remain usable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paul from Michigan (talk • contribs) 23:15, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Terms used by highway departments

• U.S.: de-designated
• AASHTO: eliminated ("either by consolidation with other U.S. routes or by reverting to State routes")
• New York: deleted
• Oklahoma: removed
• Oregon: removed or eliminated
• Texas: cancelled
• Utah: deleted from the state system of highways

is an interesting court decision relating to the phrase "eliminate from the state highway system" in the Oregon statutes. --NE2 00:40, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Cancelled? Really? To me, that means that it was going to be, but never was. A cancelled proposal. These definitions you share are talking about adding and subtracting roads from systems, and these terms may not be used around the world. Many places don't refer to their highways as systems. Which gets into another aspect: There isn't agreement worldwide or even in North America over what a freeway is, or what a motorway is, or what a turnpike is. (Turnpike itself being unknown in Canada, from my experiences at least). Even highway has ambiguities. I've always recognized it as being a road maintained by the government. In other places, it's a road going through rural areas to connect two urban centres. Those terms might be fine for local resources, but not a multinational one. Simply put, which it comes to roads, there is no agreeable standard for an international collaboration like Misplaced Pages vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 00:48, 22 October 2007 (UTC) I think I may have contradicted myself, but I'm not sure..

That doesn't mean we should use a term that nobody uses. --NE2 00:50, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

But people do use it! Everyone I asked knew what it meant, or at least what it implied. If I asked someone if they understood what it meant to cancel a highway, they would likely assumed it never existed. They didn't know what delete meant, and removed implies taking it off of something. I guess the highway could be taken off the landscape, though. I'm sure many would welcome that. vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 00:54, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

No, they didn't know what it meant. They assumed that the highway was torn down or abandoned. --NE2 00:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Eliminated, removed, and deleted would result in similar results, if the term "deleted a highway" made sense. The US example, de-designated makes the most sense if we're talking about a highway which still exists but of a different network (or system, if you prefer). And again, the first person had no idea what deleting a highway meant, and the second thought it meant closing down or rerouted. The highways you changed that alerted my watchlist, 808 and 807, were neither closed down, or rerouted. They were simply re-numbered, or to take a queue from the US, re-designated. vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 13:17, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Reliable sources that use "Decommissioned"

• a book that uses it
• two reuters correspondents use it in their blog
• The Oklahoma Historical Society at the University of Oklahoma uses it
• Boston University uses it
• Clark County washington planning board
• a group lobbying to decommission a highway, and using that term
• even this google search shows the word in wide usage

While other terms MAY be used elsewhere, it is clear the most common term for the removal of a number from a highway is "decommissioning". While it may be appropriate here to note some of the more common other terms, to use a lesser-used term than the most common one is not in keeping with convention or common sense. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:50, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

"To support the use of (or an article about) a particular term we must cite reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term—not books and papers that use the term." Also, the term is only the most common when you include unreliable sources, and the lobbying group uses it correctly, to mean tearing down a highway. --NE2 12:49, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Remember, there is WP:SENSE which is a supplement of WP:IGNORE. This seems to be the best circumstance to invoke these. --Son (talk) 14:38, 19 November 2007 (UTC)