Talk:Metro A Line (Minnesota)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: MSG17 (talk · contribs) 01:29, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Hello, I plan to review this GA over the coming week. I would like to complete this review before midnight (UTC) on October 31st as part of the GAN backlog drive. Thank you for your work so far on this article. MSG17 (talk) 01:29, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Prose and MOS

The article is quite well written, with engaging prose and good organization. I do have a couple comments:

• If possible, could you take the refs out of the lead? I feel that ridership info is a great example of something that should be detailed and cited in the body and then summarized in the lead.
  • Done. Eóin (talk) 02:01, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
• I would recommend clarifying that the six police officers were assigned only to this line as opposed to, say, all METRO buses.
  • Done. Eóin (talk) 02:01, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

References

Overall, the refs situation seems pretty good at first glance. Inline citations are properly formatted. The references are from a diverse assortment of reliable sources, and most statements are backed up by them, so there are no OR issues here. However, I have noticed some issues:

• Ref 5 (A Line route map pdf) is currently dead. Can you update the link or find a replacement?
  • I updated the link. I may try to archive this source because from looking at the URL it looks like the url may change slightly every time there is a quarterly change in bus service. 02:01, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
• Travel time only increased by 6 minutes to the U of M and by 2 minutes to downtown Minneapolis. - source used says this is only the planned increase by the planned elimination of 144. Can you see if this increase was actually attained in the real world, or at least on the schedules? If not, it would be fine to indicate that this was only the planned increase.
  • Route 144 timetables are no longer publicly available so I have changed it to planned. I found a news article about the closure of Route 144 but it doesn't currently add any new information to the article. I'm considering adding another Route 144 fact into the A Line article as an excuse to cite this newsarticle because otherwise I'm not sure if these sentences require a 4th citation. On the other hand it is an independent reliable source where two of the three are less independent. Eóin (talk) 02:01, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
• The opening date is unreferenced.
  • Cited from an existing reference. Eóin (talk) 02:01, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
• Do we really need three sources for one statement from the same urban planner? Especially when one source is essentially his blog.
  • I've removed his blog. I'd like to keep the Vox article because it shows the transit line has been in discussion with a wider audience than just the Twin Cities. I'd be okay with removing the MinnPost article but I'm in the habit of citing as many relevant sources as possible in case it spurs a wider interest in readers. Eóin (talk) 02:01, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Broadness, focus, neutrality, and writing in general

The article is generally comprehensive without going into useless detail, and is quite informative about the route and its features. But, I do have some comments:

• A lot of the statistical figures are from 2018. Can you look into updating them for 2019 now that most of 2020 has passed?
• In the same vein, can you get ridership figures for all the stations?
  • In public 2019 ridership stories Metro Transit combined the weekday ridership of the A Line and the C Line. I can cite the annual 2019 A Line ridership but weekday ridership in 2019 hasn't been publicly released. https://www.metrotransit.org/ridership-growing-in-corridors-with-fast-frequent-service. This information may be released in the future and I can keep an eye on that.
  • I will complete the table with the missing entries for the 2019 station ridership. Things are a little complicated with Metro Transit discouraging using aggregate stop-level ridership to calculate route-level ridership. I will try to find a way to clarify that. Eóin (talk) 02:01, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

@Eóin: Good work on addressing my concerns. I have some more comments:

• Could you add similar data from Line A to the table in the History section? Without that point of comparison, the data conveyed by the table is unnecessary detail. If there is no set of data for Line A that would make a good comparison, I would recommend removing the table.
• In a similar vein, I have an issue with the statement Previously buses spent around 24% of their time waiting at signals and had a 90.7% on-time performance. How does that compare to the situation now that Line A has been opened? This might have more meaning to a transit expert, but as a layperson I don't understand the significance of these specific statistics, and I don't think most readers would either.
  • I cannot find current data related to the table in the History section. It appears that level of detail is rarely published and the presence of it was just a snapshot available due to a major transit service study. I have removed the table. I think it has some interesting information but there is insufficient context compared to other years and it is more trivia than encyclopedic.
  • I have found a source for on-time performance after opening but cannot find information about current time spent waiting at traffic signals. In terms of what the significance of the statistics is, I think even transit experts would struggle to put the 24% wait time at signals in context, but to the public it's surprising to hear that a bus spends 1/4 of the time at red lights. I don't think many people could appreciate the difference between 20% spent at traffic signals versus 30%, but many people could appreciate that traffic signals form a significant amount of delay for bus travel. I appreciate the insight and review from non transit fans so I welcome continued discussion on whether this is an acceptable solution or the content should be reviewed/removed for a more general audience. Eóin (talk) 17:55, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
    • OK, with those changes implemented this article is fit for nomination. I will update the necessary pages. MSG17 (talk) 22:21, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Copyright

All good here. Earwig doesn't detect any problems, and neither do I.

Images and stability

All images are properly tagged with the proper CC license, and are captioned properly. The pictures are representative of the article's topic. There haven't been any edits since the end of August, so stability is not an issue here.

Overall, you've done a great job and I only see some minor problems so far. MSG17 (talk) 01:30, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Because this user has a history of long breaks, I will put this review  On hold for 14 days. MSG17 (talk) 02:07, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate your patience. Eóin (talk) 17:55, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed