Talk:Ontario Highway 416/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Dolphin51 (talk · contribs) 00:18, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I will review this one. Dolphin (t) 00:18, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

The lead

• Making a perverse interpretation of the syntax of the opening sentence, I see it is telling us that the Canadian province of Ontario connects Highway 417 and Highway 401! One way of solving the problem would be to end the first sentence at "Ontario" and start a new one saying "It connects Highway 417 …"

• New York and Toronto should be blue linked.

• Second para begins "Highway 416 was constructed by …" This suggests the para will be about construction methods. Is there a more appropriate word than "constructed"?

• There is a sentence beginning "This two lane highway …" (Does "This two lane highway …" refer to Highway 416 or Highway 16?) The sentence contains information about the number of lanes (traffic engineering), years of construction (history), location of its terminus (geography) and the presence of at-grade intersections (traffic engineering). This is too diverse a mix and makes the sentence almost incomprehensible at first reading. I suggest it should be rationalised by making use of two or more sentences.

• Highway 416 was twinned with another road, and interchanges were constructed. Twinned and interchanges should be blue linked, or some explanation provided.

• There is a sentence telling the reader “A new freeway was also built along the route of Cedarview Road …” The new freeway in this sentence appears entirely unrelated to Highway 416. I suggest this sentence should be either deleted, moved elsewhere in the article, or altered so its relevance to Highway 416 is clear.

• The 54th anniversary of D-Day would have been June 6, 1998 – fifteen months before the final link was opened officially. Should mention of the commemoration as the Veterans Memorial Highway precede mention of the official opening?

Dolphin (t) 02:42, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the review! I'm going to respond to each point in order. The first sentence interpretation is rather strange, as I've never run into that issue with the other 400-series highway GAs (this is the eighth I believe)... But the sentence is using the which in relation to 400-series highway. "Highway is a 400-series highway (in Ontario) which connects blah and blah"... Perhaps that would be a better word in place of which in this context? I like to, as with newspapers, answer the who what where and when, possibly why, with the first sentence.

Blue links are made.

Something can't be constructed by somebody? If you stop at "by", then its ambiguous. But, since the word that follows is a name and not an action, the context becomes clear. My main issue is avoiding repeating words like "passing" and "built" and "constructed", which are very common and hard to avoid in describing a built linear feature.

I've linked twinned to twinning (roads) and interchanges to interchange (road).

The first sentence of that para indicates Highway 16 was bypassed. A new freeway (as opposed to twinning the two lane road) was built from the northern end of this bypass to Highway 417. It's tough to word this without being... well... too wordy. Maybe if I indicate that it bypassed the route "as far as the Prescott Highway (now Prince of Wales Drive) southwest of Ottawa. A new freeway was built along the route of Cedarview Road to connect the northern end of this bypass with Highway 417"? Either way I've taken a stab at rewriting it a bit, so let me know what you think.

As for the last point, I was considering that myself... But all the same, its very jarring to have it discussing construction, then suddenly go off to this commemoration, then back to construction. The way I see it, its better in this case to group the information that is similar together and have the commemoration as a separate thought.

Cheers, ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 14:33, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for those changes. They all work well. Now that the word twinned is blue linked to an explanatory article I see no need for quotation marks. Please have a look at WP:MOS#Quotation marks and decide whether there is a continuing need for them.

I am part way through reviewing the remainder of the article. Dolphin (t) 21:42, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Route description

• Saying the route enters a swamp conveys a misleading impression! Perhaps it crosses a swamp, or enters an area that was formally swampland.

• There appears to be a blue link available for Johnstown.

• References 5 and 6 are presented as bare URLs. My view is that in GAs and FAs all citations based on URLs should enclose the URL in square brackets, and provide a title and retrieval date. See WP:Referencing for beginners without using templates. References 17 and 18 enclose their URLs in square brackets but they have not been given titles or retrieval dates.

• Aside from the first couple kilometres … (Is that deliberate? In Australia we would say couple of kilometres …)

• This section contains the following expressions:

1. the latter of which provides access to North Gower.
2. the latter providing access to the Prescott Highway.
3. Baseline Road and Richmond Road, the former of which provides an onramp to southbound Highway 416.

The second does not rely on the expression of which and I think it is the better syntax.

Design features

• What do you think of the following alternative syntax?

Highways 416 and 407 were constructed during a recession in the mid-1990s. Highway 407 became a tolled highway and for a time it was mentioned that Highway 416 would also be tolled but ultimately this never happened.

The present construction of the paragraph does not reveal any purpose for mentioning the recession. I think the information about the recession is valuable and should be retained. In my alternative wording I have given higher priority to the recession in order to give it a purpose in the paragraph. (I don't see any inevitable connection between tolled roads and recessions. It could be argued that in a time of recession extra taxes like road tolls should be avoided. Consequently I don't see that mention of the recession should be subordinate to the information about the tolled status of 407.)

Dolphin (t) 02:20, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

History

Highway 16 New

• DHO – should that be Department of Highways Ontario?

• In 1966 the Eastern Ontario Highway Planning Study was published [by, for?] the DHO.

• What do you think of the following alternative syntax?

Then, during the summer of 1982, the MTO awarded a contract to construct the route north from Dilworth Road towards Manotick, bypassing North Gower and extending the route as far north as Roger Stevens Drive (Regional Road 6), including a structure over Stevens Creek. Following completion of this first contract, a second contract was awarded for the remaining distance north to Century Road (Regional Road 8).

• With the completion of Highway 16 New, the MTO need only construct ... I think this should be "needed only to construct".

Change of plans

• by the time this section was up for construction ... "Up for construction" is colloquial. It should be changed to formal, encyclopedic language.

• Construction of this interchange began in 1990 following the awarding of a contract in late 1989. This is chronologically reversed for no apparent reason. What do you think of the following alternative syntax?

A contract for construction of this interchange was awarded in late 1989 and construction began in 1990.

Dolphin (t) 07:21, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Reply

Again, doing this in order:

RD

• Fixed
• Linked
• These are refs that I just inserted a day or two ago, and I haven't gone back with my reference tool to fill them in. I'll do that now.
• Fixed... couldn't decide if that of was redundant.
• Done and agreed

Design features

That works a lot better. What I was trying to correlate is the 'desperate times' sort of thing... Recession hits, government runs to have road financed (407) and loans payed back through tolls, and discusses doing it to another road.

History

Indeed, but like MTO the Ontario part isn't always included. Sometimes its Ministry of Transportation of Ontario, but usually just Ministry of Transportation. DHO is even more clear cut - Aside from the covers of the odd publication, I never see Department of Highways, Ontario, just Department of Highways... but apparently DHO is its abbreviation none-the-less.

Whoops :) Fixed

Much more readable. I've used that wording in place of my own.

Fixed

Change of plans

Done

Agreed... Usually the way things end up is the result of my attempts towards creative writing as opposed to "X happened in Y. Then this happened. This was followed by that."... I suppose I should keep an eye on it though - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 14:54, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all those changes. We are nearly there!

Twinning and completion

• In the description of twinning it is stated that grade-separated interchanges are constructed. I can see that if the twin parallel roads are at significantly different elevations any interchanges would have to be grade-separated; but the more common situation would be where the twin parallel roads are at the same elevation so any interchanges would be at-grade. Is the article trying to say grade-separated interchanges are an essential feature of twinning; or is it trying to say grade-separated interchanges were constructed at places along Highway 416?

• The following sentence is unsourced: With the right-of-way along Highway 16 New already purchased, construction was able to proceed without disruption to local properties or traffic. It is likely Ref 11 (The Globe and Mail, November 4, 1967, p.4) is a suitable citation.

Dolphin (t) 22:12, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, in this case a grade-separation is constructed for a cross street so that it goes over or under the twinned highway, rather than meeting it at a stop sign or traffic light... Some of these were made into intersections, but many were just roads crossing the highway... Although this isn't always part of twinning a highway (sometimes its literally just building a parallel two lane road and making one road go in one direction and the other road go the opposite direction), in this particular case it was all done at once. The uncited sentence has been fixed (that ref at least says the right of way for a four lane highway was being purchased as the two lane road was built). - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 22:38, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I see that a particular type of interchange, or any interchange at all, is not an essential feature of twinning. I suggest the present sentence should be replaced by something like:

This section of the route involved constructing a new carriageway parallel to the existing Highway 16, a process known as twinning. Uninterrupted cross-flow of traffic was achieved by grade-separated interchanges.

Dolphin (t) 00:29, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

References

• I set myself the task of making a random check of one of the in-line citations. More-or-less at random, I chose the statement about cables tensioned to over a million kilograms. I followed Ref 9 to the document by Comfort and Loken but was unable to find anything about tension in cables. Can you give me some directions?Dolphin (t) 02:25, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah the joy of reading a thousand articles and then going to write one based on those. I know I came across it and wrote it down... But I assumed (when I was adding sources into the article) that the TAC conference papers had all of the cost saving measures. I've taken out the million kilograms bit of that point for now until I come across the source again... That should be the only case of this however, so feel free to check another ref at random. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 15:34, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I am familiar with the frustration of trying to locate the document that states something valuable that has been written into the draft of a new article! Thanks for removing the bit about the tension in the cables. Feel free to restore it when you find that elusive source. Dolphin (t) 11:40, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Conclusion

The issues I raised with the lead, second paragraph, have been resolved with the 23 December edit by User:MonkeyKingBar. There has been no attempt to revert MKB's edit so I assume these changes are acceptable to all involved with the article. I am now satisfied that the prose is now of a standard that will allow the article to be promoted. We are nearly there. Dolphin (t) 11:36, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

1. Prose: Very good
2. Verifiable: Complies
3. Broad: Satisfactory
4. NPOV: Complies
5. Stable: Very stable
6. Images: Checked
7. Overall: Pass

Congratulations Floydian! Another Good Article. Dolphin (t) 11:44, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Cheers, ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 13:47, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.