Talk:Arterial road

This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Highways High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Highways, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of highways on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.HighwaysWikipedia:WikiProject HighwaysTemplate:WikiProject HighwaysHighways articles High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

I oppose the proposed merge of Expressway into this article. See Talk:Expressway. --Coolcaesar 00:53, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose I also oppose this merger. Not all expressways are arterial roads and vice versa. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 22:12, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose I oppose this merger. The range in roadway performance and geometric design is far to wide to lump expressway and arterial together. While one could argue that an expressway is a high end arterial, that would be a part of the definition and not a reason to merge the two definitions. Accessman 16:45, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose There is considerable difference between the two road types. While it can be argued that expressways are a subset of the arterial road, the overwhelming majority of arterial roads have no control of access. Accessman says it all. (As it is, arterial road already is broad - there are two distinct types, principal arterial and minor arterial) CrazyC83 02:43, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure biological arteries carry traffic between urban centers. I thought blood and organs were more their stock in trade. 190.41.69.240 (talk) 20:12, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Biological arteries sole purpose is the movement of blood throughout the body, from origin (heart) to destination (organs and muscles). They are metaphorically identical to arterial roads (and the reason behind the naming). - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 19:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

These two sentences are not quite accurate. Here is one sentence and reason for deleting:

• Much like a biological artery, an arterial road carries large volumes of traffic between areas in urban centres.

This statement is applicable to freeways because relatively speaking, arterial volumes are much less than for freeways. Here is the other sentence and reason for deleting:

• They are noted for their lack of residential entrances directly onto the road (except in older or denser communities).

The example photo that was previously provided, of the Sydney Eastern Arterial Road, shows this is not the case. This road has driveways most of its length into private garages as can be seen from Google map, aerial view for the length of this road. While newer arterial roads often have no residential garage driveways (as was indicated), the fact remains that most arterial roads do have at least some residential garage driveways today.

Added this clause:

• Where geography permits, they are often spaced every half-mile in a grid network ...

If you look at maps of large, flat urban areas (e.g., Los Angeles County, San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles or Santa Clara Valley in California), you will see the arterial grid system in Google maps when zooming out to about half inch per mile of map. The freeway system is separate from this. AkosSzoboszlay (talk) 21:22, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Here are just a few problems with those edits:

• Most major U.S. cities do try to build arterial roads in grids of at least half a mile in size (or larger). Just to name a few: Chicago, Los Angeles (San Fernando Valley), Sacramento, Fresno, Phoenix, Dallas, Miami, Orlando, Las Vegas, Reno, Salt Lake City, and San Jose. And those are just (some) of the cities I've been to.
• Placing a term first in the lead sentence that is not the article title is extremely confusing, which is why encyclopedias and dictionaries never do it.
• Also, "arterial thoroughfare" results in only about 6,700 hits on Google while "arterial road" returns 1.2 million. Wikipedia policy is to use the commonly used term. This is a no-brainer.
• The anatomical analogy was not made very clearly. --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:36, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to try and tackle this in order, but some stuff may be interspersed.

First of, this is not an article on American Urban Geography, its an article on Arterial Thoroughfares, worldwide.

Secondly, the examples you provided are entirely here-say evidence based on a few examples. The more common practise is based on the concession and township surveys carried out in the 17th to 19th centuries. Each concession is 100 chains (or 6600 feet) with a 66 foot right-of-way between them. This means that most of them are 1 and a quarter miles (or a little over 2 kilometres). The Traffic Engineering Handbook (the standard for North America) recommends a distance of two miles where possible. This is sourced.

Thirdly, with regard to the popularity of the terms, I had no intention of changing the title without a formal discussion, but switching the order of the terms so that thoroughfare is second is relatively minor. I personally believe that road refers to the surface, and thoroughfare to the corridor. Road has become a colloquialism for any surface that vehicles pass over.

Fourthly, the analogy can be reworded. The main point to get across is that arterials, as opposed to collectors and distributors, are meant for long distance movement between "activity centres".

Fifth, a poorly worded analogy is not a reason to declare an editor as intoxicated, or writing in Engrish. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 19:47, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]