Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/M-6 (Michigan highway)/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Laser brain 03:55, 31 January 2011 [1].

M-6 (Michigan highway)

M-6 (Michigan highway) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Imzadi 1979 → 00:07, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A freeway that was 32 years in the making, it is almost cat-like in how many times the project had been resurrected. Of course, I think the article meets the criteria. Imzadi 1979 → 00:07, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. This is from someone who knows nothing about American freeways, so comments are mostly focused on understandability:
  • For the Brit reader, it might be worth linking "township" to Township (United States) (assuming that's the correct definition) - we don't use the word here.
  • The highway ran from US 41 at Phoenix to north to Eagle River. - is there a mistake in this sentence - I can't understand what it means.
  • What does "Phase III section" refer to in "Earlier designation"? Which freeway would have been left discontinuous - I696 or M-6? There's also a distinction between "completion of the segment" and "Phase III completion" which I don't understand - what is the segment? The whole paragraph leaves me confused as to what happened.
  • The idea dates back to the 1960s - can this be expanded on? It would be nice to know when exactly and whose idea, if the info is available.
  • A second citizens group - second to which group? Which other groups were they supplementing?
  • MDOT hired a new consultant - is the name of this new consultant public? Just seems odd to mention BKI by name but be vague over this one.
Entertaining story about bureaucratic nightmares! Article looked good on initial readthrough, so hopefully this can get to FA. Thanks, Trebor (talk) 02:25, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • That is the correct term, and since I guess it wouldn't be too general of a term after all, I'm happy to link it. The only problem with linking "township" is that all of the uses are either in proper names, next to linked names, or 3/4 of the way down the article. I'm open to any thoughts on how to fix this without inserting awkward text just to provide a link location.
  • Fixed.
  • I edited that paragraph to remove all references to the phase numbers.
  • No specific years for or originators of the freeway concept are given in the sources.
  • The first group formed is the "South Belt Local Advisory Board". This second group is the South Belt Citizens Committee. That should be clarified now.
  • I can double check the older newspaper articles, but I do not recall them having the name, or I would have listed it already. Only one of the articles in only one place mentioned it, but it's been added to the article now.
Hopefully this addresses your concerns. Imzadi 1979 → 03:09, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support, looks good (disclaimer: I can't check the sources and I can't comment on comprehensiveness). Trebor (talk) 16:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. I ran the article through Coren's tool and Earwig's tool and nothing showed up in regards to plagiarism with those tools. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:54, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support - I have reviewed this article several times now, and do not see an issue with promoting the article to Featured Article status. --Admrboltz (talk) 19:21, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support - Reviewing this article for the second time, I feel that it is broad in its coverage of the highway, is referenced to multiple reliable sources, and has excellent images. In addition, the prose is high quality throughout the article. Dough4872 01:00, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • RD - "Near Kalamazoo Avenue, the freeway passes through an area with retail businesses and movie theaters on each side of the interchange.; to the northeast is East Kentwood High School." - extra period
  • "The carriageway splits into ramps for each direction of I-96," - carriageway linked somewhere?
  • History - "By the time eastern freeway segment was completed in 1979," - the?
  • "The legislature approved Engler's "Build Michigan III" program in 2000. The plan accelerated road projects in the state." - combine sentences

Good article that meets the criteria otherwise. --Rschen7754 20:58, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All should be fixed now. Imzadi 1979 → 21:28, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment My first cursory glances and readings of the article and sources have turned up nothing that would keep me from supporting, pending more examination. There is one part that strikes me, however.
"Continuing east, the beltline curves to the southeast and into the cloverleaf interchange complex at US 131.[3][4][5] This "mammoth" interchange stretches over a mile (1.6 km), encompassing 27 bridges and 18 retaining walls. This makes it the largest freeway interchange in Western Michigan.[6]"
This reads fine... but the way that this measurement is taken is not very clear. Generally interchanges are measured by the area they occupy. This appears to be a measurement of the linear lane-mileage throughout the area of the interchange. The scale I'm gathering from the picture certainly doesn't seem to indicate that 'over a mile' of M-6 passes through the cloverleaf interchange either. Could you clarify exactly what is being measured? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 21:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The interchange is being measured by freeway lane miles in the newspaper article. (No area measurement is given.) In looking at the aerial photo (File:US 131, M-6, 68th St interchange.jpg), the M-6 freeway and the C-D lanes cross over Clyde Park Avenue on the west and the C-D lanes don't merge back into the M-6 mainline on the east until Division Avenue off the right of the photo. Clyde Park and Division are a mile apart. in the north–south direction, the C-D lanes split off US 131 south of 68th Street (the overpass at the bottom of the photo) and merge back to US 131 to become the exit lane for the 54th Street interchange at the top of the photo. 68th Street and 54th Street are also a mile apart. (In Kent County, there are eight east–west streets to the mile, and the major north-south streets are also a mile apart.) I hope this clears that up. Shall we insert a footnote or parenthetical explanatory note? Imzadi 1979 → 21:28, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I dug out the source, and tweaked that sentence with a explanatory footnote. Imzadi 1979 → 21:47, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That works well. I'll be back with more comments and my vote once I've finished combing through everything. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 21:50, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Images check out per user below and myself. Permissions cited and clear; OTRS images verified.--NortyNort (Holla) 02:59, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Images check out (permissions and origins), sources check out for consistency and validity, and of course the article itself is an interesting read into the joy of politics and transportation. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 02:53, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]


  • Two comments

In this sentence: "MDOT hosted an public open house along the unopened section of M-6 between Kalamazoo and Byron Center avenues." Isn't an open house public anyway? Also, "a" seems more appropriate than "an" in the sentence as it is now. Regarding the 2011 inflation numbers, I used a CPI inflation calculator for Grand Coulee Dam in which a FAC reviewer, Fifelfoo, informed me that CPI was not a good measure for a national GDP expenditure. Given M-6 is a state expenditure, I thought I'd ask or point you in Fifeloo's direction if you want to double-check the numbers anyway. Their explanation about it (a little above my economic knowledge) is in the beginning of the Grand Coulee Dam FAC. Other than that, the article was a great read and I support its promotion. I remember reviewing its DYK nom back in September.--NortyNort (Holla) 09:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, let's kill two birds with one stone and drop the errant "public" from that sentence (which restores the "an" next to "open house"). :-) As for the inflationary stuff, I'll just comment it all out for now. When the economics gurus fix the template or create a new one, the article can be changed. Thanks for the review and good luck with your article! Imzadi 1979 → 10:08, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, good luck to you as well!--NortyNort (Holla) 10:14, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion may open a can of worms as to how accurate those inflation calculators need to be. First, it would be both impossible and futile to come up with a truly accurate figure, given that construction methodologies change. It would be difficult to impossible to try to price obsolete methods and materials. I was under the impression that inflation adjusted figures were intended to give context to the reader when they see a price that would otherwise seem absurdly high or low, not give an accurate estimate of how much it would cost to build an identical structure today. This is similar to a currency conversion figure for a single mention of yen or yuan in an article otherwise using US dollars. As there are several examples of common items that are expensive in one country, but cheap in another, it's common sense that a currency conversion is an "average" and that an accurate figure is impossible. For the record, in my articles, I started out using an inflation calculator on the US Dept. of Labor's website, until I learned that someone had created an in-line template for inflation based on the CPI. Dave (talk) 16:19, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Dave, but until the economic gurus figure out a fix, it is better to comment out the inflationary conversions for the moment and restore them to the article at a later date when the situation is resolved. Using the comments at the Grand Coolee Dam FAC, the different methods give quite different results. Converting $163 million in 1932 is either $2.536 billion (CPI, method used by the template), $2.560 billion (Measured Worth), or $39.200 billion (GDP relative share). The first two are close enough for me, but the third figure is quite different. I've put in a request on the template's talk page to resolve the issue. I'm hoping that we can update the template so that the calculation method can be specified. If so, I'll update the article and remove the tags that are hiding the numbers. Imzadi 1979 → 21:59, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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