Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Newsletter/Issues/Volume02/Issue06

Introduction Both July and August were slow months for USRD, while September increase in activity, namely the split of a subproject of WikiProject U.S. Roads. This newsletter is covering both July, August and early September because of the last issue's late publication. The newsletter was further delayed due to the events regarding NYSR's secession, which will be covered below. This will be the last newsletter; no further newsletters will be published.
Featured story In this issue Gap appears in freeway On July 29 at 11:42:15 am PST (18:42:15 UTC), an earthquake, now named the 2008 Chino Hills earthquake, struck Southern California. The quake caused a portion of California State Route 91 to split and open a small gap on the freeway in Anaheim Hills, approximately 7 miles from the epicenter in Chino Hills. The California Department of Transportation said that the gap is minor and does not pose a danger for drivers. There was also a landslide caused by the earthquake in the same area near California State Route 91. Source: OC Register
State and national updates
Leaderboard The leaderboard has changed slightly, especially since the introduction of C-class. Utah has climbed to number one to knock Michigan off the top spot with a relative WikiWork of 3.790. Michigan comes in a close second at 3.840, while Arizona trails behind at 4.198. Connecticut has dropped to number four and Vermont has entered the leaderboard at number five. Oklahoma has climbed up two spots in the board at sixth place while Idaho climbed up to seven. Iowa dropped down one place to eighth while Alaska fell three places to number nine. Finally, the fight between California and New Jersey for the number ten spot has concluded, with New Jersey coming out the winner! However, California is just below the top-ten cutoff at number eleven. As a reminder, the introduction of C-class has changed the formula. This class lies in between B- and Start-class. C-class is worth 4, Start-class 5, and stubs 6. All that aside, here's the leaderboard for 8 September 2008! Rank State FA A GA B C Start Stub ω Ω 1 Utah 3 1 7 31 92 19 4 595 3.790 2 Michigan 2 3 11 83 43 80 3 864 3.840 3 (Arizona) 1 0 4 28 15 55 3 445 4.198 4 Connecticut 1 0 2 37 71 112 8 1007 4.359 5 Vermont 0 0 2 10 6 17 30 323 4.969 6 Oklahoma 1 0 2 32 12 46 92 930 5.027 7 (Idaho) 0 0 0 5 2 16 15 193 5.079 8 Iowa 0 0 0 17 2 58 46 625 5.081 9 (Alaska) 0 0 0 2 0 18 7 138 5.111 10 New Jersey 1 0 5 40 37 67 196 1789 5.171 States in parentheses have no project. States listed in italics are task forces. Here are the stats for the national projects. Project FA A GA B C Start Stub ω Ω USRD 13* 11 73 808 373 2507 6115 53298 5.384 IH 5* 2 15 102 26 260 205 2972 4.833 US 1 1 14 71 22 251 194 2749 4.962 Auto trails 0 0 1 4 2 25 22 279 5.167 *indicates featured list Statistics are derived from this version of the state stats table table. As always, if your favorite state isn't listed here, you can find it at Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Assessment/States. Congrats to the editors at the ten states above for their hard work! Keep it up!	Project reports WP:MDRD: List of numbered highways in Maryland became a featured list on July 21. Maryland Route 36 became an A-class article on August 5, and became a featured article on August 29. U.S. Route 40 Alternate (Keyser's Ridge-Cumberland) became a GA on August 27. WP:MISH: M-28 (Michigan highway) became a featured article and M-28 Business (Ishpeming-Negaunee, Michigan) became a Good Article on August 14. M-107 (Michigan highway) and M-28 Business (Ishpeming–Negaunee, Michigan) were promoted to A-Class on August 27 and September 4 respectively. M-185 (Michigan highway) is up for a more collaborative ACR seeking opinions and resource ideas for expansion and improvement in addition to promotion. M-553 (Michigan highway) and M-554 (Michigan highway) passed and became GAs on August 27. M-95 (Michigan highway), U.S. Route 41 in Michigan and M-94 (Michigan highway) passed as GAs on August 31, September 6 and September 7, respectively, completing the Marquette County GA drive. Michigan has its first FLC at the moment, List of state highways in Marquette County, Michigan. WP:IH: Interstate 82 was promoted to GA status on September 6. WP:ORSH: Interstate 82 was promoted to GA status on September 6. WP:UTSH: Featured Articles: U.S. Route 491 passed its FA and A-Class reviews (August 5 [ACR] and 16 [FA]). A-Class Review: SR-128 passed on July 29. SR-68 passed its ACR on August 27 and its GAR on August 18, and is up for peer-review. Good articles: US-50 and SR-103 passed on June 28 and August 27 and respectively, while I-215 passed September 2. WP:WASH: List of U.S. Routes in Washington (nom) and List of Interstate and U.S. Highways in Washington (nom) failed as Featured List candidates and the list of U.S. Highways was peer reviewied. Washington State Route 531 had its A-Class nomination withdrawn and was peer reviewed before getting re-nominated and promoted on August 26. Interstate 5 in Washington, after going through a major expansion, is being peer reviewed. Interstate 82 was promoted to GA status on September 6 while Washington State Route 124 is being peer reviewed and is at GAN.
Project news Nominations and votes are needed for October's selected article and selected picture. The creation of new state highway subprojects are strongly discouraged. Instead, consider helping to fix the five projects currently demoted to task forces - Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, Nevada, and South Carolina. There are only 100 articles above Good Article status within the scope of WikiProject U.S. Roads, about only 1% of all assessed articles. Meanwhile, there are about 6115 stubs - almost two-thirds of all assessed articles. Please help improve the articles! Please help get a few articles up to A-Class at USRD's A-Class review! We need your help!	Deletion debates An archive of all previous debates. Articles for deletion Roadgeek closed as no consensus. Roadfan closed as no consensus. Roadgeek closed as no consensus. Roadgeek closed as no consensus. Reversible express lanes in Seattle, Washington closed as merge. Deletion review Roadfan closed as relist at AfD.
News
New York subproject appears on the Wikipedia Signpost By ComputerGuy890100 On the August 9, 2008 edition of the Wikipedia Signpost, WikiProject New York state routes appeared as the WikiProject report. User:Mitchazenia was interviewed by User:Shoemaker's Holiday about the recent 5 FAs and featured topic. This is the first time WP:USRD or any subproject appeared on the Wikipedia Signpost's WikiProject report. Source: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-08-09/WikiProject report Featured member: CountyLemonade CountyLemonade (talk) has been a Wikipedia editor since 2008-03-21. He is a major contributor and participant of the Utah subproject and has over 1,000 edits. He, along with Admrboltz, Davemeistermoab, DeFaultRyan, and NE2 have brought the task force back to an active project. CountyLemonade has participated in reassesing articles to C-Class and has contributed to two GAs, Utah State Route 269 and Interstate 215 (Utah). Thank you, CountyLemonade, for all of your hard work!
New York State Routes leaves jurisdiction of USRD Contributor: CountyLemonade The New York State Routes Wikiproject (NYSR) has seceded from its parent project, USRD. A member of the project, Mitchazenia, states that, "[The] project has enough to sustain itself, and has much more room to grow." The secession occurred 1 September. The Newsletter wishes to take a neutral stance in the issue and therefore will not endorse any specific view or person. Source: WT:USRD	From the editors—newsletter decommissioned A recent discussion on WT:USRD annouced that this newsletter will cease to exist after this edition. The newsletter is very small and not updated as much, like June 21's edition, which was a week late. The newsletter is being replaced by a blog that will feature news and a featured member. So, to all readers, a farewell from the editors and contributors of the newsletter. —ComputerGuy890100 The newsletter, when created, was necessary; many of the subprojects of the USRD were not inter-communicating, so a means of passing along news throughout all of the members was needed. Now, in part due to this newsletter, USRD has become more unified and news is spread differently. The newsletter has seen a drop in activity and has reached a point to where one or two editors are working overtime and composing all the sections. As mentioned before, we will get a replacement blog that will work in a much more efficient manner. The leaderboard will still be at its usual place here. Thanks to all the readers, the editors and the contributors of this newsletter in the past two years. Here's to USRD. —CountyLemonade
Contributors to this issue Admrboltz (contributor) Algorerhythms (contributor) ComputerGuy890100 (editor) CountyLemonade (editor) Davemeistermoab (contributor) DeFaultRyan (contributor) Imzadi1979 (editor)

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