SkyTrain (Vancouver)
The article is up to snuff. It contains a ton of information, has plenty of citations, and is for sure the best place on the web for information on the system. — Selmo (talk) 17:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose—1a. Issues from the lead:
- "It uses fully automated trains with no human drivers on board, and has had no derailments or collisions in its history." "with no human drivers on board" is unnecessary with the word "automated".
- "With 33 stations, it moves over 220,000 people a day along the 49.5 km (30.8 mi) of track." "More than" is usually more elegant than "over".
- "The Evergreen Line, as of 2007, is in its planning stages." In general, "as of 2007" is unnecessary (sort of like "today" and "currently"), because the present tense is usually enough. If this is the case, then you can take the sentence right after it and split it between the "Construction of the..." sentence and this one.
- "The Canada Line will run from downtown Vancouver to Richmond, with a branch to the airport." Which airport?
- "TransLink believes it loses about CAD$6 million in unpaid fares on all transit systems annually, whereas about $3 million are from SkyTrain." Try replacing one of the uses of "about" with "approximately" for variety. "All" is redundant.
- See MoS on this: I think just C$6M or C$6 million is fine. They say not to hedge when figures are large. Tony 00:00, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
- Lack of space between the previous sentence mentioned and the preceeding sentence (beginning with "In...")
- "In addition to the police force, stations are patrolled by SkyTrain attendants, who can perform first aid and provide customer assistance." this is very subjective, but I think you might be able to cut the "who can perform...." part. It may be excessive detail for the lead.
- These random examples in the lead show that the prose could use a copy-edit throughout the entire text. — Deckiller 02:19, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- I did a long time ago and someone messed up. It shouldn't be too bad, the text didnt change much. — Selmo (talk) 22:46, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
- Support— I just copyedited the article and have done a bit of work on it in the past, so take my vote with half a grain of salt. I believe most of the copyediting problems are resolved, including the ones listed above. (although I disagree that "as of 2007" is unecessary, since it refers to something in flux and the reader wouldn't otherwise know when it was written, which is an established, if undocumented, convention on Wikipedia). Any remaining problems, IMO, are sure to be very minor and shouldn't preclude promotion to FA. bobanny 22:08, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- Comments. I've been to Van twice and had no idea there was a rail system. Must be well-hidden. It's good, but the whole article needs a light copy-edit by someone who's unfamiliar with it. Here are examples of why:
- Opening sentence: "lines ... Line ... Line". Just remove the last two.
- "it moves over 220,000 people a day "—Do you count the people it moves over? ("More than", please.)
- "it uses the ... it uses the".
- The lead is silent on who's paying for the construction, and who will own and operate it. Rather basic info that deserves a mention in the lead.
- "In 1989, the SkyBridge, along with Scott Road Station was built." No, you must close the nested phrase with another comma.
- "public transportation"; oh, why not "public transport"? Sometimes it's "transit". Is that different?
- FIrst mention of funding: Mark it C dollars.
- "Public-private"—relationships need an en dash: "public–private".
- "The entire line will run from Waterfront Station to Richmond-Brighouse Station"—Remove "entire" and make it "The line will run from Waterfront to Richmond-Brighouse Stations" by piping the first link.
- "connect the line up with the Canada Line"—ungainly; remove "up".
Plenty of copy-editors locatable on edit-history pages of the rail FAs. Tony 23:45, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Another editor has copyedited the article. — Selmo (talk) 18:02, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
- BTW "public transport" is U.K. English; "public transportation" is Canadian English so the latter is what the article uses. Kla'quot 07:57, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose Although progress has been made since the last FAC, I feel the main issue I raised there has not been addressed: "Did projects meet expectations? There should be a discussion of forecasted versus actual ridership and forecasted versus actual costs. The purpose of SkyTrain is to give people access to their destinations, reduce traffic, and manage how the region grows in terms of land use. Has it succeeded?" This is both a difficult article to write and a valuable one for the encyclopedia because there is very little in terms of truly neutral secondary sources trying to answer the question, which we could use as a framework. The Controversy section is a jumble of trees with no forest: It states that there are different opinions but doesn't really help the user assess those opinions based on facts. It is a really difficult topic, and perhaps the best way forward is to try to recruit an expert on the subject to try to sort it out. Maybe someone from the School of Community and Urban Planning at UBC, for example.
- The negative aspects of SkyTrain should also be included in the lead, as should numbers about construction costs and annual operating costs and revenues. Kla'quot 15:53, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
- I agree that the article could be enhanced with more critical views of the SkyTrain. The BRU's criticism for instance, which has consistently been present in news articles on the subject, that SkyTrain expansion is at the expense of the bus system. But I can't agree that criticism is a fatal omission in the article, and what you're calling for sounds more like a research paper than encyclopedia article. I also think that it comes from a false premise, which is what you cite as the raison d'etre of the system. The evidence strongly suggests that the purpose of SkyTrain is to facilitate and manipulate urban development with gov't money (making it no surprise that it was timed for Expo and the Olympics). Getting people where they want to go is pretty much incidental, and ridership numbers are tied to population growth and distribution, making it contingent and political, not a math equation. Lots of people have made/are making big bucks off the SkyTrain (Bombardier, for one), and on that level, it's been successful. Cost overruns are mentioned in the article, but really, what government infrastructure project isn't plagued by cost-overruns? I can't think of any - anywhere, anytime - that didn't cost way more than the original sales pitch. That's important info, but not overly notable as a unique feature of SkyTrain. Again, I agree that more critical content could be added, ideally with some of the more trivial stuff removed, but don't believe FA should hinge on that. Any article content has to be selective in what goes in, which is invariably subjective to some degree. If you know of a specific academic report assessing SkyTrain, that might be helpful. bobanny 20:31, 22 May 2007 (UTC)'
- This is hopeless. I work so hard on this article and I get told it's not good enough because it doesn't compare/contrast costs. I'll never satisfy anyone. One I start looking for sources the mighty Raul would fail this. — Selmo (talk) 02:48, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
- I am indeed asking for a major rethink of the article. The current article treats the purpose of the SkyTrain project as incidental, which is fundamentally backwards. Copious amounts of text have been written on both the official goals of the project and the allegations about unstated goals. How can a 360 degree article on SkyTrain in Vancouver not mention the Livable Region Strategic Plan? The purpose of the project itself deserves a whole section, as do the finance issues. For some quick examples of basic coverage of these kinds of issues, see Fast_Ferries#Public_goals_of_the_Fast_Ferry_Program, Fast_Ferries#Political_goals_of_the_Fast_Ferry_Program, and Olympic_Stadium_(Montreal)#Stadium_Financing. If you still think that this stuff isn't important to cover well in a featured article, I don't know how to convince you that it is. Kla'quot 07:37, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
- This is hopeless. I work so hard on this article and I get told it's not good enough because it doesn't compare/contrast costs. I'll never satisfy anyone. One I start looking for sources the mighty Raul would fail this. — Selmo (talk) 02:48, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
- I agree that the article could be enhanced with more critical views of the SkyTrain. The BRU's criticism for instance, which has consistently been present in news articles on the subject, that SkyTrain expansion is at the expense of the bus system. But I can't agree that criticism is a fatal omission in the article, and what you're calling for sounds more like a research paper than encyclopedia article. I also think that it comes from a false premise, which is what you cite as the raison d'etre of the system. The evidence strongly suggests that the purpose of SkyTrain is to facilitate and manipulate urban development with gov't money (making it no surprise that it was timed for Expo and the Olympics). Getting people where they want to go is pretty much incidental, and ridership numbers are tied to population growth and distribution, making it contingent and political, not a math equation. Lots of people have made/are making big bucks off the SkyTrain (Bombardier, for one), and on that level, it's been successful. Cost overruns are mentioned in the article, but really, what government infrastructure project isn't plagued by cost-overruns? I can't think of any - anywhere, anytime - that didn't cost way more than the original sales pitch. That's important info, but not overly notable as a unique feature of SkyTrain. Again, I agree that more critical content could be added, ideally with some of the more trivial stuff removed, but don't believe FA should hinge on that. Any article content has to be selective in what goes in, which is invariably subjective to some degree. If you know of a specific academic report assessing SkyTrain, that might be helpful. bobanny 20:31, 22 May 2007 (UTC)'
- Again, I believe that the purpose of the SkyTrain vis a vis transit users is pretty much incidental to development interests. I also don't believe the LRSP is a fundamental driving force behind the SkyTrain (it came 10 years later). Yeah, it could use a mention, but this isn't an "urban planning in Vancouver" article. The financing issues are not comparable to the 'Big Owe,' which still makes the news 30 years after the fact. If the Fast Ferry project survived the political scandal, those issues wouldn't be as notable as they are now for that subject. I just find your criticism kind of vague, and it seems to suggest that what's there now is largely superfluous, but without specifying what that is. Most major cities have some kind of mass transit rail system, and the included information is pretty standard in other articles, some of which are featured. I do think the issues you raise are generally important, but just as capitalism isn't explained in most of the "Economy of Foo" articles, I'm not clear on why this should be a sticking point for FA. I'm also not convinced that there is the copious amount of literature on the subject that you mention. EBSCO and JSTOR don't turn up much. Since hardly anyone else is commenting on this FAC, your oppose vote is closer to a veto because you reject the over-all gist of the article (whereas the copyedit and formatting comments are actionable in this process), so something more concrete would help, if not now, then for next time around. bobanny 20:39, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
- I am inclined to agree that the purpose of SkyTrain has as much or more to do with land development as with transportation per se. So here's the rub: Discussing the goals of SkyTrain on this FAC page is all fun and good, but wouldn't it be much better to discuss them in the article? I have given several actionable requests already, such as to write a section on the goals of the system and to write a section on the financial aspects of the system. Some of the copious literature is already cited the article references (such as #42) but isn't being used much. Here are some other sources, all from Google and Google Scholar:
- Again, I believe that the purpose of the SkyTrain vis a vis transit users is pretty much incidental to development interests. I also don't believe the LRSP is a fundamental driving force behind the SkyTrain (it came 10 years later). Yeah, it could use a mention, but this isn't an "urban planning in Vancouver" article. The financing issues are not comparable to the 'Big Owe,' which still makes the news 30 years after the fact. If the Fast Ferry project survived the political scandal, those issues wouldn't be as notable as they are now for that subject. I just find your criticism kind of vague, and it seems to suggest that what's there now is largely superfluous, but without specifying what that is. Most major cities have some kind of mass transit rail system, and the included information is pretty standard in other articles, some of which are featured. I do think the issues you raise are generally important, but just as capitalism isn't explained in most of the "Economy of Foo" articles, I'm not clear on why this should be a sticking point for FA. I'm also not convinced that there is the copious amount of literature on the subject that you mention. EBSCO and JSTOR don't turn up much. Since hardly anyone else is commenting on this FAC, your oppose vote is closer to a veto because you reject the over-all gist of the article (whereas the copyedit and formatting comments are actionable in this process), so something more concrete would help, if not now, then for next time around. bobanny 20:39, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Scholarly-type sources analyzing Vancouver as a case study:
- Urban rail systems: analysis of the factors behind success
- Urban Rail Systems: A planning framework to increase their success
- Economic Development Impacts of Urban Rail Transport
I can't comment on the other articles which have reached FA, maybe it's rising standards or just bad luck that you got Kla'quot this time ;)
Cheers, Kla'quot 05:59, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
- I'm still not convinced that what you're proposing isn't a step sideways rather than raising the FA bar, let alone weeding out fatal flaws. It still looks like what you're after is to shift it more towards an urban planning-type article, or for changes that would be more appropriate for the more general rapid transit article. Probably the only way for the changes you'd like to see to happen is if you make the revisions yourself. I'm not the original author of this article, and I'd probably have done things a little differently myself, but what's here is primarily a nuts-and-bolts description of the SkyTrain which is perfectly encyclopedic and consistent with Wikipedia's other content. bobanny 20:46, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
- Have a look at MTR and if you find it reasonable, have it taken to FAR since is doesn't focus on city planning issues. Therefor, I don't think Wikipedia should prioritize UBC students over travellers, landed immigrants or the interested person. The average reader isn't interested in great detail what you're calling for. — Selmo (talk) 04:13, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
(outdenting) Nowhere have I said that this article has to focus on city planning issues, so I strongly object to your sarcasm here. The MTR article would actually be a pretty good model for SkyTrain (Vancouver). The History section of MTR describes specific decision points and in a chronological sequence which makes sense. A chronological sequence might work for the SkyTrain (Vancouver) article as well. I see that the Livable Region Strategic Plan now has a mention but is in the Public Reaction section - wouldn't it belong in the History section? I don't understand your second sentence at all, and you have not substantiated your third sentence.
There are other problems in the article:
- There are several statements which are either false or not quite accurate. For example:
:* TransLink said that the Millennium Line costs taxpayers $35 per trip for every new rider it had attracted so far. The article adds "if it were a bus route," which is not correct (and doesn't make sense). Note also that this statistic is from 2001, and the current figure is likely to be different.
:*The LRSP is not a population growth strategy; it is a strategy for accomodating anticipated population growth.
:*Malcolm Johnson's letter refers to transit planners, not city planners, and the article attributes opinions to him which are not in the source.
:*Peter Boothroyd is also badly misquoted: the source doesn't quote him saying anything along the lines of "eliminating financial problems."
- "The Millennium Line consists of 13 stations that are not shared with the Expo Line"
:* Kash Heed did not say that "crime does not take place in the stations"; what he said was that there was "little activity" in the stations.
- In many places the article states opinions where there are easily available facts which would speak better. Malcolm Johnson's letter is a good example of this. Another example is, "Over the years, violence and drug abuse has been a major concern, but TransLink insists the system is safe."
- The article gives strange prominence to unimportant facts, e.g. the Public Reaction section starts with a quote about the "spaciousness of the Mark II cars, the brighter station colours, and the general ambiance," all relatively trivial aspects of the system. More important information, or an overview of the points in the section, should be given first. The Controversy section says how one business lost $5000 per month in revenue, with no indication of how many similar businesses were affected or for how many months.
- "As of 2007, there is a proposal to extend the Millennium Line westward along the Broadway corridor through the Central Broadway business district, but stopping short of the University of British Columbia (UBC)." - this is vague (whose proposal is it?) and seems to contradict a subsequent section. Kla'quot 08:07, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
- Minor inaccuracies. I'll fix it. I'm not trying to be uncivil or anything here. I am a little bitchy, as it had been a long time I decided to work on the article, and yet it still isn't an FA. I apologize. — Selmo (talk) 00:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
- So far so good. I replaced the letter with a survey conducted by LRT activities more factual, rather than editorial). I am now addressing the other issues you have raised. — Selmo (talk) 17:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks, it's OK ;) You might want to review User:Jengod/Some common objections to featured status and how to avoid them. Cheers, Kla'quot 01:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
- Good. I've fix the errors and incorporated feedback. Now I'm going to look at the economic issues. I'll have a look at those scholar sources later. — Selmo (talk) 01:32, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- What you want us to cite in the article is rather confusing; perhaps because I don't have a BA in English. What I do understand, however, seems rather out of scope of a general encyclopedia entry on the SkyTrain. Economic impact (both negative and positive) is already discussed, which I feel is sufficient. I'll have another look, however. — Selmo (talk) 03:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Sorry, I don't understand your first sentence. What are you referring to that I "want us to cite"? What does a BA in English have to do with anything here?
- What I meant was the academic papers were rather difficult to read at my level (still in high school), and I figured I needed university level English skills in order to understand them. — Selmo (talk) 01:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
- OK, thanks for being honest about that. For FAs, I think it is fair to expect that an article uses the best sources, including scholarly work if it is available. Sometimes those sources require university-level language skills (although, believe me, people with BAs in English aren't their main readership). Kla'quot 07:37, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
- What I meant was the academic papers were rather difficult to read at my level (still in high school), and I figured I needed university level English skills in order to understand them. — Selmo (talk) 01:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks for continuing to work on the article, Selmo. I don't have time to properly evaluate the recent changes, but I will do so in the next week or so. Kla'quot 05:05, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- Update: I've given the article another look-through, and although it has improved significantly I am still troubled by what I see as a pattern of poor fidelity to the source material. Examples:
- "The system has also had debt problems in 1998 when the operating cost of SkyTrain were three and a half times the actual operating budget" - The source actually says that in 1998 the debt servicing costs' were three and a half times the operating budget. (The source goes on to say that "For the bus system, it seems to be. . . . Somewhere around -- oh, what would that be? -- one-seventh of the operating expenses are used for debt servicing.")
- "Completion of the Millennium Line's final leg was delayed because of funding shortfalls, giving it the nickname "SkyTrain to nowhere." According to the source, the nickname was given because its terminus is four blocks away from Vancouver Community College, and has nothing to do with construction delays.
- That was a little sloppiness on my part; hopefully the 'skytrain to nowhere' name is clearer now. I couldn't find a source that was crystal clear on where the name comes from, but basically it's that it doesn't go where riders need it to go. The VCC site was chosen based on the Finning Development, which never happened, so the final destination is nowhere. TransLink was counting on a vehicle levy to fund construction, leaving this incomplete ghostly skytrain station in the middle of a field at the bottom of Cowboy Hill (revealingly near Glen and Clark drives) for years; could've been a spaghetti western, or maybe a sequal to "Field of Dreams." bobanny 21:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
- These problems are fixable, but unfortunately the situation I'm in as a reviewer is that the more I dig, the more problems I find. Some of these problems are big, completely missing the point of the sources that they are based on. I'm very sorry, but I think this article needs some signficant work, including in-depth fact-checking. I have contacted some local transportation experts I know and asked them to take a look. Perhaps one or more of them will be able to help. Kla'quot 07:37, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
- Update: I've given the article another look-through, and although it has improved significantly I am still troubled by what I see as a pattern of poor fidelity to the source material. Examples:
- Sorry, I don't understand your first sentence. What are you referring to that I "want us to cite"? What does a BA in English have to do with anything here?
- What you want us to cite in the article is rather confusing; perhaps because I don't have a BA in English. What I do understand, however, seems rather out of scope of a general encyclopedia entry on the SkyTrain. Economic impact (both negative and positive) is already discussed, which I feel is sufficient. I'll have another look, however. — Selmo (talk) 03:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
- Good. I've fix the errors and incorporated feedback. Now I'm going to look at the economic issues. I'll have a look at those scholar sources later. — Selmo (talk) 01:32, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- Support - aside from a couple stylistic choices, which are completely outside of the criterion, I would say Selmo along with several other editors have made this a fine example of the best of Wikipedia. As a resident of the city, this article is very thorough. Mkdwtalk 22:16, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
- Support - meets Wikipedia:Featured article criteria. Great effort is paid to improve this article.--:Raphaelmak: [talk] [contribs] 16:49, 8 June 2007 (UTC)