Talk:List of MBTA bus routes

Old discussion

Hmm... I start something like this for New York City, and I get a speedy Vfd. Yet this exist. Something just ain't right. Pacific Coast Highway July 4, 2005 19:59 (UTC)

I suspect it was due to the way I built up from the histories of the streetcar lines, and the existence of a nice history online of the bus routes. --SPUI (talk) 4 July 2005 23:47 (UTC)

Nevertheless, good guide. Keep it up. Pacific Coast Highway 23:13, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Discussion from Template Talk:MBTABus

Note: this discussion started at Template Talk:MBTABus. I felt it appropriate to copy it here for discussion of old routes and related list articles.

I've started actually converting the page, beginning with the 500 routes which I used as a test subject. I've started creating redirects - see, for example, 502 (MBTA bus). Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:20, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

I've converted everything except for the 1-202 routes. I created redirects for all except the 400s routes. (Those will get redirects when I take the MBTA bus routes in North Shore, Massachusetts page to AfD.) Pi.1415926535 (talk) 01:51, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Good. You didn't provide a column for See also links to other wiki articles. Why? Links to Wiki articles are suppose to take precedence over external links, and it be good to have both here. Ah! If there is one, the wikilink in the first column. Lentower (talk) 03:16, 23 June 2012 (UTC) Lentower (talk) 13:36, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

You could try a Prod before the AfD. Takes less editor and admin resources. Lentower (talk) 13:36, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Will you also Prod/AfD or MergeTo these articles too: MBTA bus routes in East Boston, Chelsea, and Revere, MBTA bus routes in Melrose, Reading, Stoneham, and Wakefield, and MBTA bus routes in South Boston? Lentower (talk) 13:36, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I've been thinking about them, and I'm not sure. The North Shore list has no inherent importance - these are pretty much all recent routes. The Southie, Eastie/Chelsea/Revere, and Melrose et al routes have a historical grouping to them, because they're all from the trolley lines that date to the 1880s. Ideally, each route goes one of two ways - either there's enough history during the trolley years (like 86 (MBTA bus)) to have its own article, or there isn't and it gets redirected to the main list. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:15, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

On second look, the Eastie routes page is simply awful, and it's probably not worthwhile to keep. The whole system of bus and streetcar pages needs a makeover - right now it's a mishmash of different systems. I think the solution I'll pursue is, as above, make each route go one of two ways. Either it gets reduced to a line in the bus routes article (plus text in the article of the relevant street railway company), or it gets its own page. The only exceptions should be the pages for Silver Line, Crosstown, Key Routes, and Trolleybuses - those are official groups of routes that belong on their own page. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:59, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Maybe there should be one page History of MBTA Bus Routes? Lentower (talk) 03:16, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps. However, it would have to be focused on the system as a whole coming from streetcars and trackless trolleys. Having a paragraph about every route would be massively long and probably pointless. The system history I linked above already has that information in a worthier form than a wikipedia article.

 Done 21,341 characters of added wikitext and 123 new redirects later, I'm more or less done. The entire bus list is converted to anchored wikitables, and most routes have a redirect to the list or the appropriate article. I've got some fixes to do, mostly with redirects for the 400 routes, but it's in good shape. The MBTABus template can and should now be used for all current routes. I'll be copying this discussion to Talk:List of MBTA bus routes where any further discussion of old routes and other articles belongs. Cheers! Pi.1415926535 (talk) 04:34, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Removing graphical history

@RichardF, Lentower, and Reify-tech: (recent major editors of this page, and the guy who put the template in the first place): I recently commented out the graphical timeline for this page, as I feel it was taking up a lot of space for no real good. It wasn't complete, wasn't always accurate, and moreover I'm not sure what useful information it actually provided. There's a 350-page document for the history of the system for those who want to know what exactly buses ran when; this article should be just a list of routes. I wanted to get your opinions before I removed the timeline from the wikitext entirely. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 16:13, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Here is this graph of timelines, when it was last visible on this article.[1] — Lentower (talk) 17:52, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

@SPUI: as the creator of this article and @RockMagnetist: as an editor who changed the category for this graph of time lines, could you please add to this consensus based on {{Wikipedia_policies_and_guidelines}} — Lentower (talk) 17:52, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

• Delete - I agree that it should be removed for the reasons Pi.1415926535 gives. Might find a home at some blog or another web site. Someone might want to suggest to the MBTA, that some kind of graphic like this be added to mbta.com. both site wide, and for each route. If it ends up being kept, I'll critique it's problems for Wikipedia's readers. — Lentower (talk) 17:52, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Routes 201 and 202

Is there any good reason these routes are still listed with routes 1-121, instead of being listed with the other 200-series routes in Quincy? There seems to be a vestigial historical connection, but I think that grouping them with the rest of the 200 series would be less confusing to readers. Reify-tech (talk) 16:22, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

The two routes are BERy based (weekday 20 and 21 stub routes merged into the weekend belt route in 1962, separated into 201/202 one-way pair in 2005) and except for the weekend North Quincy spur introduced at the latter date they do not operate in Eastern Mass territory (Quincy). Throwing them in with the 200-series routes would not be correct. I wouldn't be opposed to simply adding a separate section for them; that would be less confusing to readers yet keep services with common origins (an important historical point) segregated. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 17:34, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Putting them into a separate section would be better, especially if the historical and logical reasons for separating them from the 200 series were explained or referenced. The new section should be placed in numerical order, so that it can be easily found and related to the other numbered routes. Reify-tech (talk) 17:45, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

 Done. I've been adding very general history for each section from the NETransit history, in preparation for a possible go at getting this to featured list status. I'd like to have some backup source for some of the history (while NETransit is the authoritative source for MBTA history and largely written by MassDOT insiders, that's not immediately obvious to outside reviewers). I'll need to grab images for the 170s, 190s, 200s, 320s, 350s, and 400s routes, and I'd like to get better shots for the 130s, 500s, and private lines, and ideally a 270s route if I can get one - though I doubt the current image set would be insufficient for featured status. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:26, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for really cleaning up and reorganizing the article. The origins of the route groupings reveal the history and structure behind what would otherwise be an overwhelming and featureless list. The pictures ideally would show a bus in a distinctive or characteristic community context, rather than over-emphasizing the equipment itself. This article is about the bus routes, their structure, and their historical antecedents. A different article about the bus equipment would have more closeup shots focussing on the vehicle itself or related details. I'm impressed with the scope and quality of the images you've been uploading; you really "get around" when it comes to transit. Reify-tech (talk) 19:45, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Direct links

Use of external links in these lists is inappropriate, according to WP:ELLIST Rhadow (talk) 14:51, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

The guideline seems to support what you're saying, so I don't have a problem with you removing them. Thanks! Grk1011 (talk) 17:38, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

No, the guideline does not prohibit them in this case. First, "However, the lists themselves should not be composed of external links. These lists are primarily intended as providing direct information and internal navigation, not a directory of sites on the web." This list is certainly primarily direction information and internal navigation, with explanations of the route groupings and links to geographic locations and routes primarily discussed elsewhere; the external links are not the primary content of the list. Second, "This section does not apply if the external link is serving as a citation for a stand-alone list entry that otherwise meets that list's inclusion criteria." Although these are not currently formatted as references (primarily to save from having 170+ nearly-identical references), they essentially serve the same purpose. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 03:25, 13 February 2018 (UTC)