Talk:Transportation planning

Predict & provide

Its a lousy term, but is there an equivalent expression that describes the previous policy framework in the USA? Or do people use "predict & provide" there as well? Ephebi (talk) 09:31, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I have worked as a transportation planner in the United States. "Predict and provide" is used to describe the framework in the United States also. Why do you feel it is a lousy term? JeremiahJohnson (talk) 02:56, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

"Predict and provide" is the term used (and taught in universities) in the UK. siu99adw, 13:40, 06 November 2009 (GMT) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.137.214.72 (talk)

Fundamental question

"Predict and provide" has different meanings depending on who is doing it. The fundamental question in Transportation Planning is its basis: Should (1) transportation facilities serving the public be designed to meet the disparate needs of the tax-paying public, or (2) should they be structures imposed by the state on the people based on some current fad or ideology, e.g., environmentalism? Should TP be based on objective realities or subjective beliefs? Should it be based on Capitalist or Socialist principles? Transportation Planning in the UK and Europe and, increasingly, in the USA is based on the latter.--Virgil H. Soule (talk) 17:00, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Illustration

I removed this image from the article as its placement was contested already and I also find it distracting. It is not an illustration of planning (i.e.evaluation, assessment, design or siting) but the result of a planning process, as any other major infrastructure. Please don't reintroduce it prior to reaching a consensus here. --Elekhh (talk) 23:50, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

• Why do you keep pointing to this edit of a different image?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:24, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Because the two images depict the same subject -a detail view of the Chicago Loop- which in the broad context of transportation planning, througout human history and around the globe, makes them very similar. Planning is a process, and these images do not illustrate that process. This is how a transport plan looks like. --Elekhh (talk) 05:36, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
    • As the Chicago El was privately built, I don't fully see the connection to transport or city planning as it is understood today, managed by government boards. No doubt, infrastructure that was built, must have been planned, but the article doesn't go into how the Ell was planned, or what planning was like in the 19th century when the El was built. Thus, it doesn't fit the article that well. Fletcher (talk) 22:11, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Move

I have proposed moving this article to 'Transport planning' for improved neutrality. 'Transportation' is a US-specific term, so when I'm contributing to or editing an article which is solely about a US travel subject, I use it. In other forms of English, adding the suffix 'ation' to the end of 'transport' is not only redundant, but usually incorrect in that it actually means something different; 'transportation' specifically means punitive relocation, usually in lieu of a prison sentence. As users who are not US-educated actually constitute the majority of the English Wikipedia audience, it appears sensible to use language more likely to be widely understood without confusion. One editor, acting no doubt in good faith, has reverted an earlier move in the expectation that there may be controversy, but there has not, in fact, been any reasoned objection to this proposed move. In the interests of avoiding any accusations of edit-warring, would anyone like to discuss?SnrRailways (talk) 11:34, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Seems to me nearly all moves should be discussed beforehand. The main exceptions would be where project participants are highly likely to agree that the name is not merely a poor choice but a plain error. Even those cases should flagged a few days ahead with Template:Move to encourage objections. Perhaps I'm a bit too conservative in this matter, but it seems the proper way to handle even a slight possibility of a controversial move.

As for this particular proposed name, personally I WP:LIKE it; as a Yank I think this unnecessarily long Yanklish term ought to disappear in favor (no, please, no "favour" for me) of the Britlish version. Alas, my own wish to compromise the great perennial worldwide language struggle by imposing British/imperial nomenclature and American/reformed orthography (except in local articles) has not gained popularity. And no, although to me it's obvious that the world is thoughtlessly stubborn in failing to admit the wisdom and correctness of my position, I apply the consensus rather than the best. Jim.henderson (talk) 16:48, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The use of AE and BE (and other English variants) is governed by the guideline at MOS:RETAIN. The guideline is clear and there should e no need for discussion here. The guidelines in Wikipedia are not overruled by 'I like/don't like it'. hence the default name for this article should be Transportation planning with no plausible argument for a change. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:49, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be a lot of liking and disliking going on here! Personal preference was not the trigger for this proposed move, however. There is a very clear rationale for change, to my mind, as I laid out in my original comment above. It seems a bit sweeping to dismiss that as 'no plausible argument', but perhaps I haven't explained the level of consideration/research that was put in beforehand. I understand the Engvar and varietal retention principles very well and have not, for instance, proposed changing the title of an article about transportational computing, since this discipline (or at least the references within that article) appears to be so US-dominated that it would be incongruous to do so at the moment. However, the majority of other internationally-focused WP articles about transport do indeed refer to it as transport, so it looks as if there is already a working consensus, and a sensible reason to change this article's title in line with that for consistency. There is also real potential for confusion if the US-specific term is used out of context - everywhere else, transportation really does mean being shipped off to a penal colony - and transport planners may make the occasional boob, but sending them all down the mines in chains is a little harsh... Forgive the levity. I take Jim's point; there's value in discussing a move likely to be controversial beforehand. This appeared such an obvious one that no such controversy was foreseen. Mea culpa. But now we have one, instead of enjoying a controversy about whether or not there's a controversy (which will make our heads ache), how about we get into some thoughtful debate about which title is the most comprehensible for the whole of the English-speaking audience? I agree that consensus is the ideal, but maybe sometimes a bit of amicable argument is required in order to reach that.SnrRailways (talk) 21:23, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I think we should be guided by how the established dictionaries define the words. It's not our place here at Wikipedia to rewrite the lexical semantics of any languages or the variations of them. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:36, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

That's an interesting response. I think Jim may have been ever so slightly in jest in suggesting what you describe as indulgence in lexical semantics (but correct me if I'm wrong, Jim). The established dictionaries define transportation and transport just as laid out above. Transportation means a mode of transit in the US, and exile to a penile colony everywhere else. Transport means transport, definitely everywhere else that English is spoken, and actually even in the US, if we do indeed rely upon dictionary definitions; Webster's covers it. So if we do take guidance from the established dictionaries, the proposed change of title continues to make sense, does it not?SnrRailways (talk) 14:37, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

So, after a few days with this up, it looks like there is a shared desire for consensus (which is a good thing, I think), and no specific arguments against the proposed move. Picking up Jim's point about being conservative enough, and balancing that with my own concern not to take up a lot of other editors' time unnecessarily: should one of us now just make the change and see how it goes, or do we need a formal move request? SnrRailways (talk) 08:32, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we do need a formal move request, and I lean against. The reasoned argument here doesn't seem sufficient to override WP:RETAIN and WP:ENGVAR. Wiktionary, for what it's worth, lists "exile to a penal colony" as historical for both "transport" and "transportation". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:19, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

As does http://www.m-w.com, although it's more specific, as banishment/movement to a foreign penal colony. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:25, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Can someone quote the OED? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:27, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I doubt if many people would now associate transportation with being shipped off to Australia. It is an archaic use of the word and people are familiar with the American meaning even if they do not themselves use it. It is not a sufficient reason to ignore WP:RETAIN.--Charles (talk) 09:33, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Arthur and Charles. Charles, I think you're probably right that a lot of readers will recognise transportation-as-exile to be a rather archaic usage - perhaps the deciding factor there is whether we care about the potential to confuse the few who may not (and I'm not sure how we'd find out what proportion that is). Arthur, if you see a need for a formal move request, I guess we should have one. Would you like to initiate that, so that we don't get into adversarial for-and-against camps? SnrRailways (talk) 15:24, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I would vote to support the move to Transport Planning, but just by a slim margin. I would like to see both forms in the lede, however. In fact, a number of British planning authorities do call themselves "Transportation" departments, but IME the public here in Britain ignore this flowery form and mostly refer to them as "Transport planners". The article has moved on a lot since since the original page was written a decade ago, and so we wouldn't be WP:RETAIN-ing quite the same thing. Back then it was part-unintelligle to a non-American, contained unexplained jargon and wasn't very encyclopaedic in its coverage, and had no world view. Today it has improved a lot, although it could do with more internationalisation and better explanations of the different modes. I can't say that I'd previously thought confusion was likely with penal "transportation"; however, in that context transport cannot be used synonymously for penal transportation; it is only used in the context of the verb (felons were transported, not transportationed) or the vehicle itself (a penal transport). Just my 2c (or 2 penneth)-worth. Ephebi (talk) 00:17, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

The noun referring to the general concept was (penal) transportation, rather than "transport". Still, I'll draft the RFM within a few days. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:24, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: The OP has been blocked for reasons that may demonstrate that s/he does not fully understand many Wikipedia policies. WP:ENGVAR is a carefully crafted, established guideline and I don't see where this article forms an exception. Wiktionary is not an established dictionary and should not be cited. As I mentioned above, all the major established dictionaries either treat penal transportation as archaic, give both transportation and transport equal value for their current usage, or also offer the additional qualification that transportation is AE and transport is BE. As far as I'm concerned, ENGVAR rules, and it's not up to Wikipedia to change the guideline or rewrite linguistics by local article consensus. Any local consensus here that contravenes general policy/guidelines would have site-wide consequences and would need a central RfC to clear up - do we want to waste our editors' time?Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:15, 29 December 2012 (UTC)