Template talk:TRAX (light rail)

A few things:

1. Is it really necessary to show the termini of route 702 given that the route is no longer operating? Less labeling would clear up what is a quite cluttered schematic.
2. Also, it might be more prudent to change the color scheme of the lines themselves. Given that UTA operates its lines on a color-coded system, having these red, green, and blue lines mislead people into thinking that they correlate to UTA's own red, green, and blue lines. For example, higlighting the part of the system that falls within the Free Fare Zone in green gives the impression that that is somehow UTA's green line. And using red to show Amtrak and FrontRunner is confusing given that UTA operates a red line.
3. The label for Salt Lake Central Station is far away enough from its represenative circles that it's hard to tell to that that is what is referring to. Placing it on the left side of the map would help clear that up.
4. Only one label could be used for the California Zephyr, thus freeing up space.

69.92.211.129 (talk) 02:45, 20 March 2012‎ (UTC)

I am the one who did most of the recent updating of this template (from a "Mid-Jordan and West Valley lines are under construction", light-rail only version to the current "Mid-Jordan and West Valley lines are open" version that includes Amtrak and the full FrontRunner south line); however, I am not the one who decided to reactivate the template's use in the UTA TRAX article mostly because the fully detailed map may be overkill for a lot of the article's audience, especially given the unfortunate confusion between the standard bsicons color scheme and UTA's line colors. However, since I like overkill in terms of bsicons detail, I did not immediately try to find a solution to that and instead worked on a related bsicons map that covers most of the Blue Line's length in more detail (see the Salt Lake City Southern article). Since Salt Lake City Southern (the company that operates freight trains on the Blue Line) is much less well known to ordinary people, I put my highly detailed "experts only" map there (of course, doing a map that detailed of the entire Blue Line would not really work due to the lack of standard bsicons for features found on street-running routes). Since there really is no good solution to the color conflict (using non-standard bsicons colors is discouraged and also difficult since most icons do not exist in other colors, much less in the three-colors-in-one versions that would be appropriate for the portion of the UTA TRAX system where the three lines use the same tracks), the best way to avoid confusion probably would be to make the template hidden by default on the UTA TRAX page. There is a setting for that in the template somewhere, but I am not sure what the best way of using it is. This setting is commonly used on pages like Tohoku Main Line (look for the link to expand the bsicons map right below the infobox) where the bsicons map is very big and would be distracting if visible by default. If the route map was hidden by default for UTA TRAX, extra space could be made in the template for things like 702, California Zephyr, and Salt Lake Central Station labels without worrying about it filling the whole page in the UTA TRAX article... Esetzer (talk) 04:28, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Now defaults to collapsed. BTW, Esetzer, I like the clean-up that you did on the diagram. Useddenim (talk) 10:25, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
P.S. What icons were you looking for for street running? Would something like(uSTR ※ vRP2) or (STR ※ RP4) work?

Sorry to be away from Wikipedia for a while... The "generic roads" list was not linked to from WP:RDT/C when I started making the Salt Lake City Southern map (and it may have not been even when I finished), but since they seem to be being standardized, that would probably be the way to do it. However, some useful icons for maps of all cross streets (analogous to that map of all grade crossings) are still not in the list, most notably a combined icon for divided-highway-intersecting-minor-road (I guess "RP4xRP2") and a basic symbol for traffic signals; it might even be useful to have a distinction between traffic signals with absolute preemption and traffic signals without, though I have not observed TRAX operations carefully enough to use that distiction right now (by the way, TRAX (and also Max) use "|\/-" traffic signals like those shown last in Traffic signals#Lights_for_public_transport in the street-running segments, though details like that do not need to be in maps). Esetzer (talk) 01:04, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

 (RP4xRP2) and  (RP2xRP4) (for good measure) now exist. I'm not sure about indicating traffic signals, as there isn't very much space left in the corner of – for example – a  (RP4xRP4) junction, (only 1/5 of the width and height, or 4×4 pixels when displayed in an RDT). Useddenim (talk) 12:22, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

I was assuming that, by analogy with the centered, superimposed crossbuck in BSicon_BUE.svg that traffic signals would be indicated by a centered, superimposed traffic light, such as . It could just be a "legende" icon to start with, though it might ideally appear everywhere that BUE could, such as BSicon_uTRAFFICSIGNALS.svg and even BSicon_TRAFFICSIGNALS.svg (there is actually one place in Salt Lake City (550 South 500 West) where a low-speed freight spur's grade crossing is controlled by dedicated traffic signals, rather than the normal gates). I am not sure how it would work if attempting to show traffic signals in diagrams with only roads and no rail lines, if such diagrams are desireable (it seems like they might be useful for bus rapid transit lines). Esetzer (talk) 16:43, 31 March 2012 (UTC)