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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 23:16, 20 January 2019 [1].

AirTrain JFK

[edit]
Nominator(s): epicgenius (talk) 18:50, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the AirTrain, an airport rail link to and from JFK Airport in Queens, New York City. It's short; it only travels between the airport and two nearby railroad/subway stations, where you have to transfer once more to get into Manhattan. The original plans called for the railroad to stretch from Manhattan to JFK Airport, so the transfers were a compromise. The AirTrain's also ridiculously expensive ($5 per trip unless you're riding between two airport terminals, in which case it's free).

The article was passed as a Good Article in October 2017, and was nominated for Featured Article status back in June. However, based on the feedback there, the prose needed to be cleaned up, so it wasn't promoted. I think I have resolved these concerns, so I'm nominating it again. I look forward to hearing everyone's feedback.

Also pinging @AmericanAir88, Dudley Miles, Jo-Jo Eumerus, SounderBruce, and Tony1:, who left comments in the previous Featured Article nomination. epicgenius (talk) 18:50, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

@Nikkimaria: Thanks for the source review. I will resolve these shortly. epicgenius (talk) 17:00, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Replies above. epicgenius (talk) 17:33, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria: Pinging again, just in case. epicgenius (talk) 21:08, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria: The article has been extensively modified and some references have been removed. Could you look over the sources again, or indicate that you can't do so? I would appreciate it. epicgenius (talk) 02:10, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN7: November 1967 was when the report was commissioned, not when it was published
  • Be consistent in how you format Daily News articles
  • FN78 should include corporate author
  • FN82: AAP is the author
There are alot of "proposal"s at the top of the History section. Recommend rewording to reduce....(e.g. just start section with 1968 plan)

Harry Mitchell

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Oppose per 1a (prose, particularly flow), and 4 (summary style).

Extended commentary on prose and detail and line-by-line review, now resolved. —HJM

Detailed comments, written as I've read through (as far as the System section)

  • which are 15 miles (24 km) away by road away from what? Or do you mean apart?
  • The prose is a little dense in places, partly because of the level of detail on previous schemes. This is a common problem when trying to explain transport systems and their relationship to the local geography and I'm not sure how much can be done about it, but I would consider moving some of the detail to daughter articles and distilling it down to bare bones in the parent article. 6,400 words on an airport people mover is a bit much, especially considering it's front-loaded with a lot of information that's not directly about the system that was built.
  • In late 1997, Giuliani agreed to the plan on the condition that the state reimburse the city $300 million of the system's cost, with the city paying the $300 million for the line from 2002 through 2017 Sorry, I'm lost. The state is going to reimburse $300 million, and then the cit is going to spend $300 million? Maybe I'm just being dense but I can't parse this.
  • In 1999, the RPA published an unofficial recommendation What's an unofficial recommendation and why is it worth an entire paragraph?
  • some $200 million of the funding could not be paid off using the PFC tax Because the PFC didn't cover it (in which case why not extend/increase it?) or for some other reason?
  • The paragraph starting Community leaders supported the project needs a copy edit for flow; too many short sentences and use of "this" and similar make for a choppy read (other parts of the article could do with going over, you have a habit of introducing something in one sentence and starting the next with "this").
  • The Air Transportation Association of America (ATA) Can we distil this paragraph down to the result of the lawsuit? The court, judge's name, even the ATA, is completely extraneous to the AirTrain. The important bit is the result of the case meaning the public consultation had to be re-run. This would also hopefully cut out the two semicolons in quick succession, which contribute to the choppiness of the section.
  • The By the time the AirTrain case appeal was decided in October 2000 paragraph contains a lot of repetitive and choppy sentence structuring.
  • The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the crash Which one? Two are mentioned in the preceding sentences.
  • Repetition: After the death, shortly followed by Following the fatal crash. With some clever copy-editing and just a little less detail, these two paragraphs could be shortened and merged.
  • This was one of the reasons cited for AirTrain JFK's relatively high fare Relative to what? And tell us what the fare is so the reader can decide if they think it's high.
  • Even before the AirTrain was completed, there were plans to eventually extend it to Manhattan. Suggest paring this back and pointing the reader to Lower Manhattan–Jamaica/JFK Transportation Project
  • By the time the project was canceled, its projected total cost had risen from $6 billion to between $8.6 and $9.9 billion Projected cost, or funds spent?
  • Following President Donald Trump's signing of Executive Order 13769 This strikes me as recentism, and the whole paragraph could be removed without any loss.
  • On January 4, 2017, the office of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo you've already introduced and linked Cuomo.

4, summary style: I think big chunks of the history section need to be split off into sub-articles and then summarised in the main article, making use of {{main}} to point readers to further information. The history section, by itself, is over 4,000 words long and the density of it makes it hard going. It's very well-researched and you've done an excellent job of compiling all this information, but a lot of it is not important to the scheme as it currently operates. I'd suggest either creating individual articles for some of the schemes, or something like Background to AirTrain JFK, to house all the detail and briefly summarising it in this article. The average reader wants to know that various schemes were proposed and some were almost nearly built but it took ~35 years before anything really happened; they don't want 4,000 words of detail on all the different proposals (some will, and they can go to the sub-article(s) for that).

1a, prose: You have a lot of very short sentences in quick succession, one example, chosen because it nicely illustrates the problem The idea was for Jamaica to be re-envisioned as a "regional center", according to the RPA, since during the average weekday, 100,000 LIRR riders and 53,000 subway riders used stations in the core of Jamaica. A proposal calling for a 250-room hotel above the AirTrain terminal was canceled after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.[87] The Port Authority estimated that the AirTrain JFK would carry 12.4 million passengers a year.[87] The Jamaica station's renovation was completed in 2006, three years after the system opened. You have a series of sentences that don't flow into each other at all, they're just a list of facts. As noted above, you also overuse "this", often at the start of a sentence; a lot of these could be eliminating by merging sentences, which would also help with the flow. And look out for ", with" constructions and "however". You might find Tony's advice helpful.

Sorry to oppose, but I've spent several a couple of hours reading this in detail and trying to provide constructive feedback. I hope it helps. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:32, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@HJ Mitchell: Thanks for the comments, and it really isn't a bother; I apologize that you had to oppose. While I appreciate the issues you brought up regarding history, I don't think it would be helpful in this specific instance to split this into a "background" article. I just don't think there will be enough content for a subpage to justify splitting the article. There really aren't any other pages that I can link to such an article, so that page will basically be an orphan. Nothing against your comments in particular, but it just seems like the proposed solution doesn't really justify condensing the article to that extent.
Your comments on prose are very helpful, so I'll try to address them. Prior to nominating the article, I've looked at Tony's advice page and cut these filler words as much as I could. Even so, I see there's still some work to be done, so I'll get onto that. epicgenius (talk) 00:15, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, considering that New York City airport rail link links to this proposal, maybe I can split the previous proposals off to that page. I'll think about it. epicgenius (talk) 00:20, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
In response to specific points:
  • which are 15 miles (24 km) away by road - I added "apart"
  • The prose is a little dense in places, partly because of the level of detail on previous schemes. - As I said, I'll think about splitting the article. I just don't want an orphan article about the previous schemes.
  • In late 1997, Giuliani agreed to the plan on the condition that the state reimburse the city $300 million of the system's cost, with the city paying the $300 million for the line from 2002 through 2017 - The state will reimburse the city for its $300 million share of the cost.
  • In 1999, the RPA published an unofficial recommendation - The RPA isn't an official government agency, so I trimmed it.
  • some $200 million of the funding could not be paid off using the PFC tax - It was ineligible. I added some details.
  • The paragraph starting Community leaders supported the project needs a copy edit for flow - Done
  • The Air Transportation Association of America (ATA) - I trimmed some details
  • The By the time the AirTrain case appeal was decided in October 2000 paragraph contains a lot of repetitive and choppy sentence structuring. - I've restructured it.
  • The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the crash - There's only one NTSB. I don't understand what you mean.
  • Repetition: After the death, shortly followed by Following the fatal crash. - Fixed
  • This was one of the reasons cited for AirTrain JFK's relatively high fare - Added price
  • Even before the AirTrain was completed, there were plans to eventually extend it to Manhattan. - Trimmed
  • By the time the project was canceled, its projected total cost had risen from $6 billion to between $8.6 and $9.9 billion - Well, trimmed per the previous point.
  • Following President Donald Trump's signing of Executive Order 13769 - Removed
  • On January 4, 2017, the office of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo - Removed per previous point.
  • Regarding prose, I looked over the article again, and resolved many of the issues "However" or ", with".
@HJ Mitchell: Hope this helps. There's really not more I can do unless I were to chop off the first two sections entirely. Let me see if I can merge it with the Program for Action article, and I'll get back to you. epicgenius (talk) 01:13, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Update: As I mentioned on Harry's talk page, I've trimmed a bit from the History section. epicgenius (talk) 16:15, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That's some great progress. I had my doubts as to whether it was possible to address my concerns in the course of the FAC but now I'm sure they can. Nonetheless, I still think we have too much detail on the abortive predecessor schemes that could go somewhere else, and in general I think the narrative gets bogged down in minutiae in places. There's also more to be done on improving the flow, though reducing some of the detail will help with that. I picked a couple of paragraphs more or less at random and made these sample edits for eliminating excess verbiage/redundancy and for general flow. And see what you think of this edit; I won't be offended if you revert it, I might have been a little too drastic, but hopefully it shows what you can look for when considering which details are necessary. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:10, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@HJ Mitchell: No worries. I thought there was stuff that couldn't be trimmed, but turned out there was already a suitable article about the schemes . I'll take a greater look on Friday to see what else can be cut/improved. epicgenius (talk) 01:53, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. I'll watchlist the article and the FAC but feel free to ping me if you want me to look at something in particular. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:31, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@HJ Mitchell: Thanks for your patience. I've trimmed a few more details and consolidated some sentences. Does this version look better? epicgenius (talk) 21:47, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That's definitely progress but there's still room for improvement. Down to "curtailment of plan", I think we've now got the right balance so focus on that section onwards. I made a few more edits and managed to cull ~70 words from the first two paragraphs without removing any facts (but do double-check those edits) so there's work to be done. I'd recommend evaluating the rest of the section against my edits and seeing if there's anything more you can cull. Feel free to ping me at the end of the section and I'll happily go through it with you section by section. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:58, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@HJ Mitchell: Thanks. I looked over the article again and found a few more details that were redundant; these have now been consolidated. Your edits look good so I don't think there are anything else to cut in that section. I do appreciate you taking a second look. epicgenius (talk) 23:16, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still finding redundancy and other infelicities. Not nearly as much and not as detail-heavy as the first time I read through, but still not FA standard. Can you read through thoroughly from "Opening and effects" downwards and see what else can be done? I'm not averse to making a few edits here and there but it's your baby. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:32, 8 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
All right, I'll have a look later. epicgenius (talk) 20:08, 8 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@HJ Mitchell: I combed through the article one more time, and made a few edits to reorganize grammar flow and reduce redundant words. I may look at it again tomorrow. In the meantime, could you see if my recent edits align with what you're looking for? I want to know if I'm heading down the right path. Thanks in advance. I do appreciate all the feedback because it's helping me become a better writer. epicgenius (talk) 04:50, 9 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, those are exactly the sort of edits I'm looking for. I'll have a look in more detail later tonight or tomorrow. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:09, 9 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@HJ Mitchell: Have you been able to look at the article yet? No rush, just wondering. epicgenius (talk) 16:22, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Revisiting. Apologies for the delay. I think we're pretty much there. you'e done a good job of tightening the prose. I have a few more detailed comments from reading through the second half, but they're all relatively minor and I envisage supporting once those are sorted:

  • Maybe make it clearer that December 17, 2003 was the final opening date?
  • However, a proposal for a 250-room hotel above the AirTrain terminal had been canceled "however" and "had been" are both red flags ("however" is frowned upon at FAC, partly because it's over-used, and "had been" should normally be "was" for our style of writing). You could just distil this down to "a proposed hotel was canceled after"
  • connects the airport's terminals and parking areas with the LIRR and subway lines at the Howard Beach and Jamaica stations I'd recommend losing the bit in red, and noting in parentheses which system the stations serve. It's almost the same number of words but doesn't leave the uninitiated reader needing to check anything. You can then remove the system names from the following paragraphs.
  • Maybe note that terminals 3 and 6 don't exist, so it doesn't look like the AirTrain skips two terminals; that threw me for a moment
  • In 2014, the most recent year for which statistics are available see MOS:DATED; also, is that still true (we'e in 2019 now, so that's quite a gap)
  • Watch for overlinking and Easter egg links (the specific example that prompted this was [[Taxicabs of New York City|taxi]])
  • The very last paragraph in the current version is a bit choppy and contains another "however" that could easily be lost with a minor rewrite.
  • I'd suggest swapping the order of the last two sections. As it is, the conclusion feels quite abrupt but the ridership section ends nicely in the present day an at the end of the journey.

—HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:20, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    • @HJ Mitchell: Thanks for the response. I appreciate the many hours of work that you have spent re-reviewing this. Here are some responses to your points in order:
      • I made it clearer that December 17, 2003 was the final opening date.
      • I condensed the hotel thing to "a proposed hotel was canceled after"
      • I'd recommend losing the bit in red, and noting in parentheses which system the stations serve. It's almost the same number of words but doesn't leave the uninitiated reader needing to check anything. You can then remove the system names from the following paragraphs. - I removed the red part, but I kept the system names. The parentheses looked unwieldy, like it disrupted the flow of the sentences.
      • Maybe note that terminals 3 and 6 don't exist - The table does say that terminals 2, 5, and 8 were formerly named 2-3, 5-6, and 8-9 respectively.
      • I updated ridership to 2017 stats.
      • I checked for misleading links. The taxi one has been fixed, and I didn't find anything else outstanding.
      • In the rolling stock section, the final paragraph has been split into two shorter paragraphs: one about operating specs and one about dimensions.
      • I switched the order of the final two sections. I hope it looks good now. Thank you again for spending time to look at this page again. epicgenius (talk) 02:50, 16 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You've dealt with the last of my specific comments and the article reads much better now. I'm impressed. You've made a lot of progress in a short turnaround time. I feel the featured article criteria are met now, so I'm happy to support. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:01, 16 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@FAC coordinators: The image and source review are done, and the nomination has 4 supporters (including 2 who also supported the previous nomination). Is that sufficient? epicgenius (talk) 15:08, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator comment: I'm a little concerned by the prose still. I can see quite a few issues in the lead alone. It is quite difficult to understand in places and the prose isn't really quite up to scratch. I'm not recusing just yet, although I am very close to doing. Sarastro (talk) 22:42, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Bombardier Transportation operates AirTrain JFK under contract with the airport's owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.": Not quite clear what this means. They run it with the Port Authority, or the Port Authority pays them to run it?
  • "A railroad link to JFK Airport was first recommended in 1968, though until the 1990s, various plans surfaced to build a JFK Airport rail connection, though these were not carried out because of a lack of funding.": I've read this several times and can't understand it. At the very least, two "though"s in a sentence is not good. And I don't think the first "though" is quite the right word to use.
  • "Meanwhile, the JFK Express subway service and shuttle buses provided an unpopular transport system to and around JFK. In-depth planning for a dedicated transport system at JFK began in 1990, but was ultimately cut back." I'm not too sure why we have "meanwhile" here; and what was cut back? The planning? Or do we mean that the scale of the project was cut back?
  • "During construction, AirTrain JFK encountered several lawsuits, as well as a death during one of the system's test runs.": Do you encounter a lawsuit? And did the train have a lawsuit against it? Or do we mean someone else? And are we really equating lawsuits and deaths? Maybe something like "Among the problems experienced by [someone] during construction were a lawsuit and the death of [someone] during a test run of system".
  • "Since then, several improvements have been proposed for AirTrain JFK, including an unbuilt extension to Manhattan.": As written, this looks like the proposal was for an unbuilt extension (i.e, an extension where the plan is to not built it, rather than a proposal for an extension which is not yet built.)
  • "The AirTrain charges a $5 fare for all passengers entering or exiting at either Jamaica or Howard Beach, though passengers traveling within the airport can ride the system for free": Does the train charge? And we could cut "the system" here. And we have "passengers" twice in a sentence.
  • "The AirTrain has consistently exceeded ridership projections since opening, and in 2017, the system had 7.66 million paying passengers and 12.6 million inter-terminal passengers." I think "these" would be better than "ridership" here, and we could cut "since opening". Also, I'm not sure we need a comma after 2017.

I think we need more eyes on this, particularly if these kind of problems are in the rest of the article. I wonder if Mike Christie could take a look? If not I will recuse and look further myself. Sarastro (talk) 22:42, 17 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I can take a look; will read it now and add notes if I have time tonight. I have ridden the AirTrain many times, but am not knowledgeable about railways. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:26, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Sarastro1 and Mike Christie: I've fixed the issues both of you have described. I think the lead is probably the part of the article that needs the most improvement, since it was created really hastily. epicgenius (talk) 03:20, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Sarastro1: I fixed all of the issues Mike raised and he has given his support below. Could you see if there are any other things that might still need to be changed after I made these edits? I would appreciate it. epicgenius (talk) 17:53, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Mike Christie

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Sarastro1's comments about the prose relate to the lead, and I see there's been some copyediting to the lead since his comments. I've been reading through the body and finding it in much better shape than the lead.

  • The high levels of complaints were not uniform to all community boards: suggest "Not all community boards saw a high level of complaints".
  • I don't think you need quotes around "boondoggle".
  • By June 2003, a 50,000-square-foot (4,600 m2), 16-story building was being planned for Sutphin Boulevard across from the new station: which station -- Howard Beach, or Jamaica? From the following sentence it appears to be Jamaica, but it should be clear before then.

I've read through to the end of the history section and that's all I have so far. I'll come back to the lead once I've read the whole article. More tomorrow. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:03, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • It makes an additional stop at Lefferts Boulevard, which contains transfers to parking lot shuttle buses; the B15 bus to Brooklyn; and the limited-stop Q10 bus. "Contains" isn't really the right word; you have to walk to those buses -- they're nearby, but not "in" the station in any sense. You might consider mentioning the long-term parking accessible from Lefferts Boulevard here too -- you do mention it later in the article, but this is the first mention of Lefferts Boulevard and it's the main use for the station. Not a requirement, as I say, because it is covered later.
    • I addressed the first point. However, it would be weird to say "transfers to short-term and long-term parking lot shuttle buses...". I'll think about it. epicgenius (talk) 15:30, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      What I meant was that most people get off at Lefferts Boulevard and walk to their car; it's in the middle of a giant parking lot. Yes, you can transfer, but if you're thinking like a user of the AirTrain, you go to Lefferts because it's in the parking lot where your car is, not to get on a shuttle. I think a reader of this article could be forgiven for not realizing that. The same applies to Howard Beach, in fact. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:47, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Thank you for your support. I know about this already, and I mentioned it at the end of the paragraph. The segment from Howard Beach to Federal Circle, which is about 1.8 miles (2.9 km) long, passes over the long-term and employee parking lots. epicgenius (talk) 16:26, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Jamaica and Howard Beach stations are designed as "gateway stations", which are designed to give passengers the impression of entering the airport. Two uses of "designed". In what we do they try to achieve "the impression of entering the airport"? I mostly use Lefferts Boulevard, and only occasionally go to Jamaica or Howard Beach, so perhaps I've forgotten, but I don't recall anything about the look of the platforms that matches this description.
    • The source doesn't say, but I am guessing that this is because these are the terminals of AirTrain JFK, where you have to pay to enter or exit. If you enter through Lefferts, then you get to skip the fare, since you're already in the airport epicgenius (talk) 15:30, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The system consists of 6.3 miles (10.1 km) of single-track guideways and 3.2 miles (5.1 km) of double-track guideways. Not really a prose question, but does "single-track guideway" mean a single-track for the trains? It's two tracks everywhere, isn't it? I recall seeing trains pass each other between Howard Beach and Lefferts Boulevard, for example.
  • The fare gates picture is tilted; I think it should be rotated a little anti-clockwise.
  • Is it still the case that you have to pay if you leave the system at Howard Beach? It's been a year or two, but I don't recall paying the last time I parked at Howard Beach, though my memory is unreliable on this sort of thing.
  • similar to what is also used on: perhaps "similar systems are used on" would flow more smoothly.
    • Done.
  • Each car is 57 feet 9 inches (17.60 m) long and 10 feet 2 inches (3.10 m) wide, with similar dimensions to rolling stock used on the New York City Subway's B Division. "With" implies the introduction of new information, so it might be better to make this something like "...wide, which is similar to the dimensions of the rolling stock used on...".
    • Done.

Lead:

  • Various plans surfaced to build a JFK Airport rail connection until the 1990s, though these were not carried out because of a lack of funding. "Various" is an exaggeration, isn't it? Looks like there were two: 1968 and 1987.
  • The system wasn't "the subject of" a death; suggest making this "..., and a train operator died...".
    • Fixed.
  • You don't need "unbuilt" -- the sentence already says "proposed".
    • Fixed.
  • The 7.66 million number does not appear in the body of the article; presumably it should since it's in the lead.

That's everything I can see. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:17, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose; the points above are addressed. Epicgenius, I've left a note on one point but it's up to you if you think it's worth doing. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:47, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment: OK, I think we're good to go now. Just one minor point, which I won't delay promotion over. The duplinks need to be checked as we seem to have a few and I can't see that we need them all. This tool will highlight any duplication. Sarastro (talk) 23:16, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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