CA: Removing Minaret Summit Road from usanp

[oscar]

Per some discussion in the usaca thread, it turns out that I added Minaret Summit Rd. near Mammoth Lakes to usanp (United States Select National Park Highways) in the mistaken belief that it was within Devils Postpile National Monument. Part of the road connects the monument to CA 203, but none of the road is within the monument area itself, it's entirely within Inyo National Forest. I now think it doesn't belong in usanp.

Absent any objection, I'll include removal of Minaret Summit Rd. from usanp in a forthcoming pull request also covering other California routes.

[si404]

We have a route in usanp that's USFS managed, mostly because it is functionally the same usanp routes, and we're not doing a USFS system. It was added with that knowledge, and there were no complaints about that. Ditto state-managed usanp roads in Alaska.

I'd suggest that the not being in the national monument suggests a rename "Minaret Summit Road, Devil's Postpile NM Inyo NF", but not necessarily a deletion. I'm easy either way, but if you want to keep it, I don't see why you can't.

[Bickendan]

I don't have any particular problem with it staying.

[Duke87]

I favor removal on the grounds that this is not a sufficiently major road to warrant inclusion, irrespective of who maintains it or what national ___ it is or isn't within. Indeed, usanp is kinda bloated in general, this is far from the only route I'd 86 from it.

But the fact that it is not NPS maintained nor on NPS land is yet another strike against it.

[bejacob]

As a "select" system, usanp should only include significant routes related to the NPS (preferably within a NP/Monument boundary). This route is neither significant nor within such boundaries.

Remove it as soon as convenient.

[yakra]

Per some discussion in the usaca thread,

Link broken.

[oscar]

Per some discussion in the usaca thread,

Link broken.

Link fixed.

[si404]

I favor removal on the grounds that this is not a sufficiently major road to warrant inclusion, irrespective of who maintains it or what national ___ it is or isn't within. Indeed, usanp is kinda bloated in general, this is far from the only route I'd 86 from it.

As a "select" system, usanp should only include significant routes related to the NPS (preferably within a NP/Monument boundary). This route is neither significant nor within such boundaries.

This route was added as it formed a continuation of the pre-existing network of mapped roads from a maintenance boundary to the place that the road serves. It was agreed that such routes were valid and significant enough. Either you took part in that discussion but didn't get the consensus to agree with your POV, or you sat it out (you both were, after all, around) and missed your chance - neither makes your demand to change the consensus correct.

Now I don't particularly care either way on this route, but the "purge routes I have no interest in clinching" gang really wind me up. At least with truck routes and Historic US Highways the issue is the work level for maintaining such routes/systems, whereas here it's not about anything more than not liking that the route is in.

The site is for people to map their travels. Route significance is surely on a "too much effort to create/maintain" basis rather than "I, personally, am uninterested". If people want to clinch it, and the maintainer for that state wants to maintain it, then why not?

5 people have travelled at least part of Minaret Summit Road (3 have done all of it) and 12 have travelled the adjoining section of CA203, meaning 7 drivers could, but haven't, claimed travels on this road, which they are perfectly free to do. But those 7 shouldn't be denying the 5 the ability to map such travels just because they themselves don't want to do so.

[oscar]

This route was added as it formed a continuation of the pre-existing network of mapped roads from a maintenance boundary to the place that the road serves. It was agreed that such routes were valid and significant enough. Either you took part in that discussion but didn't get the consensus to agree with your POV, or you sat it out (you both were, after all, around) and missed your chance - neither makes your demand to change the consensus correct.

To be fair, Minaret Summit Rd. was added to usanp while it was still in preview, and we were at the stage of dumping stuff into usanp to be sorted out later before we activated usanp. I was doing many route additions in California at that time, mainly routes within national parks that were removed from usaca. IIRC, there wasn't much if any discussion about any of my additions, though I noted that another one of the routes I added started in one national park and ended in another, with some Forest Service mileage in the middle.

And Minaret Summit Rd. was then identified as a national monument road. Only later, after usanp activation, did we realize that it was only a Forest Service road connecting a national monument to a state route. Whether that is good enough for usanp was not discussed previously, though similar issues might've been discussed for other routes outside California.

[Duke87]

This route was added as it formed a continuation of the pre-existing network of mapped roads from a maintenance boundary to the place that the road serves. It was agreed that such routes were valid and significant enough. Either you took part in that discussion but didn't get the consensus to agree with your POV, or you sat it out (you both were, after all, around) and missed your chance - neither makes your demand to change the consensus correct.

So, for some reason in my head usanp was still in preview and thus this was still "open" for discussion. Turns out it was activated over a year ago and I never noticed or internalized that fact.

Given that the system is already active I agree we should be focused more on whether this route meets the previously established criteria than on debating the criteria themselves.
In that regard, Minaret Summit Road never actually enters Devils Postpile National Monument, so it is not technically:

4) an extension of an existing system into a park

On the other hand, you could argue it meets this criteria:

5) roads that seem important enough and link with other roads - even if they dead-end

So... yeah I dunno. I still lean towards favoring deletion but I'll ultimately defer to oscar on this.

5 people have travelled at least part of Minaret Summit Road (3 have done all of it) and 12 have travelled the adjoining section of CA203, meaning 7 drivers could, but haven't, claimed travels on this road, which they are perfectly free to do. But those 7 shouldn't be denying the 5 the ability to map such travels just because they themselves don't want to do so.

At least one of those 7 drivers made a U-turn in front of the fee gate and thus has clinched CA 203 but traveled none of Minaret Summit Road.

[bejacob]

Now I don't particularly care either way on this route, but the "purge routes I have no interest in clinching" gang really wind me up. At least with truck routes and Historic US Highways the issue is the work level for maintaining such routes/systems, whereas here it's not about anything more than not liking that the route is in.

I can't speak for others, but my view is not that "I have no interest in clinching" but whether a route belongs in the HB. Old OH 533 is a good example of a well-signed route that does not belong.

As others have noted, Minaret Summit Rd is a Forest Service road. It is not in a NP or NM. If the boundary of the NM started at the end of CA203 or the route traversed even a small part of the NM, my opinion on this road would be different.

The site is for people to map their travels. Route significance is surely on a "too much effort to create/maintain" basis rather than "I, personally, am uninterested". If people want to clinch it, and the maintainer for that state wants to maintain it, then why not?

Ah, but oscar doesn't want to keep it, so that alone should be the end of this discussion.

5 people have travelled at least part of Minaret Summit Road (3 have done all of it) and 12 have travelled the adjoining section of CA203, meaning 7 drivers could, but haven't, claimed travels on this road, which they are perfectly free to do. But those 7 shouldn't be denying the 5 the ability to map such travels just because they themselves don't want to do so.

Personally, I've clinched lots of road that aren't in the HB, some which were included previously such as the above mentioned Old OH533. I've also got a few FM roads in TX and a fair number of MS state routes (look forward to seeing those some day). A road doesn't have to be in the HB for someone to clinch it.

I'll defer to whatever oscar decides. California is his jurisdiction.

[oscar]

Ah, but oscar doesn't want to keep it, so that alone should be the end of this discussion.

Actually, I'll not only defer to si404 on keeping Minaret Summit Rd. in usanp, but double down on that and also follow his suggestion in another thread to move another Forest Service road, the Mormon Emigrant Trail, from ca.us050altpol (which I would delete from usausb) to usanp, as I propose in another pending Updates topic. If Si is comfortable with such fudges to the scope of the usanp system, so am I.

I'll include the addition of Mormon Emigrant Trail, the removal of US 50 Alt and US 101 Business (Ukiah), some tweaks Si suggested to Minaret Summit Rd., and a few other peer review updates to usaca, in a pull request later this week.

[bejacob]

If Si is comfortable with such fudges to the scope of the usanp system, so am I.

It's still a fudge.

I think it's a bad precedent, but if you're fine with it, there's nothing else to say. 

[yakra]

Fudging should be kept to minimum.
Makes me especially nervous when it could be used to justify grab-bag system scope creep in the future...

[si404]

And Minaret Summit Rd. was then identified as a national monument road. Only later, after usanp activation, did we realize that it was only a Forest Service road connecting a national monument to a state route.

Very true - this "who maintains it" issue is different to the "this is not a sufficiently major road" and "should only include significant routes" objections that I was addressing.



Personally, while the USFS is a different department of the Federal Government to the NPS, it's not dissimilar to cities maintaining parts of US/state routes (eg those places in Colorado where the State DOT handed the route to a city and wrote to AASHTO to delete the route from the official route logs within the city limits, but the route remained signed and so we decided to not create a mile and a half gap just because the maintainer changed). And it engages with an NPS unit, though it not entering makes it a little fudgy and, IMV, maintainers choice whether it should stay or go.

The Mormon Emigrant Trail, however, is more fudgy - it's clearly in a National Forest, rather than a National Park, Parkway, Monument or Recreational Area*. That said it is part of an NPS National Historic Trail (or is it this one - maps conflict with the GIS having it as California NHT and the Pony Express NHT going along the parallel route to the north, but the pdf map has it the other way round) - but these trails aren't so much continuous park units, but more like a way to designate a load of small sites along the way for preservation (and not necessarily by the NPS).

*Which, of course, can be Parks or Forest, but that's just more fudge rather than going all Vogony on it.