Talk:Washburn Tunnel

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Six-percent grade?[edit]

The article says: "The tunnel consists of a single bore, 895 meters (2,909 feet) in length, with a six-percent roadway grade outward from the center towards each exit."

Well, thanks, but is that grade ascending from the center outward, or is it descending? Maybe to architects there is some convention that makes my question naive and ignorant. But even if so, I thought Wikipedia is supposed to be comprehensible to the average [reasonably educated] person, and not only to specialists. Am I wrong? So, is the tunnel higher in the middle than the ends, or lower in the middle? Toddcs (talk) 00:39, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

If you see something that is incorrect or incomplete with any article, why not do some research and make the corrections yourself? Wikipedia is written by everyone...and everyone is invited to contribute, including yourself. Help us to improve the article. Postoak (talk) 02:23, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that highly reasonable response. Your point is well-taken, and I definitely hope to do that research asap and to update the article accordingly. But even so, my point was that I feel the question I raised is not tangential or incidental to what has been already written. Rather, it is an integral detail, without which the existing description cannot be considered complete. So, if I am correct about that, it behooved the original author, who had *already* done the research, to include that information, rather than to expect a future reader or writer to duplicate the effort and to go digging for that information from scratch. (Note the references at the end of the article do not appear to provide a source where the missing information might be found.) Thanks again. :-) Toddcs (talk) 16:46, 20 June 2011 (UTC)