Local vs regional road connections

[Sol]

Frankly, color me skeptical that ferry routes are the best ways to connect unconnected areas--it seems to me that they should only be used for islands not connected to the mainland by highway, and the like.

[Sol]

Oh, also Skykomish in King County is completely disconnected as far as I can tell from the rest of King County. It may be best to put that into the adjacent Snohomish County district.

[Torie]

So the only crossings are along the Columbia River and from King County? Oh my. I guess we are back to chopping Yakima or Clark Counties, or incurring both a cover and a pack penalty for the Seattle urban cluster. I remember such chat way back when about crossing the Cascades from the north in mapping. That was before all these little road connection rules I guess. My bridge chop comment now has even more salience.

Oh, there is US highway 12, a highway I did not notice before. That's probably the ticket.

[Torie]

Oh, also Skykomish in King County is completely disconnected as far as I can tell from the rest of King County. It may be best to put that into the adjacent Snohomish County district.

If it is within a county, there does not need to be a connection. Otherwise, it would force county chops. I take your point however, where there already is a chop. One can just move the chop around.

[muon2]

Frankly, color me skeptical that ferry routes are the best ways to connect unconnected areas--it seems to me that they should only be used for islands not connected to the mainland by highway, and the like.

The ferry rules came about in our WA discussion along with the mountain crossings. We felt that Puget Sound crossings such as King to Kitsap, Snohomish to Kitsap, or Island to Jefferson should be allowed. Island is connected northeast to Skagit by bridge, but there is a lot of traffic on the ferry to the southwest as well (confirmed by my travel through the county this summer).

[Asian Nazi]

Yeah speaking as someone who lives in Whatcom County, crossing the Cascades in the North is a no-no.  The big issue with mapping Washington north of Seattle is that Whatcom+Skagit+San Juan+Island (which together form a reasonable community with lots of commuting between those regions and such) are nowhere near close enough to a full congressional district on their own and require chopping up Snohomish County, which is bad because that region is essentially just an extension of the Seattle suburbs.  Ferry crossings are weak too imo but should be acceptable if it means crossing the Cascades as little as possible and I think are understandable if it means not screwing up the Puget Sound area.

The biggest problems with the current map that would need solving in any sort of non-partisan redistricting are:

1. Getting rid of my district, the hideous 1st, which has no road connectivity and is essentially just the product of a totally unnecessary Larsenmander.  

2. That idiotic three-way split of Tacoma, which itself is a product of

3. The so-called majority-minority district, which acts as nothing but PR for the WA Dems, as none of the minority groups in the district are realistically large enough to elect a representative of their choice.  It's effectively just a Democrat pack which totally screws up the Puget Sound region on the map.

Ideally I'd also like to see a map which limits the Cascade crossings to one district, preferably along the Columbia, though from my own mapmaking attempts I've realized that this results in chopping up Yakima.  Putting Kittitas and Chelan in a King County district is imo both ridiculous and historically unprecedented and getting rid of it is worth the Yakima chop but I understand that the metrics you guys work with will disagree.

[muon2]

Yeah speaking as someone who lives in Whatcom County, crossing the Cascades in the North is a no-no.  The big issue with mapping Washington north of Seattle is that Whatcom+Skagit+San Juan+Island (which together form a reasonable community with lots of commuting between those regions and such) are nowhere near close enough to a full congressional district on their own and require chopping up Snohomish County, which is bad because that region is essentially just an extension of the Seattle suburbs.  Ferry crossings are weak too imo but should be acceptable if it means crossing the Cascades as little as possible and I think are understandable if not screwing up the Puget Sound area.

The biggest problems with the current map that would need solving in any sort of non-partisan redistricting are:

1. Getting rid of my district, the hideous 1st, which has no road connectivity and is essentially just the product of a totally unnecessary Larsenmander.  

2. That idiotic three-way split of Tacoma, which itself is a product of

3. The so-called majority-minority district, which acts as nothing but PR for the WA Dems, as none of the minority groups in the district are realistically large enough to elect a representative of their choice.  It's effectively just a Democrat pack which totally screws up the Puget Sound region on the map.

Ideally I'd also like to see a map which limits the Cascade crossings to one district, preferably along the Columbia, though from my own mapmaking attempts I've realized that this results in chopping up Yakima.  Putting Kittitas and Chelan in a King County district is imo both ridiculous and historically unprecedented and worth the Yakima chop but I understand that the metrics you guys work with will disagree.

I agree that WA-1 is a mess by our metrics, though it is admittedly compact geographically. It's a good example of the shortcomings of traditional compactness.

There's an additional problem with the Yakima chop. It has to slice up the metro area to get enough population. That leaves the King crossing.

[Torie]

Yeah speaking as someone who lives in Whatcom County, crossing the Cascades in the North is a no-no.  The big issue with mapping Washington north of Seattle is that Whatcom+Skagit+San Juan+Island (which together form a reasonable community with lots of commuting between those regions and such) are nowhere near close enough to a full congressional district on their own and require chopping up Snohomish County, which is bad because that region is essentially just an extension of the Seattle suburbs.  Ferry crossings are weak too imo but should be acceptable if it means crossing the Cascades as little as possible and I think are understandable if not screwing up the Puget Sound area.

The biggest problems with the current map that would need solving in any sort of non-partisan redistricting are:

1. Getting rid of my district, the hideous 1st, which has no road connectivity and is essentially just the product of a totally unnecessary Larsenmander. 

Not to worry. The winter road closure makes the WA-01 that I drew illegal under our rules. If it were opened in the winter, the map is the map. Community of interests have been jettisoned, except as a function of erosity, county and locality chops, and keeping multi county urban clusters together.

2. That idiotic three-way split of Tacoma, which itself is a product of

To avoid that "idiotic" split, as per one of my maps, a King County CD would need to jut across the Cascades, which you just told me you don't like.

3. The so-called majority-minority district, which acts as nothing but PR for the WA Dems, as none of the minority groups in the district are realistically large enough to elect a representative of their choice.  It's effectively just a Democrat pack which totally screws up the Puget Sound region on the map.

There is no VRA issue here, so that is irrelevant one way or the other. I assume you mean keeping all of Seattle in one district. To me, that is just good government.

Ideally I'd also like to see a map which limits the Cascade crossings to one district, preferably along the Columbia, though from my own mapmaking attempts I've realized that this results in chopping up Yakima.  Putting Kittitas and Chelan in a King County district is imo both ridiculous and historically unprecedented and worth the Yakima chop but I understand that the metrics you guys work with will disagree.

There is going to be a "crossing" along the Columbia River, which will make you happy, and another crossing from the inland side into King County, which will not make you happy, but has the effect of keeping 5 districts inside the Seattle urban cluster of King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties. Stay tuned. Everything inside the Seattle urban Cluster is Dem anyway, so this is one instance where you need not worry about some "offensive" Pub CD being carved out of the area. So be happy. In fact, the next map coming will really make you happy, because there will be three Pub pack CD's probably, and everything else will be smooth sailing for the Dems. The tossup CD, and the barely Pub CD are going to disappear.

[Asian Nazi]

Lol I'm not a partisan Dem by any means, so my problems with the current map are strictly geographical.  Well, that and the fact that it was a blatant pro-incumbent gerrymander. 

I've been excited to see what you guys would do to my state, as it'll help me visualize how your metrics apply in a setting I'm more familiar with. 

I'm sure that whatever Torie draws next will be better than the real map.

[Sol]

Wait, is Yakima a UCC of its own? It's not colored on the stickied Jimrtex map.

In any case, that raises the eternal question of whether chopping a single county UCC should extra-penalized relative to a normal county chop...

[muon2]

Wait, is Yakima a UCC of its own? It's not colored on the stickied Jimrtex map.

In any case, that raises the eternal question of whether chopping a single county UCC should extra-penalized relative to a normal county chop...

The consensus has been to not double penalize chops in single county clusters.

[RI]

The big issue with mapping Washington north of Seattle is that Whatcom+Skagit+San Juan+Island (which together form a reasonable community with lots of commuting between those regions and such)

Island is itself problematic as it's essentially two separate counties: Whidbey, which connects only by "land" to Skagit, and Camano, which only connects in any way to Snohomish.

Community-wise, Snoho north of Everett is far more similar to Skagit and Island than it is to southwest Snohomish County.

[Asian Nazi]

The big issue with mapping Washington north of Seattle is that Whatcom+Skagit+San Juan+Island (which together form a reasonable community with lots of commuting between those regions and such)

Island is itself problematic as it's essentially two separate counties: Whidbey, which connects only by "land" to Skagit, and Camano, which only connects in any way to Snohomish.

Community-wise, Snoho north of Everett is far more similar to Skagit and Island than it is to southwest Snohomish County.

Yeah,  you're right I oversimplified.  I think that one of the problems with trying to create a universal set of rules for redistricting is that America is so geographically diverse.  For example counties out here are huge and often times makes more sense to split them than keeping together what are essentially arbitrary lines drawn decades before these areas were settled by Europeans.

[muon2]

County lines may be arbitrary., but most people know the county and municipality they live in. That makes county a CoI even if not the strongest one. Counties have the huge advantage of virtually never changing boundaries. That makes whole counties relatively resistant to gerrymandering. Note that states with criteria for independent mapping generally seek to minimize split counties.

[Torie]

Well here are three maps that follow the rules. I must say Washington is the hardest state I have ever done. What a nightmare! It is an example however of the importance of allowing bridge chops, and allowing in chopped counties, for mere pavement to suffice within the chop. Otherwise, the constraints are so tight, that one might be forced to do that which one should not do, in a state like Washington with so many natural physical and UCC cluster population barriers. Stuff will end up being chopped which should not be chopped.

Anyway, the first map goes back to the Muon2 special of incurring a pack penalty. It has a chops score of 7, 6 chopped counties, plus a pack penalty. The erosity penalty for the chop in Kitshap will be unpleasant, and I almost had to chop Bremerton, which would have added a chop. This map turns WA-03 into a tossup CD, WA-01 is now Dem, but WA-10 is tossup, so the Dem SKEW is 2. The closure of that highway in the winter pushed the SKEW up a point.

The second map incurs both a pack and cover penalty, and has 7 chopped counties, for a score of 9. One might think WA-08 is a Pub gerrymander but it is not. The seat is safely Dem. It would have been a tossup if it had taken the inland areas of two counties in the Seattle cluster rather than just one, as is done with the third map (actually that makes WA-08 a slight Pub CD getting the SKEW back down to 1 - hey it looks like the Reichert district! ). Anyway, the second map just has WA-03 as a tossup, and everything else other than WA-04 and WA-05 is Dem. So the Dem SKEW of the second map is 3. The Pubs will be happy this map loses to the first map, and might take action to get that highway open in the winter! Or alternatively they would push for the third map. The winning map of the two would depend on the respective erosity scores coming out of King and Pierce Counties. I suspect the third map will lose because having large localities, or non localities touching a lot of small localities tends to be the losing map  This will be the tensest aspect of applying the Muon2 metrics. If the two maps are tied, the one with the lowest SKEW wins. In any event, the second and third maps lose to the first, so it's moot. The 2 SKEW map beats both the 1 and 3 SKEW maps. Call it the Goldilocks map.

[Asian Nazi]

Metrics aside, #3 is definitely the best map.  The chops in Grays Harbor and Lewis look a little fugly, and District 8 makes me uncomfortable, but it's worth it because that's probably the prettiest Puget Sound I've seen in any Atlas redistricting attempt. 

All in all, nice work.

[Torie]

Metrics aside, #3 is definitely the best map.  The chops in Grays Harbor and Lewis look a little fugly, and District 8 makes me uncomfortable, but it's worth it because that's probably the prettiest Puget Sound I've seen in any Atlas redistricting attempt.  

All in all, nice work.

Thank you. The beauty of the system, as I said before, is that it is all automatic. Partisan bias is totally exorcised. And the temptation to like a map that favors one's party is overwhelming. Almost none of us can resist it. I am getting better at resisting it, because I am about in equipoise between the two parties at present. I disdain them both. My agenda is more swing CD's. I want more centrists in Congress. But the system favors nobody's agenda, other than making the job easier for election boards, because there will be far fewer chops of governmental jurisdictions, and ballot preparation will be a heck of a lot easier.

Come to think of it, map 3 involves a bridge chop (Pierce and Kittitas are not road connected by any pavement or vehicular ferry whatsoever so in my scheme not deemed connected for any purpose), so it loses to map 2 as the tie breaker before even reaching erosity scores, unless map 3 avoided a locality chop that map 2 did not, which it does not in this case. In my scheme, as a tie breaker in this sense, while bridge chops are allowed, they are disfavored.

Oh, and one final thought. Given all the barriers in Washington, I suspect this state has one of the highest potential partisan swing effects of one map versus another which are competitive per the metrics. Small changes in population, can move the map around involving moving tons of folks from one district to another. That is because the barriers basically force such changes. One cannot jiggle the lines a bit from county to county, because they are both outside the east, quite large, and have various barriers. So in that sense, a SKEW swing of from 1 to 3 is reassuring, albeit that is a huge swing for such a relatively small state. If the state where three times a big a swing of 6 seats rather than 2, would be rather frightening. But such a large state with such barriers does not exist.

[muon2]

Metrics aside, #3 is definitely the best map.  The chops in Grays Harbor and Lewis look a little fugly, and District 8 makes me uncomfortable, but it's worth it because that's probably the prettiest Puget Sound I've seen in any Atlas redistricting attempt.  

All in all, nice work.

Thank you. The beauty of the system, as I said before, is that it is all automatic. Partisan bias is totally exorcised. And the temptation to like a map that favors one's party is overwhelming. Almost none of us can resist it. I am getting better at resisting it, because I am about in equipoise between the two parties at present. I disdain them both. My agenda is more swing CD's. I want more centrists in Congress. But the system favors nobody's agenda, other than making the job easier for election boards, because there will be far fewer chops of governmental jurisdictions, and ballot preparation will be a heck of a lot easier.

Come to think of it, map 3 involves a bridge chop (Pierce and Kittitas are not road connected by any pavement or vehicular ferry whatsoever so in my scheme not deemed connected for any purpose), so it loses to map 2 as the tie breaker before even reaching erosity scores, unless map 3 avoided a locality chop that map 2 did not, which it does not in this case. In my scheme, as a tie breaker in this sense, while bridge chops are allowed, they are disfavored.

Oh, and one final thought. Given all the barriers in Washington, I suspect this state has one of the highest potential partisan swing effects of one map versus another which are competitive per the metrics. Small changes in population, can move the map around involving moving tons of folks from one district to another. That is because the barriers basically force such changes. One cannot jiggle the lines a bit from county to county, because they are both outside the east, quite large, and have various barriers. So in that sense, a SKEW swing of from 1 to 3 is reassuring, albeit that is a huge swing for such a relatively small state. If the state where three times a big a swing of 6 seats rather than 2, would be rather frightening. But such a large state with such barriers does not exist.

There's no bridge chop in map 3 that I see. A bridge chop links two whole counties. Pierce is chopped so the bridge rule doesn't apply. Pierce already gets a chop penalty so it doesn't need to be impacted by the bridge rule from King. If both King and Pierce shared chops with anther district you'd have a traveling chop, but that doesn't apply either.

[Torie]

Metrics aside, #3 is definitely the best map.  The chops in Grays Harbor and Lewis look a little fugly, and District 8 makes me uncomfortable, but it's worth it because that's probably the prettiest Puget Sound I've seen in any Atlas redistricting attempt.  

All in all, nice work.

Thank you. The beauty of the system, as I said before, is that it is all automatic. Partisan bias is totally exorcised. And the temptation to like a map that favors one's party is overwhelming. Almost none of us can resist it. I am getting better at resisting it, because I am about in equipoise between the two parties at present. I disdain them both. My agenda is more swing CD's. I want more centrists in Congress. But the system favors nobody's agenda, other than making the job easier for election boards, because there will be far fewer chops of governmental jurisdictions, and ballot preparation will be a heck of a lot easier.

Come to think of it, map 3 involves a bridge chop (Pierce and Kittitas are not road connected by any pavement or vehicular ferry whatsoever so in my scheme not deemed connected for any purpose), so it loses to map 2 as the tie breaker before even reaching erosity scores, unless map 3 avoided a locality chop that map 2 did not, which it does not in this case. In my scheme, as a tie breaker in this sense, while bridge chops are allowed, they are disfavored.

Oh, and one final thought. Given all the barriers in Washington, I suspect this state has one of the highest potential partisan swing effects of one map versus another which are competitive per the metrics. Small changes in population, can move the map around involving moving tons of folks from one district to another. That is because the barriers basically force such changes. One cannot jiggle the lines a bit from county to county, because they are both outside the east, quite large, and have various barriers. So in that sense, a SKEW swing of from 1 to 3 is reassuring, albeit that is a huge swing for such a relatively small state. If the state where three times a big a swing of 6 seats rather than 2, would be rather frightening. But such a large state with such barriers does not exist.

There's no bridge chop in map 3 that I see. A bridge chop links two whole counties. Pierce is chopped so the bridge rule doesn't apply. Pierce already gets a chop penalty so it doesn't need to be impacted by the bridge rule from King. If both King and Pierce shared chops with anther district you'd have a traveling chop, but that doesn't apply either.

WA-08 goes from the whole county of Kittitas to take part of King and then going to Pierce. That's a classic bridge chop to me unless Pierce and Kittitas were themselves adjacent, and without any qualifying pavement connection, they are not. That is how I see it anyhow.

[jimrtex]

Wait, is Yakima a UCC of its own? It's not colored on the stickied Jimrtex map.

Fixed.

[muon2]

Metrics aside, #3 is definitely the best map.  The chops in Grays Harbor and Lewis look a little fugly, and District 8 makes me uncomfortable, but it's worth it because that's probably the prettiest Puget Sound I've seen in any Atlas redistricting attempt.  

All in all, nice work.

Thank you. The beauty of the system, as I said before, is that it is all automatic. Partisan bias is totally exorcised. And the temptation to like a map that favors one's party is overwhelming. Almost none of us can resist it. I am getting better at resisting it, because I am about in equipoise between the two parties at present. I disdain them both. My agenda is more swing CD's. I want more centrists in Congress. But the system favors nobody's agenda, other than making the job easier for election boards, because there will be far fewer chops of governmental jurisdictions, and ballot preparation will be a heck of a lot easier.

Come to think of it, map 3 involves a bridge chop (Pierce and Kittitas are not road connected by any pavement or vehicular ferry whatsoever so in my scheme not deemed connected for any purpose), so it loses to map 2 as the tie breaker before even reaching erosity scores, unless map 3 avoided a locality chop that map 2 did not, which it does not in this case. In my scheme, as a tie breaker in this sense, while bridge chops are allowed, they are disfavored.

Oh, and one final thought. Given all the barriers in Washington, I suspect this state has one of the highest potential partisan swing effects of one map versus another which are competitive per the metrics. Small changes in population, can move the map around involving moving tons of folks from one district to another. That is because the barriers basically force such changes. One cannot jiggle the lines a bit from county to county, because they are both outside the east, quite large, and have various barriers. So in that sense, a SKEW swing of from 1 to 3 is reassuring, albeit that is a huge swing for such a relatively small state. If the state where three times a big a swing of 6 seats rather than 2, would be rather frightening. But such a large state with such barriers does not exist.

There's no bridge chop in map 3 that I see. A bridge chop links two whole counties. Pierce is chopped so the bridge rule doesn't apply. Pierce already gets a chop penalty so it doesn't need to be impacted by the bridge rule from King. If both King and Pierce shared chops with anther district you'd have a traveling chop, but that doesn't apply either.

WA-08 goes from the whole county of Kittitas to take part of King and then going to Pierce. That's a classic bridge chop to me unless Pierce and Kittitas were themselves adjacent, and without any qualifying pavement connection, they are not. That is how I see it anyhow.

A bridge chop only applies to a chopped county used to connect two whole counties. The rule is to prevent a district from bypassing an urban center in the middle of the district by chopping out the center, but otherwise keeping counties whole. It often creates the worst of the dumbbell shape that you have taken exception to in the past. Connecting a sequence of chopped counties, as long as it isn't a travelling chop is ok.

Pierce isn't whole so there is no bridge chop. Pierce and King share no other district so it isn't a travelling chop.

[muon2]

I found my notes from late 2012 when we were looking at the question of regional connections for WA. This was the connection map I found, with numbers equal to the percent of a CD. The red lines partition the state into whole county groups equal to a whole number of CDs. The purple and orange lines show two different partitions I was looking at.



From that I reconstructed the individual CDs. There are only 6 county chops plus the pack penalty in Seattle for a CHOP of 7. CD 4 is erose, but not quite as bad as it looks because of the mountains. The political breakdown is 4D, 2d, 2e, 2R for a SKEW of 2.





Within the Seattle area Vashon only connects by ferry to Seattle within King. The chop into Snohomish is designed to provide a connection to the Stevens Pass portion of King.

[Torie]

Metrics aside, #3 is definitely the best map.  The chops in Grays Harbor and Lewis look a little fugly, and District 8 makes me uncomfortable, but it's worth it because that's probably the prettiest Puget Sound I've seen in any Atlas redistricting attempt.  

All in all, nice work.

Thank you. The beauty of the system, as I said before, is that it is all automatic. Partisan bias is totally exorcised. And the temptation to like a map that favors one's party is overwhelming. Almost none of us can resist it. I am getting better at resisting it, because I am about in equipoise between the two parties at present. I disdain them both. My agenda is more swing CD's. I want more centrists in Congress. But the system favors nobody's agenda, other than making the job easier for election boards, because there will be far fewer chops of governmental jurisdictions, and ballot preparation will be a heck of a lot easier.

Come to think of it, map 3 involves a bridge chop (Pierce and Kittitas are not road connected by any pavement or vehicular ferry whatsoever so in my scheme not deemed connected for any purpose), so it loses to map 2 as the tie breaker before even reaching erosity scores, unless map 3 avoided a locality chop that map 2 did not, which it does not in this case. In my scheme, as a tie breaker in this sense, while bridge chops are allowed, they are disfavored.

Oh, and one final thought. Given all the barriers in Washington, I suspect this state has one of the highest potential partisan swing effects of one map versus another which are competitive per the metrics. Small changes in population, can move the map around involving moving tons of folks from one district to another. That is because the barriers basically force such changes. One cannot jiggle the lines a bit from county to county, because they are both outside the east, quite large, and have various barriers. So in that sense, a SKEW swing of from 1 to 3 is reassuring, albeit that is a huge swing for such a relatively small state. If the state where three times a big a swing of 6 seats rather than 2, would be rather frightening. But such a large state with such barriers does not exist.

There's no bridge chop in map 3 that I see. A bridge chop links two whole counties. Pierce is chopped so the bridge rule doesn't apply. Pierce already gets a chop penalty so it doesn't need to be impacted by the bridge rule from King. If both King and Pierce shared chops with anther district you'd have a traveling chop, but that doesn't apply either.

WA-08 goes from the whole county of Kittitas to take part of King and then going to Pierce. That's a classic bridge chop to me unless Pierce and Kittitas were themselves adjacent, and without any qualifying pavement connection, they are not. That is how I see it anyhow.

A bridge chop only applies to a chopped county used to connect two whole counties. The rule is to prevent a district from bypassing an urban center in the middle of the district by chopping out the center, but otherwise keeping counties whole. It often creates the worst of the dumbbell shape that you have taken exception to in the past. Connecting a sequence of chopped counties, as long as it isn't a travelling chop is ok.

Pierce isn't whole so there is no bridge chop. Pierce and King share no other district so it isn't a travelling chop.

That is the first time you clearly stated the rule. I asked the question before. I assume that you are aware with this rule that if you do a microchop in a big county, you can evade the stricture. That might have consequences that we don't like. One might even do a gratuitous microchop to so evade, or where there are a choice of such chops, pick the one that evades. Which again emphasizes it should not be a flat ban, but just disfavored. Your horror show would have a terrible erosity score typically. Tentatively I think I prefer my version of the rule. As applied in WA, it just determines which CD chops down into Pierce. And it has the advantage of making easy which CD goes down for the chop without having to do exhaustive erosity tests, as to which the accidental design of the locality lines and populations might flip it either way.

In general, I consider what you did bad practice, and thus it should be disfavored, unless it accomplishes something useful on the chop front, such as avoiding a locality chop, or a trapped area like Stevens Point. And having simpler tie breakers I think is important policy wise. Having erosity scores as the tie breaker in this context is much more cumbersome and harder to understand, and given that there might be a substantial partisan variance, having something more simple will tend to reduce the controversy.

This whole issue I think deserves substantial discussion. The precise bridge chop rule was what drove  the different designs of our two maps. So its important. I can see not having a bridge chop disfavored if it avoids the lack of a road connection which you mention as to Stevens Point (just as would be the case if a bridge chop avoids a locality chop), but I can fix that aspect of my map by just chopping back into King with my WA-09 to take in Stevens Point, so that would not be an excuse in this instance.

My proposal is that a bridge chop arises when you have any whole county then take a portion of another county, and then move on beyond that county to take in a portion or the entirety of another county, and while it does not create a penalty, it loses to a map with the same chop count that does not do that, unless the bridge chop avoids a locality chop, or a trapped area without pavement connections, and then it is not disfavored at all. Have simple tie breakers unless the bridge chop itself does some non erosity related good, and in all events allow them. And there is no distinction between bridging to whole counties or partial counties with respect to the bridge chop rule.

Why do you have a green line from Walla Walls to Columbia County (I wonder how many Columbia counties there are out there on the Fruited Plain)? Those two counties are not even appended. Absent that green line, our respective versions of WA-05 have the same number of road cuts. It appears that my version has more of a population variance. If that variance caused the max variance to increase, than your version would be preferred. If not, it would not be preferred, and our maps might be potentially tied, assuming the bridge chop rule is hashed out. Should in that instance, the version with the lower variance from "perfection" than be preferred as the tie breaker vis a vis the two versions? Per our current rules, it is not given any consideration.

You appear to have chopped Bremerton. Why did you do that? That counts as a chop. Because there is no pavement connection? I disagree with that. It is more important to keep localities together. At some point, the obsession with pavement ends up just being bad policy. This is one of those instances. On this one, I suspect that you have absolutely no hope of changing my mind. None.

What software did you use to construct your "notes," and where do you get your state county outlines from? Thanks.

It's good that all my work on WA is finally forcing a more extensive discussion of bridge chops. It was sorely needed. I have been harping on the matter for some time. Finally, the issue hopefully will be finally and fully joined.

Here based on your comments is my revised map, some of which comments are well taken obviously. (There was another ferry thing for WA-06, which I fixed and which comports with your map.) Suppose that to put Vashon into WA-07 it necessitated chopping another locality, in particular Seattle?  Does one live with the chop? I suppose the answer is yes, because in theory, an island could have a lot of population, rather than just being rounding error. That would obtain say if Mercer Island only had a bridge going to the mainland one way. Pity that.

[muon2]

I generally like your changes to my map. I was drawing it in a hotel room and I'm sure I missed things. I didn't have to chop any munis to put Vashon in 7. I think it was just Vashon, Seattle, Shoreline, and perhaps one next to Shoreline. I can't check from the car, and I could easily have missed something there.

What you did in your map with King and Pierce I believe should have no penalty. We never faulted it during our extensive work on MI, and I don't see why we should now. I think that is where we fleshed out these county chopping rules.

The problem with muni chops in WA is similar to what we encountered in MD, NC, FL and other states that lack subcounty government. Some of the places in WA on DRA are incorporated places, but others are not. I would not want to give particular importance to unincorporated place lines, since they don't have to reflect real boundaries. We could use the Census CCD boundaries in WA counties, much like using the MD election districts. However, in King they are mostly too large on the west side, so they would need to subdivided based on incorporated munis. Defining the subdivisions in King and Pierce are a necessity to look at connections and erosity.

The network map I posted was in my Atlas gallery that I found through a search. I created it in 2012 using Visio. It was for a thread about connections and regions in WA that had a lot of back and forth between jimrtex and I. Our differences about connections in NC can be visited in that thread three years ago. We really keep crossing the same ground on these issues, but I tend to resist wholesale thread necromancy so here we are.

I'm pretty sure I found WA 261 crosses the Snake river from Franklin to Columbia back in 2012, if that is your question. The paper atlas in my car shows it that way, in any case.

[Torie]

I generally like your changes to my map. I was drawing it in a hotel room and I'm sure I missed things. I didn't have to chop any munis to put Vashon in 7. I think it was just Vashon, Seattle, Shoreline, and perhaps one next to Shoreline. I can't check from the car, and I could easily have missed something there.

I know you didn't. The purpose of this exercise is to muse about policy issues - even ones that you think we discussed before, not matter how much that might irritate you. In any event, I agree that the bridge or ferry rule should be followed here, even if it does necessitate a chop.

What you did in your map with King and Pierce I believe should have no penalty. We never faulted it during our extensive work on MI, and I don't see why we should now. I think that is where we fleshed out these county chopping rules.

If you are talking about my map with the pack and cover penalty, or your map, I have given a lot of thought to the bridge chop issue, and hope you will seriously consider my recommendations, and comment in detail about it, if you disagree with me. I have laid out my case now. I think it is persuasive. I never knew the exact definition of bridge chops, even though I asked you more than once. Now I know, and thus my comments.

The problem with muni chops in WA is similar to what we encountered in MD, NC, FL and other states that lack subcounty government. Some of the places in WA on DRA are incorporated places, but others are not. I would not want to give particular importance to unincorporated place lines, since they don't have to reflect real boundaries. We could use the Census CCD boundaries in WA counties, much like using the MD election districts. However, in King they are mostly too large on the west side, so they would need to subdivided based on incorporated munis. Defining the subdivisions in King and Pierce are a necessity to look at connections and erosity.

Yes, I agree with all of that, and am inclined at this point, absent something persuasive, to follow the precinct nest rule. But in individual states there might be a good reason not to do that, and the state should just change their precinct lines. But the fact that the precincts are not nested, suggests the states with that syndrome don't care much about the integrity of such localities. The same might obtain for city neighborhoods. It would be a lot to ask for say NYC to have to change its precincts wholesale to accommodate your idea of what and where the neighborhoods are. But if the precinct lines follow the neighborhood lines, great. Bremerton is an incorporated city. You just missed its erosity on the south end. No problem. It's just that you so rarely make mistakes, that I tend to think what you do is deliberate. In this case, I thought it might be a pavement obsession.

The network map I posted was in my Atlas gallery that I found through a search. I created it in 2012 using Visio. It was for a thread about connections and regions in WA that had a lot of back and forth between jimrtex and I. Our differences about connections in NC can be visited in that thread three years ago. We really keep crossing the same ground on these issues, but I tend to resist wholesale thread necromancy so here we are.

Not sure what you are referring to here. Is that about bridge chops or highway connections? On highway connections, you have the matter under advisement about nicks. We seem to disagree about whether chops in need to be along state highways. As with the bridge chop issue, my point of view is that chops in along any pavement are OK, but disfavored as compared to state highway chops in, and should only be used to the extent it avoids a locality chop. I think the overriding policy should be to minimize chops absent something compelling to the contrary. I will look into Visio. Thanks. Is that were you got your county outline map from as well?

I'm pretty sure I found WA 261 crosses the Snake river from Franklin to Columbia back in 2012, if that is your question. The paper atlas in my car shows it that way, in any case.

You are correct I now see. So that is that. However the policy issue remains about which design to use where there is tie, and I have made a suggestion to use the version where there is less of a population variance from equal population between the two choices (subordinated of course to SKEW considerations, but that does not obtain here). This would only obtain where the same two CD's are involved, and it is merely an issue of the border between them. There is no tie breaker in place now.