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I used to hate traveling to Portland, OR, because they use NW, SE, etc. It was confusing to me, but my GPS had it down.
I live on the southern edge of a city, on a street 1 block long (not a cul-de-sac or court) and it's N <blank> avenue. In addition, the streets change from E to W on the very western edge of the city. The end result is that all the streets are either N or E. It must have made sense to someone, instead of changing in the middle of the city along a main drag.
Boston has no grid. No numbered or letters streets except a small part of one or two neighborhoods. Multiple street names are repeated in different neighborhoods. (Lots of Washington streets)
SF has the alphabet thing on streets running east and west in the Sunset district, starting right south of GGP.
Chicago has a slew of consecutive streets running NS beginning with k.
Denver has themes and an alphabetical thing going on as well, it is absolutely bonkers, and absolutely OCD. We have numbered avenues on the north quadrant that go up into the 160's (at least) that aren't listed.
Boston has no grid. No numbered or letters streets except a small part of one or two neighborhoods. Multiple street names are repeated in different neighborhoods. (Lots of Washington streets)
Yes. And that is why you could be looking at a place one block away but it'll take you an hour to drive to it (slight exaggeration, I realize, but I've been there, done that). I love Boston, great city, but the least you guys could do is borrow some bread crumbs from Hanzel and Gretel to help people find their way around.
I can only think of one thing worse than this: overlay Boston's street layout atop Pittsburgh's topography and I can assure you, even with $1,000,000 in his pocket, Charlie will never return home.
In Chicago, streets which violate the grid pattern are still designated as NEW, or S.
For example, l reside on a diagonal street which is only 1 block long, from northeast to southwest in direction. Our house numbers are designated as a West street. At one end of our block, my street intersects with a NS street, and at the other end, it intersects with an EW street. So, both streets have West addresses, even though they are not parallel to each other.
You think Phoenix is bad, take a look at Miami's street numbering rules:
1. The north/south divider is Flagler Street, the east west divider is Miami Avenue.
2. Flagler Street east of Miami Ave. is called East Flagler St., Flagler west of Miami Ave is called West Flagler St.
3. Miami Ave. north of Flagler St. is called North Miami Ave, Maimi Ave.south of Flagler St. is called South Miami Ave.
4. Virtually all other streets, e/w and n/s, are numbered.
5. All streets south of Flagler and west of Miami Ave. are designated SW; all streets north of Flagler and west of Miami Ave. are NW; all streets north of Flagler and east of Miami Ave are NE, and all streets south of Flagler and east of Miami are SE.
6. all primary n/s streets are called avenues, all secondary n/s streets are called courts, all tertiary n/s streets are called places.
7. all primary e/w streets are called streets, all secondary e/w streets are called terraces, all tertiary e/w streets are called lanes.
8. some streets that run diagonal are called roads.
Thus, starting at South Miami Ave. and going west, the streets are labeled SW 1 Ave, SW 2 Ave, SW 3 Ave., etc. If there is another street between 1st and 2nd Aves, it is called SW 1 Ct. If there is a second street between 1st and 2nd Aves, it is called SW 1st Pl.
9. Most of the most major n/s arteries end in the number 7; most secondary n/s arteries end in the number 2.
10. Most of the major e/w streets south of Flagler run every 16 numbers counting from 8 St. (e.g., 24 St, 40 St., 56 St., etc). North of Flagler the major e/w streets are spaced equally but for some reason are numbered more irregularly (e.g., 7 St., 14 St., 20 St., 28 St., etc.
11.This numbering system is used throughout Miami Dade County with the exception of several suburbs which may have their own numbering system or just use names.
This sounds very complicated and convoluted, but it actually works quite well. It makes it very easy to find an address in the county. So a ridiculously long address common in the south part of the Miami Dade such as "32816 SW 212 Place" is 328 blocks south of West Flagler Street and 212 blocks west of South Miami Avenue (actually, due to the curving of the coast, west of an imaginary line somewhere out in the middle of Biscayne Bay).
Denver uses N/S/E/W, but ignores the N on the north streets. Thus, there is a Vine St, and a S Vine St. Nobody would ever say 1460 N Vine St, but people would know what you mean if you did. The center of the grid is at Broadway and Ellsworth, and covers the entire metro area proper (it doesn't include far out exurbs like Louisville, Lafayette, Castle Rock, nor anywhere in the mountains). Golden proper has its own grid, but the unincorporated area south and east of Golden proper (also called "Golden") is on the Denver grid.
Spokane uses it as prescribed, the center is at Division/Sprague, and the grid extends east to the Idaho border, and west to Airway Heights.
Seattle uses all directions, and it can be confusing. Snohomish County does too. I can't explain it.
Ridgecrest, CA uses it as prescribed, and the center is at Ridgecrest Blvd/China Lake Blvd. I delivered pizza here and knowing it and the divisions was quite handy.
Riverside, CA doesn't use it at all. I love Riverside's planning in that regard. The suburb of Rancho Cucamonga doesn't use it either.
Los Angeles doesn't use it in many areas.
Corona, CA has its own grid, center is at Main/6th.
I don't think Seattle is confusing, but then again I grew up there. Just think of the hourglass shaped city into four quadrants...NW, NE, SW, SE. Then consider downtown as none of those. Then simply use "Streets" as East-West, and "Avenues" as North-South, the same as Manhattan, NY BTW.
You think Phoenix is bad, take a look at Miami's street numbering rules:
1. The north/south divider is Flagler Street, the east west divider is Miami Avenue.
2. Flagler Street east of Miami Ave. is called East Flagler St., Flagler west of Miami Ave is called West Flagler St.
3. Miami Ave. north of Flagler St. is called North Miami Ave, Maimi Ave.south of Flagler St. is called South Miami Ave.
4. Virtually all other streets, e/w and n/s, are numbered.
5. All streets south of Flagler and west of Miami Ave. are designated SW; all streets north of Flagler and west of Miami Ave. are NW; all streets north of Flagler and east of Miami Ave are NE, and all streets south of Flagler and east of Miami are SE.
6. all primary n/s streets are called avenues, all secondary n/s streets are called courts, all tertiary n/s streets are called places.
7. all primary e/w streets are called streets, all secondary e/w streets are called terraces, all tertiary e/w streets are called lanes.
8. some streets that run diagonal are called roads.
Thus, starting at South Miami Ave. and going west, the streets are labeled SW 1 Ave, SW 2 Ave, SW 3 Ave., etc. If there is another street between 1st and 2nd Aves, it is called SW 1 Ct. If there is a second street between 1st and 2nd Aves, it is called SW 1st Pl.
9. Most of the most major n/s arteries end in the number 7; most secondary n/s arteries end in the number 2.
10. Most of the major e/w streets south of Flagler run every 16 numbers counting from 8 St. (e.g., 24 St, 40 St., 56 St., etc). North of Flagler the major e/w streets are spaced equally but for some reason are numbered more irregularly (e.g., 7 St., 14 St., 20 St., 28 St., etc.
11.This numbering system is used throughout Miami Dade County with the exception of several suburbs which may have their own numbering system or just use names.
This sounds very complicated and convoluted, but it actually works quite well. It makes it very easy to find an address in the county. So a ridiculously long address common in the south part of the Miami Dade such as "32816 SW 212 Place" is 328 blocks south of West Flagler Street and 212 blocks west of South Miami Avenue (actually, due to the curving of the coast, west of an imaginary line somewhere out in the middle of Biscayne Bay).
ok, hot shot, I can beat you on this one: every street in Atlanta has "Peachtree" in its name.
ok, hot shot, I can beat you on this one: every street in Atlanta has "Peachtree" in its name.
Every cu de sac probably does in a mostly non-grid city. Where developers built streets that the got gifted to the city. All open to feeder roads to the strip mall and expressway.
May as well have a Moto of the "Peachtree City" too. Someone did once post there was once a billboard that called it the "Big Peach". no pit of course.
Cleveland's system is unique as far as major U.S. cities are concerned. It's like a quadrant system missing two quadrants. So, like in Miami, there are two separate numbered streets for each number. However, unlike a full quadrant system, all of the north-south streets have their lowest address numbers at Lake Erie and then they increase going south. So, East 49th Street and West 49th Street, which are separate streets that are at least theoretically equidistant from the city center, don't need any additional designation beyond that. You can think of a "Northwest 49th Street" and a "Northeast 49th Street," but they would be in the lake. The east-west streets in Cleveland are named, and you would think you would have to designate east and west portions of these streets, but we don't do that, either (with a small handful of exceptions, discussed below). Where Carnegie Avenue crosses East 49th Street, it's not "4900 East Carnegie," it's just "4900 Carnegie" -- instead, Carnegie changes to Lorain Avenue on the west side (and, obviously, crosses West 49th Street at 4900 Lorain). It might sound insane to "change" the name of every street as soon as it crosses into a different half of town, but it actually works fine thanks to Cleveland's unique geography. The wide Cuyahoga River valley runs right smack through the middle of town, so very, very few of the east-west streets "make it" across the valley. Those that do, get a name change, which shows up in the colloquial names of some of the most recognizable bridges across the valley (Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, Detroit-Superior bridge, etc.).
The exceptions to the "name change" convention exist because the north-south meridian of Cleveland, Ontario Street, is actually located a few blocks east of where the river valley starts. So, a few streets like St. Clair, Huron, and Lakeside have a "west" portion, but they peter out at about West 9th or West 10th where the valley begins, and they don't pick up again on the west side. In these cases, the east portion still has no modifier (so there's a "St. Clair Avenue" and a "West St. Clair Avenue," but no "East St. Clair Avenue").
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no pit of course.
