Which cities use (don’t use) N, S, E, W with street designation?

[slowlane3]

Originally Posted by Ben Around

You think Phoenix is bad, take a look at Miami's street numbering rules:

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

As I had mentioned, Salt Lake City, and other Utah cities, have kind of a similar system.

[pnwguy2]

I lived in an adjacent State to Utah, and on my trips to SLC, could never quite figure out the street system. "West Main South"...huh? I know it is all about the Temple, but if you don't live there it can be confusing.

[DavePa]

As I'm sure the OP knows .....
Got to give Chicago credit for creating perhaps the best street-grid and standardized numbering system with 8-blocks to a mile and each a 100 block North, South, East and West. Least is East as Lake Michigan is at its great Eastern boundary. Also standard alleyways behind each street.

In 1909 the city accepted a plan by Edward P. Brennan which unified the street numbering system naming the intersection of State and Madison as zero and numbering the blocks accordingly in each direction.

Now it is much easier to find your way without a map in the city of Chicago or even GPS.

Some links that explain what they chose for the evolving street-grid and then adopting the best options. As it too incorporated early suburbs in growing the city. They could some same names as others that were and their own addresses.

But the city had visionaries that said ---- "We can do this over better".

Decoding The Chicago Coordinates Grid System.
https://www.domu.com/blog/decoding-t...et-grid-system
From link:
- in 1909, the City of Chicago decided to fight back against the growing menace of local residents continually getting lost and throwing temper tantrums.
- it created a completely new and foolproof address Chicago coordinates system.
- the address numbers increase or decrease depending on their distance in miles from the State and Madison axis lines where N S E W streets begin in the Loop.
- odd numbers are on the south and east sides of streets,
- even numbers are on the north and west sides of the streets.
- there are 800 addresses for each mile of streetscape
- eight blocks to each mile on the Chicago street grid.
- each block starts the next multiple of 100.
- on the north and west sides, the “primary" streets run a mile apart,
- with the “secondary” streets run halfway between the primary streets.

There are a few exceptions to this otherwise logical street numbering system. Most notably a 3 mile segment of Archer Avenue, a diagonal street on Chicago's southwest side.

Chicago also added diagonal streets to its grid .... running diagonally through Chicago's grid system on all or part of their courses. These streets tend to form major 5 or 6-way intersections. In many cases they were Indian trails, or were among the earliest streets established in the city. Diagonals are numbered as north-south or east-west streets too.

The density of main streets in downtown Chicago -- is greater than in the rest of the city, with some at half-block spacing (just 50 address numbers or one-sixteenth mile from the next parallel street), or block spacing between main streets, unlike the rest of the city where the main streets are spaced at half-mile and mile intervals.

Many of Chicago's suburbs use the same numbering system as Chicago, while other suburbs use their own systems.

One diagonal street here shoots from the core
and also goes by Wrigley Field off the picture though.

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by edsg25

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.

(ok....a pre-GPS observation. Still....)

You can’t write 232 Center Steet Boston, MA. You have to write 232 Centre Street West Roxbury, MA or 232 Center Street Jamaica Plain, MA. 141 Washington Street Boston, MA youlll get your stuff sent to Downtown Crossing. You have to write 142 Washington Street Roxbury, MA 02119. Part of why Bostonians go by neighborhood so heavily. You really have to. “I’m from Hyde Park/Brighton/Charlestown/Mission Hill not Boston”

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

Originally Posted by DavePa

As I'm sure the OP knows .....
Got to give Chicago credit for creating perhaps the best street-grid and standardized numbering system with 8-blocks to a mile and each a 100 block North, South, East and West. Least is East as Lake Michigan is at its great Eastern boundary. Also standard alleyways behind each street.

In 1909 the city accepted a plan by Edward P. Brennan which unified the street numbering system naming the intersection of State and Madison as zero and numbering the blocks accordingly in each direction.

Now it is much easier to find your way without a map in the city of Chicago or even GPS.

Some links that explain what they chose for the evolving street-grid and then adopting the best options. As it too incorporated early suburbs in growing the city. They could some same names as others that were and their own addresses.

But the city had visionaries that said ---- "We can do this over better".

Decoding The Chicago Coordinates Grid System.
https://www.domu.com/blog/decoding-t...et-grid-system
From link:
- in 1909, the City of Chicago decided to fight back against the growing menace of local residents continually getting lost and throwing temper tantrums.
- it created a completely new and foolproof address Chicago coordinates system.
- the address numbers increase or decrease depending on their distance in miles from the State and Madison axis lines where N S E W streets begin in the Loop.
- odd numbers are on the south and east sides of streets,
- even numbers are on the north and west sides of the streets.
- there are 800 addresses for each mile of streetscape
- eight blocks to each mile on the Chicago street grid.
- each block starts the next multiple of 100.
- on the north and west sides, the “primary" streets run a mile apart,
- with the “secondary” streets run halfway between the primary streets.

There are a few exceptions to this otherwise logical street numbering system. Most notably a 3 mile segment of Archer Avenue, a diagonal street on Chicago's southwest side.

Chicago also added diagonal streets to its grid .... running diagonally through Chicago's grid system on all or part of their courses. These streets tend to form major 5 or 6-way intersections. In many cases they were Indian trails, or were among the earliest streets established in the city. Diagonals are numbered as north-south or east-west streets too.

The density of main streets in downtown Chicago -- is greater than in the rest of the city, with some at half-block spacing (just 50 address numbers or one-sixteenth mile from the next parallel street), or block spacing between main streets, unlike the rest of the city where the main streets are spaced at half-mile and mile intervals.

Many of Chicago's suburbs use the same numbering system as Chicago, while other suburbs use their own systems.

One diagonal street here shoots from the core
and also goes by Wrigley Field off the picture though.

Phoenix's grid is similar, but with some irregularities.

For N/S streets, from 16th St east and from 19th Ave west, it's 800 per mile. But between those two (3 miles), you have 15th Ave 1500 W, 7th Ave 700 W, Central Ave 0, 7th St 700 E and 12th St 1200 E for each half mile.

For E/W streets, it's 1600 per mile but with some exceptions:

Buckeye Rd 1200 S, Van Buren St 300 N, McDowell Rd 1600 N, Thomas Rd 2900 N, Indian School Rd 4100 N, Camelback Rd 5000 N, Bethany Home Rd 6000 N, Glendale Ave 7000 N, Northern Ave 8000 N and Dunlap Ave 9000 N. Washington St (0) is 1/4 mile south of Van Buren St. South of Buckeye Rd and north of Dunlap Ave it is 1600 per mile

[The_General]

Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade

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)

South Boston has grids and numbered roads. The Back Bay is also a grid.

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by The_General

South Boston has grids and numbered roads. The Back Bay is also a grid.

yea 'a small part of two neighborhoods'. Not all of Southie is a grid. Thats like 5% of Bostons total land area thats in a grid... their small and incomplete grids at that.

[kidphilly]

Philly uses the following


N
S
W
NW
SW
NE
and Far NE


no east; that would be Camden NJ