How many grid units to a mile? (Salt Lake City, Orem: live, area)

[mleblanc138]

I'm just looking to find out once and for all how grid units convert to miles. 800 North in Orem is posted as 1 mile North of Center Street. I once read a visitor's guide to Salt Lake City that said 7 blocks to the mile. I'm pretty sure the number I'm looking for is between 700 and 800, but I'm looking for a precise number.

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by mleblanc138

I'm just looking to find out once and for all how grid units convert to miles. 800 North in Orem is posted as 1 mile North of Center Street. I once read a visitor's guide to Salt Lake City that said 7 blocks to the mile. I'm pretty sure the number I'm looking for is between 700 and 800, but I'm looking for a precise number.

I tried to find this out once by using Google Maps. I put in the starting address as the intersection of 100 South 700 East and the ending address at 4300 South 700 East. That would be an absolutely straight line between these two points with a distance of 42 blocks between them. I expected to see the total distance shown as 6 miles (since 6 x 7 = 42). It was actually 6.2 miles, which would make the blocks to miles conversion come out to 1 mile = 6.774 blocks. I think that the reason why it's not more of a round number is that each Salt Lake City square block is 1 acre. And acres don't convert nicely to miles.

[mleblanc138]

That would also be 677 grid units to the mile, interesting. Looks like the only way to find out for sure is to get a pedometer and walk in one direction from a specific point until it says 1 mile.

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by mleblanc138

That would also be 677 grid units to the mile, interesting. Looks like the only way to find out for sure is to get a pedometer and walk in one direction from a specific point until it says 1 mile.

Well, if you try it, let me know, as I've also been curious. I'm not 100% positive that they're the same in Orem as in Salt Lake City, either. Do you know?

[n7hmw]

The official plat from the beginning has been 10-acre square blocks with 132 foot wide streets between them. If you do the math, a block is exactly 660 feet on a side, which is 1/8 of a mile. However, when you remember to add the 132 feet for a street between each block, the grid itself becomes 792 feet on a side. 5280 / 792 = 6-2/3 blocks per mile. Since it's a repeating decimal, you will often see it as 6.7 rather than 6.6666666 blocks per mile.

While most other Utah cities are also based on a grid, they may have used other measurements to lay out their systems, including simplified versions based on blocks per mile, but not necessarily so.

Orem, as you mentioned, is based on 8 grid blocks per mile, and the streets basically occupy easements, rather than separate them. I would also note, it was not a pioneer settlement. Kaysville, on the other hand, was one of the earliest pioneer settlements outside the Salt Lake Valley. At first glance, its streets seem to be about 9 per mile, but that's a bit off. I haven't found an official source yet, but the measurements I've done suggest it was laid using the same system as Salt Lake City but with 6-acre square blocks and 66-foot streets. (I might be wrong, as Kaysville's streets were not surveyed nearly as accurately as SLC's were.)

Having lived in both places, I like Orem's precision, but Kaysville's home-y feel.

[fkesler]

One mile equals 5,280 feet. one chain ( a surveyor's measure) equals 66 feet. Therefore 80 chains per mile. In the original "Plat of Zion," the blocks were meant to be 10 chains center of street intersection to center of street intersection. That was changed in the layout of Salt Lake City by making the build-able area of each block 10 chains square + 2 chains for street width. (Yes downtown Salt Lake City street right-of-ways are 132 feet back of curb to back of curb) Hence, the grid which is counted as center of intersection to center of intersection is 12 chains.... 80 chains per mile, 12 chains per block equals 6.667 (6-2/3rds) blocks per mile.

[Geo-Aggie]

Fun fact:

This is different on the Clearfield/Syracuse and Layton grids where
1 Mile = 10 Blocks (1000 West to 2000 West)

and the Logan grid where:
1 Mile = 7.75 blocks (100 North to 875 North)

Bountiful/NSL uses the same distances (6.67 blocks per mile) as the Salt Lake County grid.