What are your cities zero points?

[paulthemapguy]

Goshen, Indiana is Lincoln Ave (N/S divider) and Main St (E/W divider). The grid is messed up (1st-3rd Streets are west of Main St, making 16th street 1300 E) center is 100, not 0.

I don't think you need to have OCD, in order to agree with me that that's garbage.

[tdindy88]

Bloomington, Indiana's street grid doesn't care much about it's numbered streets either, at least in making sense. The zero point for that city is Walnut Street and Kirkwood Avenue. Located at the southeast corner of the courthouse square that's logical enough. Walnut Street divides E-W throughout the town and Kirkwood divides N-S. The problem is Kirkwood Avenue is essentially 5th Street. So going north the addresses are about 400 off what the numbered street is. The grid is even more messed going south from Kirkwood. From 1st Street in Bloomington you pass six blocks before you reach 3rd Street, and then the blocks are numbered in order north of there with the exception of Kirkwood.

[JMoses24]

Dayton, Ohio's is Main St. & 3rd St.  Looks like Vine St. is the east/west divider for Cincinnati, but no N/S divider.  Everything goes upward starting at the river.

Correct for Cincinnati. Vine is the East/West dividing line. There is technically not a street where anything north of it is labeled North ____ Street and anything south is labeled South ____ Street. However, the central point of downtown has always been considered to be Fountain Square, which is at Fifth and Vine -- which makes sense because downtown's northern boundary is considered to be Central Parkway, with the river being the south boundary.

[sparker]

In San Jose, zero point (at least as regards block numbers) is the intersection of 1st Street and Santa Clara Avenue.  At that point, the streets are canted about 30 degrees left/counterclockwise from a true N-S/E-W axis; while 1st Street maintains that angle all the way out to Alviso (ending in the marshland at the south end of SF Bay), once outside of downtown virtually everything turns into relative chaos, with streets going pretty much in every direction.  Only downtown SJ maintains any resemblance of a traditional grid pattern. 

[silverback1065]

what is LA's?

[plain]

Richmond, Va oddly enough has TWO zero points and I run into non-locals all the time who gets confused about this:

North of the James River it's at the intersection of Main and Foushee, which even though is downtown, it's actually more towards the western part of downtown.

South of the James River it's a lot more confusing... there is no N-S dividing line, only E-W. The zero point is Hull Street at the James River itself, and Hull (travelling, of all directions, westbound from here) creates the line of E-W until the junction will Midlothian Tpk, which takes over the dividing duties. The block numbers on these streets and the few that actually parallel them increases as one drives further away from the James. The most confusing part of all is the fact that both roads run East-West themselves, even though the cross streets are divided as East and West... in other words, if one was on Southside's 30th street, E. 30th would be actually south of Midlothian while W. 30th is north of Midlothian.

Adding to the madness is the fact that the city has two completely unrelated sets of numbered streets.. north of the James they are labeled N-S while south of the James they are labeled E-W.

Confused yet? 

Seattle has like 10 different zero points.

XT1254

Seattle has TEN zero points??? That's just all out excessive. Talk about confusion!

[tdindy88]

what is LA's?

It looks like the intersection of 1st Street and Main Street in Downtown LA.

[NWI_Irish96]

Chicago is easy--State and Madison...perhaps one of the most well-known zero points.  This leaves hardly any addresses with "E" in them, since State is rather close to Lake Michigan.  The zero point is in the heart of downtown, so it works rather well.

There are plenty of East addresses south of downtown, just not north.  Addresses actually get as high as 4000E when you get down to where the city borders Hammond.

Another weird thing about Chicago's numbering is that there are 800 worth of addresses per mile, EXCEPT for the first three miles south of State Street, where State->Roosevelt is 1200, Roosevelt->Cermack is 1000 and Cermack->31st is 900.  This allows the address numbers to match up with the numbered streets. 

[wriddle082]

Nashville's N/S divider on the west bank of the Cumberland River (downtown side) is Broadway/West End Ave, which bisect numbered Avenues, and the directional notation is at the end of the name (ex. 21st Ave. S), and numbered avenues exist up into the 60's.  On the east bank of the river (East Nashville/Nissan Stadium side), the N/S divider is Main St., which bisects numbered streets, and the directional notation is at the beginning of the name (ex. N 1st St.), and numbered streets exist only up into the 20's. The E/W divider is the downtown stretch of the Cumberland River.

[Brandon]

Chicago is easy--State and Madison...perhaps one of the most well-known zero points.  This leaves hardly any addresses with "E" in them, since State is rather close to Lake Michigan.  The zero point is in the heart of downtown, so it works rather well.

There are plenty of East addresses south of downtown, just not north.  Addresses actually get as high as 4000E when you get down to where the city borders Hammond.

Another weird thing about Chicago's numbering is that there are 800 worth of addresses per mile, EXCEPT for the first three miles south of State Street, where State->Roosevelt is 1200, Roosevelt->Cermack is 1000 and Cermack->31st is 900.  This allows the address numbers to match up with the numbered streets. 

Actually, it's done because there are twelve blocks to the first mile, ten to the second mile, nine to the third mile, and eight thereafter.  Chicago addresses go up 100 every block.  On the north side, and heading west, the river makes up the gap as the Loop is surveyed for 12 blocks to the mile, but most of the rest of the city is eight blocks to the mile.

[Otto Yamamoto]

Tucson, Az is weird, while the zero point is at Stone and Broadway,  this is 10 or so blocks  south of what should be the logical point; and the blocks don't match the street number s.

XT1254

[coatimundi]

Tucson, Az is weird, while the zero point is at Stone and Broadway,  this is 10 or so blocks  south of what should be the logical point; and the blocks don't match the street number s.

Tucson was originally platted after the Gadsden Purchase with the grid that's still in use today. However, for whatever reason, they chose to start the numbering scheme for streets at the northeast corner of the grid, though since addresses have existed in the city, the 0 point was always roughly where it is today, at Stone and Broadway. At that time, they weren't thinking about addresses.
In the middle of the last century, there was a proposal to renumber everyone based on a 0 point at Speedway/Euclid, where it is if you look at the numbered streets. I just assume that they determined this to be too costly. It's a pretty arbitrary point at which to start an address system, so I don't think it would make sense.

[bzakharin]

Cherry Hill, NJ's E-W zero point is NJ 41, though it doesn't universally apply, especially to smaller streets. One major road that does not respect it is Church Road (CR 616), whose zero point is at its western terminus in Merchantville. The N-S zero point is NJ 70 west of I-295. It's a strange zero point because while addresses south of it do start at zero and go up, addresses north of it start with 1200 and go up. East of 295, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the house numbers, and the few suffixed routes change their suffixes and different locations.

Over near where I work, Shore Road (CR 585) is an E-W zero point through Somers Point, Linwood, Northfield, Pleasantville, and Absecon. The N-S zero point is the Black Horse Pike (US 40/322) in Pleasantville. 

[Urban Prairie Schooner]

East Baton Rouge Parish's zero point is the intersection of North Boulevard and River Road. The N-S dividing line is North Blvd. to Foster Drive and then Florida Blvd. to the parish line. The E-W dividing line is more complicated. In the downtown area it is obviously the Mississippi River. This extends southward to Terrace Street where Highland Road assumes the E-W dividing point. North of downtown, the river and the BR Barge Canal serve as the E-W divider until Thomas Road where Scenic Highway, then Samuels Road (both US 61) becomes the divider north to the parish line.

Because of the angles of streets, sometimes the divisions are not strictly followed. For instance, Bluebonnet Blvd. and Siegen Lane continue their address numbering south of Perkins Road where the north-south and east-west streets meet. Also the addressing can be messy in the south part of the parish since Highland Road itself turns eastward.

The cities of Baker and Zachary have their own N-S zero point at Lavey Lane and the south city limit of Zachary respectively, but they use the parish wide grid for E-W numbers.

[silverback1065]

can someone explain Las Vegas's?  I think its Las Vegas Blvd and Fremont St.  but that doesn't seem to fit the whole city. 

[cl94]

can someone explain Las Vegas's?  I think its Las Vegas Blvd and Fremont St.  but that doesn't seem to fit the whole city.

Correct. West of I-15, it runs along US 95. When Fremont Street turns toward the south, it shifts to Charleston Blvd.

[CtrlAltDel]

In Santa Barbara, it's State Street at the ocean. State Street theoretically runs north-south, with East and West streets branching off of it. Even numbers are located on the right side of the street as the numbers increase, which is very handy for navigation. However, the whole grid is off by 48 degrees, which puts East streets closer to actual north than actual east. Then, outside the downtown area, the directions of the streets switch again and the East and West streets run north and south. 

[mapman1071]

Central Ave is unusual in Phoenix given that it total breaks the 8 Streets/Avenues per mile up.  The western Avenues jump from 7th, 19th, 27th, 35th, 43rd, ect to the 8 per mile format while east with Streets it is 7th, 16th, 24th, 32nd, 40th, ect.  So not unusual in that the name point is logical for a start point but its weird how the grid has to bow out slightly for everything to fit in the expanded city.  Even stranger the Avenue continue well into the 300s westward but they start over eastward in Mesa.  The east/west roads seems to be Van Buren Street which makes sense given the previous status as four US Routes.  The mile distance between the major named east/west roads is generally a mile from the get go.

Mesa 0 Main Street & Center Street
Mesa Has there own Numbered Streets In 3 different Patterns:
West Of Gilbert Road to the Tempe City Line
E/W Avenues 1 to 11 South of Main St To Southern Avenue, E/W Streets 1 - 19 North of Main Street to McKellips Road

East of Gilbert Road N/S Streets Starting at 21 - 115 (No Avenues)

And A odd Section of E Numbered Streets 4th, 5th, 6th  E of Signal Butte Road between Main Street/Apache Trail and Broadway Road continuing Into Pinal County and Apache Junction.

There are also out of Pattern S. numbered Streets In county islands that Pop Up in Mesa E of Val Vista Road and also in North part of Mesa  N of Mckellips Road Between Loop 202 And Meridian Road.   

[Bruce]

Richmond, Va oddly enough has TWO zero points and I run into non-locals all the time who gets confused about this:

North of the James River it's at the intersection of Main and Foushee, which even though is downtown, it's actually more towards the western part of downtown.

South of the James River it's a lot more confusing... there is no N-S dividing line, only E-W. The zero point is Hull Street at the James River itself, and Hull (travelling, of all directions, westbound from here) creates the line of E-W until the junction will Midlothian Tpk, which takes over the dividing duties. The block numbers on these streets and the few that actually parallel them increases as one drives further away from the James. The most confusing part of all is the fact that both roads run East-West themselves, even though the cross streets are divided as East and West... in other words, if one was on Southside's 30th street, E. 30th would be actually south of Midlothian while W. 30th is north of Midlothian.

Adding to the madness is the fact that the city has two completely unrelated sets of numbered streets.. north of the James they are labeled N-S while south of the James they are labeled E-W.

Confused yet? 

Seattle has like 10 different zero points.

XT1254

Seattle has TEN zero points??? That's just all out excessive. Talk about confusion!

It's really not. As long as you're in downtown (south of Denny, north of Yesler, west of I-5 generally...), there are no directionals on streets...outside there are. Here's a Wikipedia article on the street layout and a diagram:

[plain]

Ahhh I see....I think lol

[MNHighwayMan]

The zero point for Des Moines would be where Vine St hypothetically crosses the Des Moines River. In reality, it's where the Iowa Interstate Railroad, which runs in the same space as Vine St (where the street still exists), crosses the Des Moines River.

[7/8]

The zero point for Kitchener, ON is King St W/E and Queen St S/N, while Waterloo's is King St S/N and Erb St W/E. Interestingly, the King Streets above are the same street!

[mapman1071]

Central Ave is unusual in Phoenix given that it total breaks the 8 Streets/Avenues per mile up.  The western Avenues jump from 7th, 19th, 27th, 35th, 43rd, ect to the 8 per mile format while east with Streets it is 7th, 16th, 24th, 32nd, 40th, ect.  So not unusual in that the name point is logical for a start point but its weird how the grid has to bow out slightly for everything to fit in the expanded city.  Even stranger the Avenue continue well into the 300s westward but they start over eastward in Mesa.  The east/west roads seems to be Van Buren Street which makes sense given the previous status as four US Routes.  The mile distance between the major named east/west roads is generally a mile from the get go.

Mesa 0 Main Street & Center Street
Mesa Has there own Numbered Streets In 3 different Patterns:
West Of Gilbert Road to the Tempe City Line
E/W Avenues 1 to 11 South of Main St To Southern Avenue, E/W Streets 1 - 19 North of Main Street to McKellips Road

East of Gilbert Road N/S Streets Starting at 21 - 115 (No Avenues)

And A odd Section of E Numbered Streets 4th, 5th, 6th  E of Signal Butte Road between Main Street/Apache Trail and Broadway Road continuing Into Pinal County and Apache Junction.

There are also out of Pattern S. numbered Streets In county islands that Pop Up in Mesa E of Val Vista Road and also in North part of Mesa  N of Mckellips Road Between Loop 202 And Meridian Road.   

Phoenix, AZ & Maricopa County,             N/S Central Avenue    E/W Washington Street
Exceptions to Above
Tempe,     N/S Mill Avenue                      E/W Salt River
Mesa,       N/S Center Street                  E/W Main St
Gilbert,     N/S Gilbert Road                    E/W Elliot Road
Chandler   N/S Arizona Avenue - AZ 87   E/W Commonwealth Avenue

[SD Mapman]

For Spearfish, the zero point is Main St. (which takes the place of 6th St.) and Colorado Blvd. (or below-left of center in this map)


While that looks centered, in actuality most of the old town is north of Colorado while the newer commercial area is all east of Main. If you divided that map into NW NE SW and SE blocks, the SW block would have a lot of pine trees and not much else.

[mhking]

Here in Atlanta, the core is supposed to be just southwest of the original Five Points intersection (Peachtree/Marietta/Decatur/Edgewood), over the rail tracks that ran at that point. (Everything here was based on the railroads...)

These days, it's accepted that it's Five Points, with Peachtree, Pryor, Decatur and MLK being the dividers once you get away from the mess of streets in the downtown core...