Streets and highways with similar names confusingly close to each other

[Mr_Northside]

Looking at that interchange, it is plain as day that I-83 to PA 581 is the intended through movement. 

I'd say that's only half-right.  I'd think it's right for I-83 South to PA-581 West, where the Capitol Beltway is that roadway's thru movement, and I-83 exits itself.  I'd say there is no "intended thru movement" heading north on I-83 (as shown in the pic a couple posts above), since that roadway ends.  You simply figure out which way you want to go on the "Capitol Beltway", and choose the appropriate lane.
That's not to say that every highway ending at another highway follows that paradigm, some are engineered to clearly have an intended thru movement.  (IMO, the fairly recent interchange reconstruction of where US-15 ends @ I-86 in Painted Post, NY seems to favor the movement to I-86 westbound.... possibly for an extension of I-99 to Rochester sometime in the future). 
Though I think a lot of trumpets (especially old ones, like the I-83/PA-581 in question) simply end that road, with no intended  thru movement.  Even if one set of ramps continues a route, or gets the lions' share of the traffic.

-More on topic-
There are a handful of streets in Pittsburgh that have pretty close names. In just the Golden Triangle (downtown) there are seperate Streets & Avenues that use the same number.  (EX: A 6th St. in VERY close proximity, but not connecting to 6th Ave.).  Since downtown isn't a real grid, I'd have to imagine this trips a lot of people up.

Some of the consolidation / annexation has resulted in similar streets in the city as well; I'd imagine the biggest example is having Liberty Ave (A very prominent street from downtown to Bloomfield), and a West Liberty Ave, from the southern portals of the Liberty Tunnels, to (and through) the borough of Dormont (which carries Truck US-19).
There's a Main St. in Bloomfield & Lawrenceville neighborhoods, and a South Main St. near the West End Bridge.
There's a handful of smaller streets that are very close in names and potentially confusing as well throughout the city...

I'm not sure how much the average motorist (or even visiting driver) gets screwed up by these, but I know they want to do something about it for 911 purposes.  There have been some instances where emergency vehicles were sent to the wrong street.

*These are all just within the city limits of Pittsburgh.  The other 120+ municipalities in Allegheny County reuse many names found in the city.

[Pete from Boston]

Oh, Boston is notorious for duplicated street names.  It is part of the madness that passes for local color here.  There are several Washington Streets -- one in Brighton, one from Downtown to the Rhode Island line, one in Dorchester, one in Charlestown... and an unconnected North Washington St in the North End. 

There is Harvard St., which becomes Harvard Ave., which ends and picks up again some ways away as North Harvard St. 

There are several Broadways, and more of all of these once you start including adjoining municipalities.  I'm sure it's all been covered before.

[NE2]

and an unconnected North Washington St in the North End. 

Which used to connect. It's presumably North Washington because they didn't want to redo the addresses on just plain Washington when they renamed Charlestown Street.

[Pete from Boston]

I once got rear-ended on a ramp from the Washington Bridge to I-95 in Manhattan.  Guess how many explanations of this did not result in someone thinking I was coming off the George Washington Bridge half a mile away (answer: zero).

[sdmichael]

SR-125 has consecutive exits for Jamacha Road and Jamacha Blvd in Spring Valley, near San Diego.

[lordsutch]

Memphis is pretty bad in this regard.  Notable examples:

Perkins Road and Perkins Extended (which parallel each other)
Kirby Road and Kirby Parkway (sometimes the same physical roadway, sometimes not); plus Kirby-Whitten Parkway, the logical extension of Kirby Parkway but with a two-mile gap through Shelby Farms.
Bartlett Road (which doesn't go to Bartlett) and Bartlett Boulevard (which is what Bartlett calls Sycamore View Road)
Old Brownsville Road and New Brownsville Road, neither of which seem to go to Brownsville
Brunswick Road and New Brunswick Road
Poplar Avenue and Poplar Pike
Union Avenue and Union Extended
Old Allen Road and New Allen Road
Covington Pike and New Covington Pike

They did fix one, about a decade ago: Germantown Road and Germantown Extended (now Riverdale Road).

Honorable mention: a rerouted section of Raleigh-Millington Road is Ramill Road. Someone in planning must have thought they were being really clever that day. Or, more likely, the computer wouldn't accept "New Raleigh-Millington Road" because it was too long and/or silly.

[elsmere241]

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=North+Antlers+Place,+Bear,+DE&hl=en&ll=39.606215,-75.721767&spn=0.002052,0.004128&sll=39.145251,-75.386656&sspn=4.229828,8.453979&oq=antlers+place&hnear=N+Antlers+Pl,+Bear,+New+Castle,+Delaware+19701&t=m&z=19

[kphoger]

I'm sure we've had this conversation before, because I remember telling this story on here before....

I work in the dispatch office at a cable contractor company.  One day, we got a call from Cox (our "parent"), wondering why an install tech hadn't shown up for a customer's installation yet, something like two hours after their scheduled timeframe.  I looked at our WO tracking program, and it showed that he had already completed the installation.  So, yeah, I called the guy up to find out what was going on (he wasn't the most honest guy in the company).

For some reason, Wichita decided it would be a good idea to have Minnesota Street one block over from Minneapolis Street!  Did that not throw up a red flag in anyone's mind at the time?  (see http://goo.gl/maps/jYLLG)

So our tech had arrived at the right house number on the wrong street.  The resident there then let him in her house and install Cox cable service.  Later, once we figured out what had happened, he had to go back out there, disconnect her service (while she was pissed off, yelling at him for unhooking it again), go over to the actual customer's house and hook her service up.

Won't make that mistake again!

I've also come across a Spanish-speaking customer who had called Cox to set up service.  He lived on Matthewson Street, but his order was set up for Madison Street.  Since he didn't speak English, I'm assuming he had talked to a Spanish-speaking customer service rep, who assumed he had said Madison with a Spanish accent (the letter d is pronounced similar to the English th).  Matthewson>Mathison>Madison.  Fortunately, those two streets are not as near each other.  It did make getting directions rather interesting, before I figured out what the problem was.

[elsmere241]

Honorable mention: a rerouted section of Raleigh-Millington Road is Ramill Road. Someone in planning must have thought they were being really clever that day. Or, more likely, the computer wouldn't accept "New Raleigh-Millington Road" because it was too long and/or silly.

Our county police's CAD system is limited to eighteen characters for the core street name.  So we have several streets in our various systems with truncated names.  ("Elizabeth Sweetbriar Lane" is "ELIZABETH SWEETBRI LA".)

[jwolfer]

All of the 'Peachtrees' in the Atlanta area?



Mike

Jacksonville has the "Baymeadows" 
The main one is Baymeadows Rd ( SR 152) which has exits from I-95 and I-295.

Baymeadows Road East, Baymeadows Way, Baymeadows Circle East, Baymeadows Circle West, Baymeadows Way West,  and I think there are more... not to mention Bayberry dr, Baypine rd all in the same area.

[kphoger]

Honorable mention: a rerouted section of Raleigh-Millington Road is Ramill Road. Someone in planning must have thought they were being really clever that day. Or, more likely, the computer wouldn't accept "New Raleigh-Millington Road" because it was too long and/or silly.

Our county police's CAD system is limited to eighteen characters for the core street name.  So we have several streets in our various systems with truncated names.  ("Elizabeth Sweetbriar Lane" is "ELIZABETH SWEETBRI LA".)

The primary program I use at work truncates first names to ten letters.  When I first started, I wondered why so many people were named Christophe.

[1995hoo]

kphoger, your cable account does sound familiar as to right number/wrong street. But I can't recall the thread either.



As to name truncation, any of you guys read Gordon Korman's Bruno & Boots books when you were growing up? Great stuff. In The War with Mr. Wizzle, Wizzle demands that Wilbur Hackenschleimer change his name to Wilbur Hacken because his name is too long for the computer.

[hm insulators]

Verdugo Road and Verdugo Boulevard intersect in a small Los Angeles suburb called Montrose.

[txstateends]

All of the 'Peachtrees' in the Atlanta area?



Mike

Was going to mention that, as well as the Ventura this, Ventura that, Ventura the other in the L.A. area.

Currently one of the few ubiquitous multiples locally is the many 'Preston' (or 'Preston'-influenced) roads or streets in north Dallas, Plano, and into Frisco.  Even though there are many, there seems to be little to no real confusion as to which is which.  The original Preston Road (the paved, modern version is signed TX 289 (which NONE of the locals call the road) from north Loop 12 up to the Lake Texoma area west of Sherman-Denison) actually pre-dates Dallas, as it has been an Indian path, cattle-driving trail, and important early road for settlers.

[kphoger]

While not exceedingly close to each other, Glen Ellyn and Lombard (Illinois) each have a north-south Main Street.  I remember there being the same brand of pizza place on both of them; people would frequently call in a pizza order at the one on, say, Main Street Glen Ellyn, then drive over to the one on Main Street Lombard and wonder why their order wasn't there.

[Pete from Boston]

Verdugo Road and Verdugo Boulevard intersect in a small Los Angeles suburb called Montrose.

Wow, what an awful name.  Verdugo = executioner!

[getemngo]

Hastings, Michigan has a State Road and a State Street. They are parallel, 5 blocks apart, and west of Broadway, State Rd is old M-37 and State St is current M-37. Even worse, State Rd is the baseline for north-south Barry County addresses, but State St is the baseline for north-south City of Hastings addresses.

M-222 used to be numbered M-118. It's on 116th Ave, one mile from 118th Ave. MDOT wised up to this one, but usually they don't. There's US 24/M-24 confusion, and M-96 (not to be confused with I-96) right by I-94.

[Molandfreak]

Verdugo Road and Verdugo Boulevard intersect in a small Los Angeles suburb called Montrose.

Wow, what an awful name.  Verdugo = executioner!

[kphoger]

Hastings, Michigan has a State Road and a State Street. They are parallel, 5 blocks apart, and west of Broadway, State Rd is old M-37 and State St is current M-37. Even worse, State Rd is the baseline for north-south Barry County addresses, but State St is the baseline for north-south City of Hastings addresses.

Property values on those roads should be lower, due to the potential for emotional trauma.

[cpzilliacus]

All of the 'Peachtrees' in the Atlanta area?



Mike

Or the Capitol Streets in Washington, DC?

At least the Capitol Streets are always referred to with a prefix - there's North Capitol Street, East Capitol Street and South Capitol Street. 

No West Capitol Street - had there been one, it would run down the middle of the National Mall.

But D.C. also duplicates street names in some instances, even though they are far from each other and have nothing to do with each other.

Three cases in point:

There's a Porter Street, N.W., which is a relatively major street, since it provides access to Rock Creek Park, and to another street (Klingle Road) that crosses the park.  But inexplicably, there's a dead-end Porter Street, N.E., which has nothing to do with the other Porter Street (as an aside, it happens to dead-end right at the SiriusXM complex).

These two have been identified more than once with incorrectly dispatched police/fire/EMS calls for service by D.C.'s 911 center (they are about as far apart as it is possible to be and still stay in D.C.):

Chesapeake Street, N.W. and Chesapeake Street, S.E./S.W.

Brandywine Street, N.W. and Brandywine Street, S.E./S.W.

[1995hoo]

Actually, I've seen references to "Capitol Street" without the "prefix" quite a few times, even in the Washington Post (an article referred to Nationals Park being located on "Capitol Street"). Some people must assume it's like a standard prefix that people usually omit (streets across the river in Alexandria are a good example or a place where people omit the prefix) when in fact the "prefix" is more an essential part of the name.

[andrewkbrown]

Yes, Washington DC has many, several have been mentioned.

Just last week, my engine company was sent to Morris Road SE, when the incident was on Morse Street NE. Dispatch often mistakes locations if someone reports an incident at one of these similar sounding streets, without specifying (or themselves confusing) "Street", Road", etc. Same goes for Warder Street MW and Water Street NW/SW.

Many streets in DC have the same name, and are known as "Street", "Place", "Drive", or "Terrace". And they can be found in different sections of the city. Madison Drive NW runs along the northern part of the National Mall. Madison Place NW is approx. 5 miles north in the Brightwood neighborhood, and Madison Street NW is one block further north.

My company has been sent to 119 D Street NW (a homeless shelter) for a call once when the incident was actually at 119 D Street NE (U.S. Capitol Police Headquarters).

[roadman65]

I pointed this out years ago on another thread, but you have two different Springfield Avenues in the Township of Springfield, NJ.  In fact both Springfield Avenues have Meisel Avenue connecting between the two segments that should really all be named Springfield Avenue for one continuous street.

Then nearby in Summit, NJ you have a Morris Avenue that is partly CR 527 and in Springfield, NJ you again have Morris Avenue also on part of CR 527, but for some reason the City of Summit decides to call the remaining part of CR 527 near the Springfield Border  as Springfield Avenue as another Springfield Avenue (not related to the one in Springfield as previous) intersects CR 527 less than a mile from the Summit/ Springfield Line.  This discontinuous part is technically the continuation of it, even though Morris Avenue would be more logical as no turns are made going along CR 527 (at least NB anyway) between the two Morris Avenues.  In other words you must make a left turn heading east on Summit's Springfield Avenue to continue only to have it end in a very short distance to return to the name it took over at  the turning point.

[cpzilliacus]

Actually, I've seen references to "Capitol Street" without the "prefix" quite a few times, even in the Washington Post (an article referred to Nationals Park being located on "Capitol Street"). Some people must assume it's like a standard prefix that people usually omit (streets across the river in Alexandria are a good example or a place where people omit the prefix) when in fact the "prefix" is more an essential part of the name.

I know that when I was working on some new geographic information system software about 15 years ago (when the technology was very new), it could not handle an address on South Capitol Street, S.E. (for example), because it thought that was two prefixes (even thought S.E. is written after).

And there are folks from out-of-town that do not know (or have not learned).

[cpzilliacus]

Yes, Washington DC has many, several have been mentioned.

Just last week, my engine company was sent to Morris Road SE, when the incident was on Morse Street NE. Dispatch often mistakes locations if someone reports an incident at one of these similar sounding streets, without specifying (or themselves confusing) "Street", Road", etc. Same goes for Warder Street MW and Water Street NW/SW.

That's a good example with potentially catastrophic consequences. 

Had not thought about Warder Street (which is one of those D.C. streets that does not follow the "normal" pattern of the D.C. street grid). 

Water Street is also a potential problem, as it extends in discontinuous segments from Southeast (east of the I-695 11th  Street bridge), in at least two pieces along the Southwest waterfront (here and here) and then that part along the Georgetown waterfront under U.S. 29 (Whitehurst Freeway).

And there's Potomac Street, N.W. which is far from Potomac Avenue, S.E.

Many streets in DC have the same name, and are known as "Street", "Place", "Drive", or "Terrace". And they can be found in different sections of the city. Madison Drive NW runs along the northern part of the National Mall. Madison Place NW is approx. 5 miles north in the Brightwood neighborhood, and Madison Street NW is one block further north.

My company has been sent to 119 D Street NW (a homeless shelter) for a call once when the incident was actually at 119 D Street NE (U.S. Capitol Police Headquarters).

A college buddy of mine was a cadet and dispatcher (yes, some cadets were asked to dispatch calls) for the Metropolitan Police Department (MPDC, D.C.'s municipal police force) back in the 1970's.  At the time, MPDC dispatcher training included a lot of indoctrination about the many duplications, exemptions and variations around the D.C. street network.  And it was generally not as much of a problem for city police dispatchers (as it was and is for fire/EMS dispatchers), since the police districts do not cover the entire city (and only the First District, or "1D," covers all four quadrants of the city).