Streets named for a town they point in the direction of

[thspfc]

For example, Milwaukee Street in Madison: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.1002123,-89.2842053,2065m/data=!3m1!1e3

It points in the direction of Milwaukee as it goes eastward out of the city.

How common is this naming scheme?

[Rothman]

For example, Milwaukee Street in Madison: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.1002123,-89.2842053,2065m/data=!3m1!1e3

It points in the direction of Milwaukee as it goes eastward out of the city.

How common is this naming scheme?

All over New England.

[SEWIGuy]

Extremely common.

[SkyPesos]

Very common. A lot of numbered routes in the Cincinnati area have names like that (Montgomery Rd for US 22/3, Reading Rd, Lebanon Rd for US 42, Hamilton Ave for US 127), list goes on. Sometimes, there are two city names in the road name, to show that it connects the two cities. An example is Cincinnati-Dayton Rd (former US 25).

[jeffandnicole]

Many roads in NJ are Town Road or Town-Town Road, such as Bridgeton Pike or Woodbury-Glassboro Road.

[Dirt Roads]

Pretty common in this part of North Carolina:

Raleigh (clockwise): 
Wake Forest Road
New Bern Avenue
Garner Road
Wilmington Street
Fayetteville Street (doesn't go out of the city anymore)
Chapel Hill Road
Hillsborough Street
Creedmoor Road

Durham (clockwise):
Roxboro Street/Roxboro Road
New Raleigh Highway
* didn't include Miami Boulevard
Fayetteville Street/Fayetteville Road
Old Chapel Hill Road
Chapel Hill Street/Chapel Hill Road
Hillsborough Road

[NWI_Irish96]

Elkhart, Indiana, has a ton of these.
Mishawaka Rd
Bristol St
Cassopolis St
Edwardsburg Rd
Goshen Ave
Nappanee St
Even a Toledo Rd

Mishawaka has a Bremen Hwy

Lake County has Indianapolis Blvd

Indianapolis has:
Allisonville Rd
Pendleton Pike
Brookville Rd
Rockville Rd
Crawfordsville Rd
Lafayette Rd
Westfield Rd

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Madison has others, like Verona Rd, Stoughton Rd, etc.

In the Twin Cities:
Hudson Road
Wayzata Blvd
Stillwater Blvd
Minnetonka Blvd
Rockford Rd
White Bear Ave
Excelsior Blvd
Plymouth Rd

Some other extraneous ones I can think of around Minnesota
Shieldsville Blvd (MN 21 northwest of Faribault)
Morristown Blvd (MN 60 west of Faribault)
Lonsdale Blvd (MN 19 west of I-35)
Cloquet Road (not Cloquet Ave within that city itself)

[Dirt Roads]

Not quite as common in the Triad of North Carolina.

Greensboro (clockwise):
Burlington Road
Pleasant Garden Road
Randleman Road

Winston-Salem (clockwise):
New Walkertown Road
Reidsville Road
Old Greensboro Road
Waughtown Street/Kernersville Road
Thomasville Road
Clemmonsville Road

High Point
Jamestown Parkway
* uhh, Trinity Avenue doesn't go to Trinity but is pretty dad-gummed close to there
Lexington Avenue

[Scott5114]

As mentioned above, this is a very common naming scheme in some parts of the country, yet it's next to nonexistent in Oklahoma. Here, you're more likely to see streets named after the town that they are in than a town nearby.

[LilianaUwU]

As mentioned above, this is a very common naming scheme in some parts of the country, yet it's next to nonexistent in Oklahoma. Here, you're more likely to see streets named after the town that they are in than a town nearby.

Québec is a strange hybrid, where such road names lead to and are the main street in a town (though the road in the town itself is often named Rue Principale, Main Street).

[KeithE4Phx]

For example, Milwaukee Street in Madison: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.1002123,-89.2842053,2065m/data=!3m1!1e3

It points in the direction of Milwaukee as it goes eastward out of the city.

How common is this naming scheme?

Extremely common in many, if not most areas of the country.

For example, in my home town of Bloomington IN, they have:
Bloomfield Rd., which is IN 45 west of I-69 and becomes 2nd St. in town.
Whitehall Pike, which is IN 48 west of I-69 and becomes 3rd St. in town.
Unionville Rd., which is IN 45 northeast of "the bypass" (IN 46; it has never had an official name) and spins off from 10th St.
Smithville Rd., which is an E-W county road between old IN 37 and the town of Smithville, south of Bloomington.
Nashville Rd., which is the former name of IN 46/3rd St. east of the IU campus and outside city limits.  IIRC, it hasn't been signed as such since the 1970s.

In metro Phoenix, we have:
Glendale Ave., which is a major E-W thoroghfare that goes right through downtown Glendale.
Peoria Ave., another E-W thoroughfare that goes through downtown Peoria.
Scottsdale Rd., a major N-S thoroughfare that goes through downtown Scottsdale.
Carefree Hwy., an E-W thoroughfare that goes from I-17 to downtown Carefree.
Morristown-New River Hwy, the same road as Carefree Hwy, but runs west of I-17 to US 60 at Morristown.  It is AZ 74.
Gilbert Rd., a major N-S thoroughfare that runs from the Salt River Indian Community, through east Mesa and downtown Gilbert, to the Gila River Community.

[US 89]

These are everywhere in Georgia. And when you get to whatever town they're named for, the name will usually change to the town you started in. In Atlanta proper we have Marietta St, Decatur St, Roswell Rd, Jonesboro Rd, Campbellton Rd, Buford Highway, and probably a couple more I'm forgetting.

If you get out of the city limits and explore the greater metro area, you'll find several Atlanta St/Rd/Hwys, another Roswell Rd, some more Marietta Rds, a couple Fairburn Rds, a few Fayetteville Rds, some Dallas Hwys, I think another Jonesboro Rd... and the list goes on. As you might imagine, this gets confusing pretty quickly if you aren't sure exactly what part of the metro is being referred to. The two Roswell Rds in particular get me all the time as they are both major highways pretty close to Atlanta - one carries US 19/GA 9, the other is GA 120.

The cool thing about this scheme is it's often a good way to identify old alignments of major routes that have now been moved to bypasses. Most of Marietta St/Blvd/Atlanta Rd/St between Atlanta and Marietta is the original US 41, which now connects those cities on the newer Northside Drive and Cobb Parkway. I'd have to look it up to be sure but I believe Decatur Street was the original US 78, which is now up on Ponce.


This scheme is also a thing in some parts of Utah, though you have to look a bit harder there as most highways will take on a grid-system number or "Main St" in towns and simply go by route number outside of them.

[-- US 175 --]

TX, I'm sure has many examples.  A few I'm familiar with:

Amarillo --
* Fritch Hwy. (TX 136)
* Tascosa Rd. (RM 1061)

Athens --
* Corsicana St. (Bus US 175/Bus TX 31 (previous in-town routing of US 175 and TX 31))
* Palestine St. (Bus TX 19 (previous in-town routing of TX 19))
* Tyler St. (Bus TX 31 (previous in-town routing of TX 31))

Dallas --
* Denton Dr. (previous routing of US 77)
* Forney Rd.
* Fort Worth Ave. (historic Bus US 80; historic TX 1)
* Garland Rd. (TX 78 (historic routing of US 67))
* Greenville Ave. (part of previous routing of US 67)++
* Irving Blvd.
* Lancaster Rd. (part of previous routing of US 77)
* Plano Rd.
* Preston Rd. (TX 289; naming actually pre-dates the formation of the city of Dallas)
* Seagoville Rd. (previous routing of US 175)

Denton --
* Dallas Dr. (part of off-freeway US 77)
* Fort Worth Dr. (part of US 377)

Fort Worth --
* Mansfield Hwy. (Bus US 287 (previous pre-freeway routing of US 287))

Frisco --
* Preston Rd. (see the Dallas listing)

Grapevine --
* Dallas Dr. (previous routing of TX 114)

Jacksonville --
* Frankston St. (current naming for US 175, other than its last 3 blocks (might change when widening work is completed in the next few years (?)))

Plano --
* Parker Rd.
* Preston Rd. (see the Dallas listing)

Richardson --
* Plano Rd. (was portion of now-historic US 75/historic TX 5; name continuation of the one named above from Dallas)

Seagoville --
* Kaufman St. (previous routing of US 175)

Tyler --
* Troup Hwy. (TX 110)

++ -- The instances of "Greenville Ave." in Richardson and Allen are name continuations of the Dallas one, but only the Dallas one really was a 'pointer', of sorts, to Greenville when it was part of US 67.

[GaryV]

There's one in St Joseph Co, MI - Centreville-Constantine Road.  It has to be abbreviated to fit on street signs.

[LM117]

In Danville VA, US-58 just east of the city is South Boston Road. West of the city, it's Martinsville Highway.

In NC, Pikeville-Princeton road runs between Pikeville and Princeton. Another NC example is Old Mount Olive Highway between Goldsboro and Mount Olive.

[1995hoo]

Not only is this very common, but in some places the road's name will change when you cross county lines to refer to the town you just left. For example, Dirt Roads mentions the Durham area in North Carolina. Roxboro Road (US-501) is so named because Roxboro is the next town to the north. It's in the next county over. When you cross the county line, suddenly you're on Durham Road.

[hbelkins]

Very common around here, and sometimes the streets will skip a few towns or even not provide a direct route. Louisville has both Frankfort and Lexington designated on parts of US 60 heading east out of town, and Shelbyville doesn't get mentioned until the road is well out of downtown. And there's a Louisville Road in Lawrenceburg. It's KY 151, which connects to I-64 and US 60 in Franklin County, which are the routes one would take to get to Louisville.

[1995hoo]

A few in Northern Virginia (not intended to be exhaustive; these just came to mind off the top of my head):

Richmond Highway (US-1), which passes through Fredericksburg well before it reaches Richmond
Leesburg Pike (a good portion of VA-7), signed on some older street signs as Leesburg Turnpike
Centreville Road (secondary route 657), which no longer reaches Centreville
Dumfries Road (part of VA-234), which runs from near Manassas to near Dumfries

Honorable mentions:
Chain Bridge Road (portions run on VA-123) ends at Chain Bridge, which crosses the Potomac to DC.
I don't believe Arlington Boulevard (parts of US-50 in Fairfax City, Fairfax County, and Arlington County) is named because it runs to Arlington County but rather because it bisects Arlington County's street system into North and South. While it's still a major arterial, prior to the completion of I-66 in 1982 it was an even more important route from Fairfax County to Arlington than it is now.

[I-35]

TX, I'm sure has many examples.  A few I'm familiar with:

* Greenville Ave. (part of previous routing of US 67)++

Got a cite for that?  Old maps only indicate the direction of Greenville Avenue towards McKinney or Sherman.  This has always bothered me, just like Burnet Rd. in Austin will get you nowhere even in the general direction of the town of Burnet.

[roadman65]

Gettysburg, PA has a bunch.

Emmittsburg Road for US 15B South
Harrisburg Road for US 15B North.
York Road for US 30 East.
Chambersburg Road for US 30 West.
Hanover Street for PA 116 East
Hagerstown Road for PA 116 West.
Baltimore Pike for PA 97 South ( Old US 140 to Baltimore).
Carlisle Road for PA 34 North
Taneytown Road for PA 134 South.



Newark, NJ has Elizabeth Avenue going to Elizabeth via Hillside.
Springfield Avenue to Springfield via Irvington and Maplewood.
Bloomfield Avenue to Bloomfield.



Elizabeth, NJ has Westfield Avenue to Westfield via Route 28 that goes there.
Rahway Avenue for Route 27 that goes there.
Newark Avenue for Route 27 as well.
Not related but Morris Avenue does head toward Morristown as a coincidence as I believe it was named for a former NJ Governor.

[jp the roadgeek]

Very very common in the Northeast.  There must be about a half a dozen different Farmington Avenues in the Hartford area.  Many of the roads switch to the other town's/villages name at the town line.  For example, CT 364 switches from Kensington Rd to Southington Rd at the Southington/Berlin town line (Kensington is a section of town).  CT 120 is Meriden Ave because it heads toward Meriden.  CT 177 changes from Unionville Ave to Plainville Ave as you cross from Plainville into Farmington (Unionville being a section of town).

[-- US 175 --]

TX, I'm sure has many examples.  A few I'm familiar with:

* Greenville Ave. (part of previous routing of US 67)++

Got a cite for that?  Old maps only indicate the direction of Greenville Avenue towards McKinney or Sherman.  This has always bothered me, just like Burnet Rd. in Austin will get you nowhere even in the general direction of the town of Burnet.

I'd have to scour the webosphere, but there have been at least 1 or 2 old maps I've seen online where US 67, in 1 of its earliest (1926 and after) iterations, shared Greenville Ave. with US 75 up to Park Ln., then split east to Fair Oaks Ln., then followed that NE.  That is 1 of 4 paths I've seen on maps for US 67 between Dallas and Greenville.  Even if I do find it (or some other helpful soul finds it first), I am not sure why none of the earlier US 67 routings (like Fair Oaks, Gaston, or Garland Rd.) were named "Greenville Ave." instead of the one that exists now.

[JayhawkCO]

Not super common out here but the City - City Road examples do exist. Kiowa-Bennett Road jumps to mind.

Chris

[CoreySamson]

I wonder if the OP had a slightly different idea in mind for this thread. His example merely points towards Milwaukee, and it doesn't come anywhere close to reaching it. Most (if not all) of the other examples don't really fit that description. Perhaps this thread would be more interesting if we only regarded examples that don't reach the place they are named after.

An example of this would be Beaumont Highway on the east side of Houston. It points towards Beaumont, but doesn't reach it.