Street names that change names that should not or those that we roadgeeks refer

[roadman65]

I do not know if this one is brought up or not, but I will mention it.  Does anyone know of any road names that change that you feel should not?

Springfield, NJ- Two Springfield Avenues that are connected by Meisel Avenue.  Why not have one continuous Springfield Avenue instead?
Altamonte Springs, FL- For FL 436 this city uses Altomonte Drive for a name while the communities around it on both sides: Casselberry and Unicorporated    
    Orange County use Semoran Boulevard. Not to mention that the name of this street is the same as the city! Most locals call it Semoran anyway!
Osceola County, FL- US 192 changes back and forth from Bronson Highway with Vine and 13th Streets in between. Kissimmee and St. Cloud should keep it all   
    Bronson for tourists sake! 

These are places to name a few.

[agentsteel53]

I think no obvious continuation of a street should change its name under any circumstance.

similarly, discontinuous streets should not have the same name.  see: Laval Road in California, off I-5 just north of the Grapevine.  three branches!

[DTComposer]

What used to be CA-9, then CA-85 in Saratoga/Cupertino/Sunnyvale:

Was Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road the whole length, then was changed to De Anza Boulevard, but only in Cupertino. Now the northern portion is Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road (cities reversed).

Similarly, the portion of CA-9 between Saratoga and Los Gatos was...Saratoga-Los Gatos Road, except in Los Gatos, where it changed to...Saratoga Avenue (different, of course, from the Saratoga Avenue in Saratoga). Then a few years ago Los Gatos decided to re-name their portion to...Los Gatos-Saratoga Road (as opposed to Saratoga-Los Gatos Road).
Confusing?

I think no obvious continuation of a street should change its name under any circumstance.

similarly, discontinuous streets should not have the same name.  see: Laval Road in California, off I-5 just north of the Grapevine.  three branches!

Most of the non-aterial streets in the San Fernando Valley keep their names across the valley, even though they are not contiguous in the least.

For example, Gault Street (just south of Sherman Way) has at least 27 distinct, non-contiguous segments, including at least 5 cul-de-sacs.

[Duke87]

I think no obvious continuation of a street should change its name under any circumstance.

Very often this happens because a street is extended or realigned, resulting in two streets being continuous with each other that originally were not. And, neither side wants their street renamed, and nobody wants to go through the hassle and confusion of having to redo all the addresses.

Local example: Grove Street here in Stamford becomes Elm Street where it crosses Tresser Boulevard. But, if you wind the clock back 50 years, the configuration here was completely different.

similarly, discontinuous streets should not have the same name.

Which, again, often happens because part of the street is removed. US 1, up to 1970-something, used to follow Main Street through downtown Stamford. Following Main Street through downtown Stamford is no longer possible (by car, anyway), as there are no less than three gaps in it: one created in the 70's by the realignment at the intersection shown above feeding US 1 into the new Tresser Boulevard, a second created in the 80's with the construction of Stamford Town Center (a.k.a. "the mall") and Landmark Square, and a third created only about five years ago with the closing of the Main Street bridge over the Mill River.

And again: who wants to go through the hassle of renaming and redoing addresses?

[Bryant5493]

U.S. 29 in south Fulton County, Georgia does this: it's Roosevelt Highway on the southside of College Park, Red Oak and through Union City, but when it enters the Fairburn city limits, it becomes West Broad Street. When it leaves downtown Fairburn, 29 becomes Roosevelt Highway again, until reaching Palmetto.


Be well,

Bryant

[english si]

I think no obvious continuation of a street should change its name under any circumstance.

This area should really wind you up then.
You have: Shaftesbury Avenue/Upper Shaftesbury Avenue, Ripstone Gardens/Kitchener Road, Granby Grove/Sirdar Road, Welbeck Avenue/Bowden Lane. Best of all, with no houses on it, Upper Grosvenor Road is the continuation of Grosvenor Road north of Welbeck Road - the school wouldn't get a number, so there was no reason why it couldn't have been Grosvenor Road.

I think it was done so that they didn't have to renumber the houses, or have negative numbers, or a bizzare order (given that all house numbering in GB is sequential, rather than distance based, you would always build a road and start house numbers from 1, or maybe 2). However, Ripstone-Kitchener and Granby-Sirdar have houses of the same style, which suggests being planned at the same time, which puts that reasoning into doubt for those roads.

[Bickendan]

I've never understood that about England, with continuous streets changing names willy-nilly. I can understand the sequential address system to a degree, as your street layout doesn't work with distance based addresses as well, not having a grid system to adhere to.

Another example: Bear Road -> Hounslow Road -> Hanworth Road -> London Road -> [no reported name through Isleworth] ->Brentford High St -> Kew Bridge Road -> Chiswick High Road -> King St -> Hammersmith Road -> Kensington High St -> Kensington Road -> Kensington Core -> Knighstbridge -> Piccadilly -> Shaftesbury Ave

Granted, this particular road goes through a number of London districts, and tends to change name by the district rather by the next intersection, but 16 names for a single road in one city is a lot.

[Michael]

A few from CNY:

Chestnut Ridge Rd/Pine Ridge Rd changes at Franklin St Rd near Auburn.

Speaking of Chestnut Ridge Rd, there's another one about 20 miles to the south near Moravia.

The first block of NY 38A south along the US 20 duplex is John St, then it changes to Owasco St.

Two in Syracuse:

In 1998, my mom bought a car from someone who lived on Briggs Street.  We couldn't find the address, but then we realized that the street was split.  We were on the eastern half when we should have been on the western half.

In the late 1990s, it confused my mother when Clinton Square was expanded and split Erie Blvd. in downtown.

[Urban Prairie Schooner]

Third Street (LA 48) in Kenner, Louisiana - renamed "Reverend Richard Wilson Drive."  Say who?

And yet the LaDOTD installed traffic signal mast mounted signs which call this road "Jefferson Highway" (LA 48 becomes Jefferson Highway east of the Kenner city line).

If anything must be renamed, name the road Jefferson Highway to match its better known remainder outside Kenner, and to honor the historical Jefferson Highway which passed through those parts.

[myosh_tino]

What used to be CA-9, then CA-85 in Saratoga/Cupertino/Sunnyvale:

Was Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road the whole length, then was changed to De Anza Boulevard, but only in Cupertino. Now the northern portion is Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road (cities reversed).

Actually, San Jose renamed their portion of that road (from Bollinger Rd to Prospect Rd) to De Anza Blvd back in the mid 90's.  So, it's Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road north of Homestead Road, De Anza Boulevard from Homestead Road to Prospect Road and Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road south of Prospect Road.

[Eth]

I like how many of the state-named avenues in DC keep their names upon crossing the border into Maryland - Pennsylvania Ave, Georgia Ave, Connecticut Ave, Wisconsin Ave, etc.

That said, some of those roads keep the name longer than others.  MD 355, for instance, only remains Wisconsin Ave through Bethesda.  As it progresses further north through Montgomery County, it turns into Rockville Pike, Hungerford Dr (in Rockville), Frederick Rd, S./N. Frederick Ave (in Gaithersburg), and then back to Frederick Rd before crossing into Frederick County and becoming Urbana Pike, all without ever turning.  I see no reason why the entire stretch in Montgomery County can't just remain Wisconsin Ave (or, alternatively, Frederick Rd).

[ftballfan]

I counted thirty different incarnations of Gault St in Los Angeles.

Also, Jefferson Ave is Biddle Ave in Wyandotte only. In the Grosse Pointes, Jefferson Ave is known as Lake Shore Dr.

[AZDude]

In the Phoenix area,

The east-west arterials generally keep the same name when crossing from one side of the valley to the other.  The north-south arterials however, do change names as they cross from end to end.  The exception is (generally) the numbered arterials. 

An example for north-south routes,
In Scottsdale there is an arterial called 64th Street.  Now starting from the north end you drive southbound.  When you cross from Scottsdale into Phoenix, the name changes to Gavlin Parkway.  Continuing south you cross into Tempe and the name changes to Priest Drive.  Then you cross into Guadalupe and the name changes to Avenida Del Yaqui.  The road crosses back into Tempe and resumes as Priest Drive.  Crossing into Chandler, the name changes to 56th Street.  And for a time before the Wild Horse Pass Casino was built, the road used to continue outside the city where it changed it's name for a final time to Maricopa Road. 

Simple others include, Hayden Road becomes McClintock Drive, Scottsdale Road becomes Rural Road.

[english si]

Another example: Bear Road -> Hounslow Road -> Hanworth Road -> London Road -> [no reported name through Isleworth] ->Brentford High St -> Kew Bridge Road -> Chiswick High Road -> King St -> Hammersmith Road -> Kensington High St -> Kensington Road -> Kensington Core -> Knighstbridge -> Piccadilly -> Shaftesbury Ave

Granted, this particular road goes through a number of London districts, and tends to change name by the district rather by the next intersection, but 16 names for a single road in one city is a lot.

That one is rather different to the example I gave - it's a very old road that passed through several different villages (and crosses through several boroughs, so it's not like going through one city). No one really named the road (at least on most of it's length), names sort of happened, especially those that are place related.

There's no duplicate names in the London Postcode area (postcodes starting with E, N, NW, W, SW, SE, WC, EC) as when they did it, despite having postcodes to separate them unlike the rest of the country, they renamed a lot of roads. London Road, High Road, High Street and Queens Road were the main changes, with roads other than London Road having the place name put in "High Street Kensington", "Queens Road Peckham", "Walthamstow Queens Road", "Leytonstone High Road" being stations with the street name (or variation of, in the case of Kensington High Street). Other than that, there's not much effort to synchronise street names.

[vdeane]

A few in Rochester:
-Atlantic Ave/Browncroft Blvd/Atlantic Ave (NY 286)
-Pinnacle Rd/Winton Rd (Pinnacle even has a second branch the splits off at the name change)
-Castleman Rd/Westmoreland Dr/Westfall Rd/Allens Creek Rd
-West Henrietta Rd/Mt Hope Ave
-Goodman St/Kings Highway
-Exchange St/Exchange Blvd/State St/Lake Ave
-Joseph Ave/Seneca Ave
-Clifford Ave/Empire Blvd/Ridge Rd (NY 404)
-Blossom Ave/Creek St/Bay Rd
-Durand Blvd/Sweet Fern Rd/Pine Valley Rd (this one even has a second branch)/Lake Shore Blvd
-Lake Ontario State Pkwy/Pattonwood Dr (O'Rorke Bridge)
-Formerly, Latta Rd and Stutson St and Pattonwood Dr
-Culver Rd/Lake Rd (only in Winter) (Irondequot Bay Outlet Bridge)
-Ridge Rd (former US 104) exists as several discontinuous segments - there is no bridge over Irondequoit Bay and the bridge over the Genesee River is on the NY 104 freeway (though it used to carry Ridge Rd).

[mightyace]

Oh, Metro Nashville/Davidson County is very good at this.

Briley Parkway @ I-40 W -> White Bridge Road -> Woodmont Blvd. -> Thompson Lane -> Briley Parkway @ I-24 (Thompson Lane does continue on but you must turn left to do it)

Harding Place -> Battery Lane -> Harding Place -> Donelson Pike

Starting at TN 100 and TN 254 -> Old Hickory Blvd. -> Bell Rd. (Old Hickory branches off) -> Pleasant Hill Rd -> Stewart's Ferry Pike (Bell Road reappears as a branch here)

21st Ave S (Nashville) -> Hillsboro Rd. -> 5th Ave N (Franklin)

12th Ave S -> Granny White Pike

TN SSR 171 Mt. Juliet Rd (Mt Juliet) -> Hobson Pike -> Old Hickory Blvd. (171 ends at I-24) -> Burkitt Rd.

I could go on and on...

[r-dub]

Colorado Springs. That is all.

Seriously, I have never been in a city that has so many roads change names. One of the main N-S arterials starts as Fontmore St, changes to Fontanero, then Fillmore in the span of about 1/2 mile. Then it's off to Circle Drive then Lake Avenue. And that's one of many.

And let's not bring up how crappy COS signs these changes, if at all...

[hobsini2]

I am always fascinated with one in Lombard, Downers Grove and Lemont IL.  Over a stretch of 12 miles, with a couple of subtle s curves, it is Highland Ave, then at 39th St becomes Main St, then about 1/2 mile north of 75th St becomes Lemont Rd (Main St becomes a side street), at the Des Plaines River becomes State St.

[Quillz]

Sepulveda Boulevard becomes Willow Street in Long Beach, and then another short stretch of Sepulveda picks up to the southeast. I've always felt the two should be connected.

[Kacie Jane]

Google Maps

"State Street" in Bellingham goes by 5+ different names without drivers having to use their turn signal.  (Even more northbound, since there's a one-way pair through downtown.)  Boulevard (incorrectly labelled Boulevard Street on Google) was built sometime in the first half of the 20th century, and State Street does exist between its two ends, but the through movement is definitely via Boulevard, particularly at its southern end.  Then towards the south, you get into Fairhaven's numbered streets and all hell breaks loose.

(Extra tidbit: This was US 99 until the '30s, then 99 Alternate until it was decommissioned.)

[Brandon]

I am always fascinated with one in Lombard, Downers Grove and Lemont IL.  Over a stretch of 12 miles, with a couple of subtle s curves, it is Highland Ave, then at 39th St becomes Main St, then about 1/2 mile north of 75th St becomes Lemont Rd (Main St becomes a side street), at the Des Plaines River becomes State St.

Not uncommon around here.  You also have Summit Ave which becomes Midwest Rd which becomes Cass Ave which turns into 99th St.

Then there's Renwick Rd which becomes 9th St which becomes Thornton Ave which becomes 159th St then later on turns into 163rd St, then 159th St again which becomes River Oaks Dr, and then 165th St as it crosses the line into Hammond, Indiana, all the while marked as IL-7 and US-6 at different points.  One street Plainfield to Hammond, eight names.

[hm insulators]

Sepulveda Boulevard becomes Willow Street in Long Beach, and then another short stretch of Sepulveda picks up to the southeast. I've always felt the two should be connected.

There is also another, much longer stretch of Sepulveda that starts in the San Fernando Valley and parallels I-405 all the way over Sepulveda Pass and ultimately, LAX; by then, it is also California 1. I think about Rosecrans Avenue in El Segundo, it changes its name to Pacific Coast Highway.

In my home town of La Canada Flintridge (California), the easternmost stretch of Foothill Boulevard from Hampton Road under the I-210 eastern crossing, up a short hill and down a longer, steep hill to Oak Grove Drive used to be called Michigan Avenue; the hill is still called the Michigan Hill. And the aforementioned Hampton Road changes its name to Georgian Road south of the intersection. And if you head north on Oakwood Avenue, where the two-lane arterial bends to the northwest, it changes its name to Lynnhaven Lane (although Oakwood continues as a small residential side street for a couple of blocks), then Lynnhaven bends to the north and becomes Princess Anne Road.

And my own street in La Canada Flintridge, Hill Street, becomes Hayman Avenue just south of the house where I grew up.

[huskeroadgeek]

This doesn't happen very often where I live, but we do have one of these in Lincoln. Normal Blvd. begins on the E side of the city and later becomes Capitol Parkway and then K and L Street one-way pairs through downtown and then Rosa Parks Way to the US 77 interchange then turning into Coddington Ave. past the interchange.

On the other side of this, there are some places where you might expect street names to change, but they don't. For instance, I like the fact that Johnson County in Kansas continues the E-W numbered streets across the state line from Kansas City, Mo. This does create an odd situation from a numbering standpoint where 47th Street is the lowest numbered street at the Wyandotte County line, but it makes much more sense to match Kansas City, Mo.'s numbers.

[wytout]

In my little home town, CT 190 cuts through from east to west entering at somers and leaving into union.
This road has 6 street names as it goes through town.  It comes in from the west as Chesnut Hill Rd.  Then around the intersection w/ CT 30 it changes to West Stafford Road,  then it becomes west main street.  Then suddenly , main street, then east main street, and then about 1/4 mile past it's intersection w/ CT 19 it becomes Buckley Hwy.  And continues into the town of union  named buckley highway, and keeps the name buckley highway until it's terminus with RT 171 (which in fact you don't necessarily know 190 terminated, except that after the T intersection w/ 171, the next EB reassurance is 171, and not 190 anymore.  Fun Stuff. (171 should have ended at it's intersection w/ 190 and 190 should have continued east to it's terminus at the i-84 exit 74 interchange.

So basically a road/route through 2 small neighboring  New England towns that seems to do things that aren't really all that necessary and don't need to change as often as they do.

[v35322]

Colorado Springs. That is all.

Seriously, I have never been in a city that has so many roads change names. One of the main N-S arterials starts as Fontmore St, changes to Fontanero, then Fillmore in the span of about 1/2 mile. Then it's off to Circle Drive then Lake Avenue. And that's one of many.

And let's not bring up how crappy COS signs these changes, if at all...

And when it changes from Fontanero to Fillmore, a separate street splits off and calls itself Fontanero ...

Plus, there's the little bit of ... er, glory ... that is Briargate Boulevard and Briargate Parkway, which are two completely separate streets.

There's also the several unconnected streets called Templeton Gap Road (at least four that I can remember). Although, if there were actually roads between their endpoints, they'd be one straight-line road.

And the fact that just west of I-25 you have to make a right turn at a stoplight to continue on westbound Woodmen Road, if you go straight the street suddenly becomes Rockrimmon Boulevard. (Although that one sort of makes sense, given the history of that part of town.)

And a lot of streets in the central part of the city (Uintah, Cache La Poudre, Yampa) suddenly shift half a block or so at Union Boulevard, requiring drivers who want to stay on those streets to turn onto Union, cross all of the through lanes into the turn lane in a half-block span, and make another turn.

Yeah, Colorado Springs isn't so great with the planning.