Cities With the Number Street System Not Starting in Center of Town

[Avalanchez71]

So what cities out there have their CBD or center of town with street numbers not at the start of the number system?

[TheStranger]

My first thought is Bakersfield where Route 178 uses 23rd and 24th Street to go through downtown, with 1st Street being closer to the Route 58 freeway a few miles south.

Oakland might count too since Embarcadero and 2nd Street are in the Jack London Square/port areas but the core of downtown is around 12th to 19th Streets, north of the Nimitz Freeway/I-880.

[GaryV]

Are you considering suburban cities that use their urban core city numbering system?  There's quite a few of those.

[Avalanchez71]

Suburban not so much. Looking at cities that are either independent of metropolitan areas or a city that is the core of the metropolitan area.  Suburban cities that use a county or regional numbering system will naturally have have a street number system that would likely fall outside of the starting range.

[ilpt4u]

1st Street in Downtown Murphysboro, IL in Jackson County is on the Eastern edge of town. Somewhere from about 11th-14th Street @ Walnut (IL 149) is City Center

[Beltway]

Broad Street in Richmond VA.

The numbering starts at Foushee Street, 11 blocks west of the current downtown.

The dividing point between West Broad Street and East Broad Street.

[thspfc]

First in Madison is 15 blocks east of the Capitol Square, which is basically the city center.

[Hurricane Rex]

1st street in Corvallis is on the banks of the Wilamette, on the eastern edge of town. Granted downtown is two blocks away.

Philomath next door resets the numbers, and their first street is at the US 20/OR 34 intersection.

SM-J737T

[plain]

Broad Street in Richmond VA.

The numbering starts at Foushee Street, 11 blocks west of the current downtown.

The dividing point between West Broad Street and East Broad Street.

I would say that intersection is in downtown, though it's in the western part of it, not the center.

Downtown is bounded by I-95, US 1/301 (Belvedere St), and the James River.

[jp the roadgeek]

Philadelphia.  Street numbers rise as you go west from the Delaware River typically,  with Broad St acting in lieu of 14th St.  The Center of the City is at Broad and Market in City Hall Plaza

[Beltway]

Broad Street in Richmond VA.
The numbering starts at Foushee Street, 11 blocks west of the current downtown.
The dividing point between West Broad Street and East Broad Street.

I would say that intersection is in downtown, though it's in the western part of it, not the center.
Downtown is bounded by I-95, US 1/301 (Belvedere St), and the James River.

Hard to say the exact limits of the CBD or downtown.  Parts of that area are pretty low density.  The center of the downtown in 1950 probably was around Foushee and Broad.  Since then much urban development in the capitol area.

[MikeTheActuary]

Arguably Memphis.  The zero-point for address numbering is in the traditional downtown area, but one could make the argument that the "CBD" is no longer downtown, having shifted out to approximately Poplar & Mendenhall.

[hotdogPi]

While it only goes from 1 to 4, Worcester MA has its numbered streets near the edge of the city.

Most cities in New England would qualify, but not that extreme.

[US 89]

Unlike many other Utah cities, Ogden's grid origin is nowhere near its downtown district. The origin isn't actually at an intersection; it's on Wall Avenue a little bit north of 2nd Street. The central intersection is a few miles away at Washington Blvd and 24th Street (equivalent to 400 East and 2400 South).

Also unlike almost every other Utah grid, Ogden address numbering starts at 100 rather than 0. So while the N/S axis in, say, Salt Lake would be 0 E/W, in Ogden it is 100 E/W.

[Roadwarriors79]

In Tucson, the grid point is at Stone Ave and Congress St. The numbered N/S avenues start east of Stone (1st Ave is on the 700 E alignment) and increase going west. The numbered E/W streets start north of Congress (1st St is on the 1000 N alignment) and increase going south. Based on the current numbered streets, the hypothetical grid point would be at Speedway Blvd and Euclid Ave.

There were changes to the street names proposed as far back as the 1930s. Link to some proposals:

https://tucson.com/news/local/street-smarts-plan-sought-to-rename-streets-for-saints-pioneers/article_8ddb2dbf-9b68-5300-b2e9-54ef28ddffb8.html

[mgk920]

Kenosha, WI.

All of the addresses in Kenosha County, WI are based on the south county line (Illinois-Wisconsin state line) and the county's easternmost land point on the Lake Michigan shoreline.

Mike

[KeithE4Phx]

Kenosha, WI.

All of the addresses in Kenosha County, WI are based on the south county line (Illinois-Wisconsin state line) and the county's easternmost land point on the Lake Michigan shoreline.

Mike

1st Street in Kenosha County is the Kenosha/Racine County line (County Trunk KR).  The numbers go south from there.

[KeithE4Phx]

Bloomington IN:  The downtown center point is Walnut St. (100 EW) and Kirkwood Ave. (aka 5th St., 100 NS).  Numbered streets run east/west and begin at 1st Street (800S) and end at 20th St. (1500N).  They mix numbered and named streets (for example:  Hunter, Smith, and Atwater are between 2nd and 3rd Sts), with only named streets south of 1st and north of 20th.

[DandyDan]

In Nebraska, Omaha's system begins at the Missouri River, more or less, and going west, you don't get to downtown until 10th Street for sure. Lincoln's system begins slightly west of downtown and doesn't begin until you are at what is roughly 5th Street. And I don't have a good explanation for Bellevue's system, which begins at 12th Avenue, has downtown on Mission Avenue between 22nd and 23rd Avenue and has no relationship with the Omaha system, which also appears in Bellevue.

[cwf1701]

Traditional Downtown Detroit is located at Woodward and Jefferson. Detroit have 2 number system. the older system, 1st street is west of Cass Avenue and goes up to 24th street on the west side. The other is the more famous Mile Road system and reference in Detroit start at 6 Mile in Detroit, about 6 Mile from Downtown Detroit.

[pianocello]

Iowa City has an alphanumeric grid of streets (1st-7th Ave; A-J St) outside of its downtown core, but AFAIK all the street addresses in the city are centered around the Old Capitol, which is pretty much in the center of town.

The Illinois Quad Cities (Rock Island, Moline, and East Moline) all have their street grid origins at the northwest corner of town rather than their central business district. I suspect this was done because none of these cities have any chance of expansion beyond these limits; the Mississippi River is in the way.

[GaryV]

Traditional Downtown Detroit is located at Woodward and Jefferson...

Actually, John R is the line dividing east from west.  Which is interesting because it runs on a northwest angle (perpendicular to the river as all the other "corridors" do) until 6 Mile / McNichols, where it turns to run straight north.

[Max Rockatansky]

Fresno has a small grid that ascends from 1st Street east of downtown past CA 41.  A lot of rail siding towns of the Central Pacific didn't have their grid originate in what would be considered the "Main Street."   Nearby Hanford is another example with 7th Street being the Main Street but the numbers ascend from 1st heading northward. 

[WillWeaverRVA]

Broad Street in Richmond VA.

The numbering starts at Foushee Street, 11 blocks west of the current downtown.

The dividing point between West Broad Street and East Broad Street.

On that note, the numbered streets in south Richmond (formerly the city of Manchester) start by the river in the northeastern portion of the region and proceed westward. Hull Street then Midlothian Turnpike divide them into "east" and "west" even though the streets generally run north-south. The starting point used to be the "downtown" of Manchester, but is heavily industrialized and not particularly dense in terms of population anymore.

[michravera]

So what cities out there have their CBD or center of town with street numbers not at the start of the number system?

Sacramento numbers from the rivers. The corner of 'Front and "A"' (where one would theoretically find single- and double-digit addresses on both streets) may not even exist because of curves in the rivers.

San Francisco numbers most streets from the Bay, which is normally nowhere near downtown.

Los Angeles numbers most streets from the county lines, but other cities in the county number from the Ocean. This fact left me lost in the pre-GPS days. I was looking for a restaurant at like 2520 Willshire in LA when the address was in Santa Monica.