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Which is the best street grid?

Numbered streets 1st, 2nd, 3rd
- 37 (67.3%)
Letter streets, A, B, C
- 4 (7.3%)
Other street names such as towns and counties
- 14 (25.5%)

Total Members Voted: 55


Author Topic: Which is the best street grid?  (Read 13903 times)

tolbs17

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Which is the best street grid?
« on: October 25, 2021, 03:34:53 PM »

I'll go with numbered streets which is what Charlotte, Greenville NC, Washington, NC and Wilmington NC have.

Although I don't mind the street grid in Raleigh.
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silverback1065

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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #1 on: October 25, 2021, 03:36:20 PM »

Numbers! Lettered streets are dumb they often repeat and it gets confusing fast!
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tolbs17

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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #2 on: October 25, 2021, 03:37:23 PM »

Numbers! Lettered streets are dumb they often repeat and it gets confusing fast!
I see those a lot in New York lol
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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #3 on: October 25, 2021, 03:37:32 PM »

I prefer unique street names it's cooler. But I prefer numbers to letters.
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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #4 on: October 25, 2021, 03:38:49 PM »

I prefer a mix of numbers and named streets. No letters. Though there is an instance of using every number on every suffix imaginable (looking at you, Queens), which I dislike.

thspfc

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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #5 on: October 25, 2021, 03:42:50 PM »

I prefer numbered streets and named avenues.

Lincoln, NE is the ultimate low-effort grid: lettered E-W streets and numbered N-S streets (avenues).

One scheme that seems quite common is naming streets after types of trees (Oak, Maple, Willow, etc.)
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tolbs17

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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #6 on: October 25, 2021, 03:48:21 PM »

I will concur with you guys.. numbered streets and lettered Avenues are the best. Although we do have  14th Ave in Greenville  and it's because it curves going N-S instead of east-west but it's cool.
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skluth

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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #7 on: October 25, 2021, 03:49:46 PM »

I like Denver's solution which has N-S streets in alphabetic order once outside the city's core.
« Last Edit: October 31, 2021, 10:34:22 AM by skluth »
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US20IL64

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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #8 on: October 25, 2021, 05:12:05 PM »

Phoenix, with N-S numbered streets and aves. And, Chicago with #'s on south side. North and West side natives learn names/grid, while newcomers call the named major arterials, "XX00 north/west".

Diagonal NW/SW streets/grids are confusing to me,  :confused: no true N to refer to. Maybe if learned as a native? Old part of downtown Denver has it, then switched to true N-S outside area.

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andrepoiy

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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #9 on: October 25, 2021, 07:48:09 PM »

I prefer names, although a number or two interspersed in between is fine.

I'm not a fan of only-numbered streets because not only is it generic, it could get confusing.

Here in York Region, our east-west routes go like this from south to north:

Steeles Ave
Highway 7/Centre Street/14th Avenue
Langstaff Road/Highway 7   *Highway 7 moves up the grid once
Rutherford Road/16th Avenue
Major Mackenzie Drive
Teston Road/Elgin Mills Road
Gamble Road/19th Avenue
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US 89

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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #10 on: October 25, 2021, 08:40:01 PM »

Phoenix, with N-S numbered streets and aves. And, Chicago with #'s on south side. North and West side natives learn names/grid, while newcomers call the named major arterials, "XX00 north/west".

Those "xx00 North" coordinate names you see in places like Chicago and Phoenix are in fact the actual (and only) street names in a lot of cities in Utah and eastern Idaho. I believe SLC is the biggest city that uses such a system as its primary street naming method.

SEWIGuy

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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #11 on: October 25, 2021, 09:28:16 PM »

Madison, WI. No grid whatsoever. They do have a first through sixth streets, but they are seemingly placed in the middle of nowhere.

It’s great.
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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #12 on: October 26, 2021, 12:03:32 AM »

I prefer a zero system that starts in the corner. This negates the need for any cardinal directions.

For example, in the middle of the Salish Sea is Metro Vancouver's zero point (0 Ave and 0 St). The road along the southern border is 0 Ave, although I'm not aware of any 0 St.

That said, having a number in one direction and names in the other is pretty fun. This is how it's done in most of Tacoma, WA and Vancouver, BC.

NWI_Irish96

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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #13 on: October 26, 2021, 07:54:03 AM »

This is what I would design:

E-W streets north of center are numbered (1st, 2nd, 3rd)
E-W streets south of center are named for plants/flowers/trees alphabetically (Ash, Beech, Cedar)
N-S streets east of center are named for Presidents chronologically (Washington, Adams, Jefferson)
N-S streets west of center are named for the states chronologically (Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey)
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Max Rockatansky

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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #14 on: October 26, 2021, 08:04:50 AM »

I like the Orlando approach where everything is chaos and major roads often become neighborhood streets or end at lakes.
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ET21

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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #15 on: October 26, 2021, 09:20:09 AM »

Numbered is my go-to after growing up in the SW suburbs of Chicago which extend the Chicago grid. Our Aves (N-S roads) are also numbered but its mixed with street names.
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tdindy88

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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #16 on: October 26, 2021, 09:49:26 AM »

This is what I would design:

E-W streets north of center are numbered (1st, 2nd, 3rd)
E-W streets south of center are named for plants/flowers/trees alphabetically (Ash, Beech, Cedar)
N-S streets east of center are named for Presidents chronologically (Washington, Adams, Jefferson)
N-S streets west of center are named for the states chronologically (Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey)

Isn't that mostly Lake County's grid with a touch of St. Joseph County?
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NWI_Irish96

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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #17 on: October 26, 2021, 09:57:42 AM »

This is what I would design:

E-W streets north of center are numbered (1st, 2nd, 3rd)
E-W streets south of center are named for plants/flowers/trees alphabetically (Ash, Beech, Cedar)
N-S streets east of center are named for Presidents chronologically (Washington, Adams, Jefferson)
N-S streets west of center are named for the states chronologically (Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey)

Isn't that mostly Lake County's grid with a touch of St. Joseph County?

Yeah, Lake county uses numbers and states, St joe County uses trees and people (though not all Presidents) except that the names are alphabetical and not chronological.
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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #18 on: October 28, 2021, 12:00:57 AM »

When I read the title I thought this was going to be a thread about the layout of the grid itself...
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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #19 on: October 28, 2021, 03:39:45 AM »

Alphabetically named streets

This also has the flexibility of keeping the grid naming pattern when new streets are added between existing streets.
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Rick Powell

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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #20 on: October 28, 2021, 03:12:45 PM »

I prefer Chicago's south side system of numbered E-W streets and named N-S streets. Too prone to confusion to have both directions numbered. I suppose A, B, C would be OK if you didn't run out of letters.
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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #21 on: October 28, 2021, 03:17:17 PM »

I prefer no numbers or letters at all. I like using either place names (Louisiana Ave, Oregon St) or other nouns (my favorite is Lake Jackson, TX, which only uses names of plants and flowers).
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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #22 on: October 28, 2021, 04:31:09 PM »

Not sure that this is the "best" but one of the more interesting ones is Butte, MT which uses states as avenues, nothing special there, but minerals as streets, supposedly in the order that they were valued at the time of the plat.
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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #23 on: October 28, 2021, 04:53:43 PM »

Not sure that this is the "best" but one of the more interesting ones is Butte, MT which uses states as avenues, nothing special there, but minerals as streets, supposedly in the order that they were valued at the time of the plat.

greeley, co is... well, i think it's different, not sure about 'best' or 'worst'

numbered streets starting at 1 in the north, numbered aves starting at 1 in the east. east of 1st ave, its trees alphabetically. north of 1st street, it's letters. i like that part. you can also say things like 'i'm at 9th and 9th', and its not ambiguous.

the part i don't like, is when you get out of downtown, you get into curvy streets like '27th avenue lane' or '29th street road' etc.
28th st is aka the 34 bypass. 10th street is business 34.
the 85 bypass runs around 3rd ave, and business 85 is 8th ave.
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tolbs17

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Re: Which is the best street grid?
« Reply #24 on: October 28, 2021, 05:01:00 PM »

I prefer 11th on highways signs compared to Eleventh btw.
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