Directional street grids where one side of the baseline is "default"/un-prefixed

Started by KCRoadFan, October 08, 2024, 11:48:06 PM

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KCRoadFan

I happen to live in a city with such a street grid: here in Kansas City, on the north-south streets, south is the "default" direction, as the downtown area - along with the original townsite in what is now the River Market neighborhood - is located just south of the Missouri River. The streets that continue those names north of the river - as well as north of St. John Avenue, which continues the baseline through the Historic Northeast neighborhood - have a "North" prefix, whereas those south of the baseline have no prefix. As for east-west streets found on both sides of Main Street - mostly numbered, but some named - they are "East" and "West" south of the baseline, and "Northeast" and "Northwest" north of it.

In addition, I was reminded to make this post after I was in Des Moines yesterday, having gone through there on my way home from a trip to Madison, WI. In Des Moines, named streets - which run east-west - are labeled "East" to the east of the baseline and un-prefixed to the west of it; meanwhile, numbered streets - which run north-south - are called "East" to the north of the north-south baseline on the east side of the city, and "Southeast" to the south of it; however, the numbered streets on the west side are a little different: they are un-prefixed north of the baseline, but to the south, they are labeled "Southwest", rather than "South" as one might expect.

Aside from KC and Des Moines, what other cities around the country do you know of that, for all intents and purposes, have a grid of streets that would be divided into "North/South" and "East/West" prefixed street addresses, but for which the directional prefixes are omitted on one side of one or both baselines, thus making that direction the "default"? I know that in Denver, north-south streets to the north of Ellsworth Avenue are - or at least were - un-prefixed, with those to the south being given a "South" prefix - however, as I've seen Apple and Google Maps label many of those streets with a "North" prefix to the north of Ellsworth, I think that convention may have recently changed. Also, in addition to the examples I just described, are there any other places that you can think of the directional prefix on one side of the baseline?


TheStranger

Sacramento:

North of the railroad tracks (approximately where B Street would be in the grid), the numbered north-south streets become "North XX" (i.e. North 16th) and a new grid of lettered east-west streets from North A to North D emerges.  There is no south grid at all (basically the numbered streets are un-prefixed anywhere south of the railroad tracks) or east grid (H to L Streets continues east of Alhambra Boulevard unprefixed, and M Street now begins east of there due to Capitol Avenue using what had been M prior to the 1940s).  Only one street extends west of the grid at all, West Capitol Avenue.

---

Oakland:

East of the estuary that connects San Francisco Bay to Lake Merritt, the numbered streets are all "East xx" (i.e. East 12th).  (This is also where the quirk of East 14th Street starting well outside of city limits in San Leandro occurs, due to East 14th in Oakland being reumbered "International Boulevard" back in 1996)

There is only one street that has a "West" designator (Embarcadero West, which runs west of Webster Street), anything else west of there is unprefixed.
Chris Sampang

NWI_Irish96

My town has no directional prefixes at all. E-W streets are by default all east, increasing from the western boundary of the town (which also happens to be the state line). The N-S streets are by default all south, continuing Hammond's numbering, which in turn is a continuation of Chicago's numbering, minus 10000.
Indiana: counties 100%, highways 100%
Illinois: counties 100%, highways 61%
Michigan: counties 100%, highways 56%
Wisconsin: counties 86%, highways 23%

pianocello

Ames, IA. Instead of NW, SW, NE, and SE prefixes, they have {blank}, S, E, and SE. But the only streets that have a prefix are ones that cross the baselines of Duff Ave or Lincoln Way - if a street is entirely in the south side, for example, they never bothered with a prefix.

The only exception is that there's a neighborhood that uses the "N" prefix, and North Dakota Ave exists with its prefix for obvious reasons.
Davenport, IA -> Valparaiso, IN -> Ames, IA -> Orlando, FL -> Gainesville, FL -> Evansville, IN

Road Hog

Frisco, TX uses an odd numbering scheme. The zero point is at the very SW corner of the city and all addresses originate from there, increasing from west to east and from south to north with no directionals. There are exceptions in the old downtown area, which is now called the Rail District, where there is a North County Road and a South County Road.

DandyDan

Lincoln, NE has O Street and W. O Street, and all parallel streets are similar. The numbered streets west of 1st Street are either NW or SW x Street, where x is the number, but the ones east of 1st Street are N x Street or S x Street.
MORE FUN THAN HUMANLY THOUGHT POSSIBLE

tman

Omaha's streets start at 1st Street (no prefix), at the Missouri River, and count up as you head west (into the 200th Street range). Central Omaha is in the 72nd/90th Street range, and the suburbs generally start a couple miles past there.

Interestingly, near the airport, the river shifts east, so there is a small section of streets prefixed with "East" to signify the difference (and they count up going east) but there aren't many of these.

US 89

For most streets in Ogden UT, the East or South prefix is implied and not included.

The exception is streets with only coordinate numbers for names. There's no such address as "1303 4600 S", it has to be "1303 E 4600 S", even though the same address could easily be "1303 46th St". Coordinate-only street names are not all that common within Ogden proper (rare for a Utah city!) but do occur, and are very frequent in many of the adjoining municipalities that share Ogden's numbering grid.

Quillz

I've noticed a lot of small towns in Oregon will do this. I vacation in Newport and the 20/101 junction is the zero point. So you'll have "W Olive Street" and "E Olive Street," and then "N Coast Highway" and "S Coast Highway." Then everything else follows intermediary directions. (So you'll have NW 2nd Street, NE 2nd Street, SW 2nd Street, SE 2nd Street). I found this confusing at first because when I'd look up directions, I kept omitting the direction not realizing that is literally part of the street name.



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