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

[pianocello]

Related question: Where do the rural backroad grids start/end in most counties? Most counties (or maybe it's on a statewide scale, I don't know) in plains states, namely Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Kansas use a number grid for their farmer roads.

Many counties in Iowa have a point of origin at one of their corners, but they start their grid at 100th St and count up from there (usually 10 "blocks" per mile). In the other direction, the roads are often lettered, but some counties have numbered roads going in both directions. Of course, this doesn't apply to all counties, as some are based on the county seat's city grid, and others don't have a grid at all due to terrain.

[tdindy88]

I'm not sure if this actually portrays to this subject but I felt it was somewhat connected. Many of Indiana's counties use their own county road grid system with a Meridian and Base Roads forming the axis's for north-south and east-west roads respectively. Each mile away from these axis's is another mile road in the system. Going north from the Base line you get County Road 100 North, County Road 200 North and so forth and south of the line you get County Road 100 South, County Road 200 South. The system is the same for north-south roads.

Most of these county road systems are set from the county seat, even more specifically the courthouse square, so that County Road 100 North is one mile north of the center of the county seat and so on. But I do know there are some counties where the center of the grid is more arbitrary. Hancock County's county seat and largest city Greenfield is located two miles east of the center of that county's grid. Tipton County's seat is one mile south and one mile west of the center of that county's grid. And Huntington County's seat, Huntington, is three miles west and nearly four miles north of that county grid's center.

[jakeroot]

Metro Vancouver has several numbering grids. Areas such as Surrey and Delta use a numbering grid that is "cornered" somewhere in the Salish Sea (roughly here). 0 Ave is the US border, and 0 St would be somewhere to the west. Because the grid starts in a corner, there's no cardinal directions for the streets.

What confuses me, to this day, is why 0 St would be so far west of where any road would ever be. The furthest-west street, I believe, is 30b St, and that's about 1300m from the shoreline. Bizarrely, in the event that Vancouver decided to adopt that grid (instead of their own), it doesn't actually go far enough west to cover the entirety of Vancouver. So, what their game plan was, I'm not sure.

[MikeTheActuary]

When posting in another thread, I noticed that Lloydminster SK/AB's grid appears to be set up such that the intersection of 50th Street and 50th Avenue is located in the center of town / on the provincial boundary.

[jakeroot]

When posting in another thread, I noticed that Lloydminster SK/AB's grid appears to be set up such that the intersection of 50th Street and 50th Avenue is located in the center of town / on the provincial boundary.

Edmonton has a similar setup. The vast majority of the town is in one quadrant of the street system.

[kphoger]

I used to live in Herrin, IL.  The 100 East / 100 West line goes right through downtown along Route 148 (Park Ave).  However, according to the street numbering system, that's equivalent to 15th Street.  That is to say, the 200 East line is 14th Street, while the 200 West line is 16th Street.  The theoretical 1st Street would be out east of town.  AFAIK, there is no street number lower than 3rd Street anywhere in town.  I lived on N. 6th Street, yet a house on the cross-street had an address of 1001 East.

[NWI_Irish96]

The city of Hammond, IN, does not use N/S/E/W numbering.  E-W numbering starts from 0 at the western boundary, which is also the state line, and counts up going to the east.  N-S numbering continues Chicago's numbering southward from Lake Michigan but subtracts 10000.  The center of downtown Hammond is at 400 Sibley St/5200 Hohman Ave

Munster, IN, where I currently live, also uses E-W numbering starting from 0 at the western boundary/state line, and the N-S numbering continues the system used by the city of Hammond to the north, with 7533 being the lowest number.  The center of town is at 800 Ridge Rd/8400 Calumet Ave

[jakeroot]

The city of Hammond, IN, does not use N/S/E/W numbering.  E-W numbering starts from 0 at the western boundary, which is also the state line, and counts up going to the east.  N-S numbering continues Chicago's numbering southward from Lake Michigan but subtracts 10000.  The center of downtown Hammond is at 400 Sibley St/5200 Hohman Ave

Munster, IN, where I currently live, also uses E-W numbering starting from 0 at the western boundary/state line, and the N-S numbering continues the system used by the city of Hammond to the north, with 7533 being the lowest number.  The center of town is at 800 Ridge Rd/8400 Calumet Ave

Cool to see a place in the US that uses this sort-of "corner" starting scheme, rather than having a center of town being the zero point. I don't know of any example like that in WA, only BC (which I mentioned upthread...note that street names in places like Surrey, BC use the same naming scheme as those two places in IN: "132 St", "160 St", etc (no cardinal direction)).

[skluth]

I'm amazed nobody has mentioned Boston yet. Boston doesn't have a grid. They just start every street address at 1 and go from there. I don't think there's a more challenging city to find an address.

[kphoger]

I'm amazed nobody has mentioned Boston yet. Boston doesn't have a grid. They just start every street address at 1 and go from there. I don't think there's a more challenging city to find an address.

Except addresses all over the world in countries that use the same kind of numbering scheme.

[frankenroad]

I'm amazed nobody has mentioned Boston yet. Boston doesn't have a grid. They just start every street address at 1 and go from there. I don't think there's a more challenging city to find an address.

Except addresses all over the world in countries that use the same kind of numbering scheme.

Most towns/cities in New England use that same system.   It's pretty unusual to have a 4-digit house number in New England, and I am not sure there are any 5-digit house numbers anywhere in New England.

The other thing about most New England numbering systems, is they use every number.   When I lived there, there were five houses on our side of the street - 2, 4, 6, 8 & 10.   Conversely, where I grew up in Ohio, there were four houses on our side of the street in our block.   304, 310, 316, and 322.   The first house in the next block was 406.

[hotdogPi]

I am not sure there are any 5-digit house numbers anywhere in New England.

There definitely are some. For some reason, I seemed to remember that it was on Mass Ave. in Lexington, but it's not. It's somewhere in that general area, though.

The other thing about most New England numbering systems, is they use every number.

They don't.

[TEG24601]

I'm not sure if this actually portrays to this subject but I felt it was somewhat connected. Many of Indiana's counties use their own county road grid system with a Meridian and Base Roads forming the axis's for north-south and east-west roads respectively. Each mile away from these axis's is another mile road in the system. Going north from the Base line you get County Road 100 North, County Road 200 North and so forth and south of the line you get County Road 100 South, County Road 200 South. The system is the same for north-south roads.

Most of these county road systems are set from the county seat, even more specifically the courthouse square, so that County Road 100 North is one mile north of the center of the county seat and so on. But I do know there are some counties where the center of the grid is more arbitrary. Hancock County's county seat and largest city Greenfield is located two miles east of the center of that county's grid. Tipton County's seat is one mile south and one mile west of the center of that county's grid. And Huntington County's seat, Huntington, is three miles west and nearly four miles north of that county grid's center.

Carroll County, IN, the N/S 0 Road/Meridian Road runs through the little town of Flora, about 3/4 miles east of SR 75 (SR 75 was known as CR 75 beyond its terminus in Camden), and the E-W 0 Road is SR 18 (which also runs through Flora).  However, the county seat is Delphi, about 4 miles north, and 5 miles west of Flora.  Being based at the county seat would make sense, but Carroll County's roads make no sense.