Road Names with Potential Alternate Meanings

[Michael in Philly]

I'll start this thread with some multiple-entendres from Columbus and surrounds...

Opossum Run Rd: The possums are in charge? (Regionally common waterway name leads to regioonally common road name)

Old Leonard Ave: Who is Old Leonard? (Of course, it's the old path of Leonard Ave, though I'm really not sure how long ago the current Leonard Ave came into existence)

Frank Refugee Expressway: Named after a bluntly honest guy displaced from his homeland? (Actually, it ties in with Frank Rd on one end and Refugee Rd on the other)

Memory Lane: A metaphor? (An actual street, though a private one IIRC)

Seldom Seen Rd: Hidden away? (Seen by thousands of commuters daily)

And then there's the ones you'd joke about in 8th grade.  Southwestern Franklin County has all of Gay, Creamer, Seaman, and Johnson roads within minutes travel.  I can't think of any nearby feminine road names, but there's that Big Beaver Rd near Detroit...

There's a Memory Lane near York, Pa., which I use as part of my shortcut from I-83 to the US 30 expressway eastbound.  I've always assumed, with no basis whatsoever for this, it had something to do with "walking down memory lane" (is that an expression?  a Sinatra song title?...)

[Michael in Philly]

I don't know if this is still the case, but for many years the blade signs for East Haskell St in West St Paul read

E Haskell

"That's a lovely dress you're wearing, Mrs Cleaver..."

I've seen the guy who played Eddie Haskell a couple of times recently in a commercial for something geriatric (it's definitely him:  they start with a clip from the show).

Fortunately, Leave It to Beaver had its first run before I was born, so it doesn't quite make me feel old.

[Michael in Philly]

Leonard Ave. was rerouted when I-670 was extended east in the late 80s/early 90s

I don't believe that's the whole story.  

Franklin County official map, 1978:



Google, today:


Even in 1978 there was something strange about Leonard Ave hinting at a past realignment.  At that time, there were two intersections along St Clair Ave from which one could go east on Leonard Ave, apparently.  Why they didn't rename part of it to Old Leonard Ave before the 90s, I don't know.  Why Google labels part of the "new" Leonard Ave as Old Leonard Ave is also a mystery, and fodder for another thread.

Reminds me of Little West 12th Street in Manhattan.  Several of the east-west numbered streets - 4th, 10th, 11th, 12th I believe - when they get into Greenwich Village, which was laid out before the Manhattan grid was established, veer into the Village on odd angles.  (I presume their names were applied to streets that previously had other names).  4th even ends up crossing the others.  But at the north end of the Village, where the grid comes back into effect, there's a block of what ought to be 12th.  Since 12th exists a few blocks south, thanks to having gone off course, that block is named Little West 12th.


http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.740096,-74.007672&spn=0.003959,0.006856&t=m&z=17&vpsrc=6

[roadman65]

SOBT used as an abreviation for South Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando, FL if you remove the last letter you have that famous acronym.

[sp_redelectric]

In Portland there was a pedestrian overpass in which ODOT decided it needed an identifying sign.

"Failing Bridge".

After enough phone calls, they replaced the signs with "Failing St. Ped. Br."

And every now an then, someone has to be told that "T.V. Highway" is not referring to televisions.