What the names of the streets that form the baselines in your city? These are the axes that serve as the zero points for addressing and probably also serve to divide the city into quadrants. Where these two streets intersect, the buildings on the corners could all theoretically have the address 1.
I'd like to limit this to larger cities so we can learn something that might come in handy about the US's major cities, so if you live in a town of less than about 100,000 please pick the nearest large city. Knowing this fact about Wichita, KS might be useful some day, but learning Wellington, KS's street grid probably won't be.
In Oklahoma City, these streets are Reno Avenue (east-west) and Santa Fe Avenue (north-south).
Amarillo: Polk Street (n-s) is the east-west divider between the SW/NW and SE/NE streets, while the BNSF rail yard alignment along the north side of the downtown core is where the NW/NE streets and SW/SE streets divide up. West of where the BNSF turns northwestward, it's just an imaginary line. For example, along McMasters St., going north after passing SW 1st the next street would be NW 1st ( https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2145918,-101.8608757,17z?hl=en-US&nogmmr=1 ); but according to Street View, the address numbers change in that area at SW 1st.
(When I lived up there, the common vernacular, as well as most street sign blades, referred to SW streets as 'West' and the SE ones as 'East'; now, apparently, the city is trying to emphasize the SW/SE version more)
Jacksonville is interesting.. NS baseline is Main St from downtown north.. South of downtown it is the St Johns River.. The East West baseline in variable.. Near downtown it is is the St Johns River.. West of downtown its Beaver St.. East of downtown its Atlantic Blvd..
Unlike Miami-Dade or Gainesville/Alachua its not a numbered grid.
Four closest 100000+ cities (ordered by distance away from me): Lowell MA, Manchester NH, Cambridge MA, Boston MA. The first three are all barely above 100000 people, and there are no quadrants or obvious baseline streets in any of those four cities. Of the four, only Manchester NH has an obvious grid.
Gainesville/Alachua County Florida the baselines are: NS Main St. EW University Ave. There are also diagonal Streets named after the towns they head to ( Archer Rd, Waldo Rd, Newberry Rd. Hawthorne Rd )
It's interesting how the grid spread from Miami to Gainesville.. Bradford County( Starke) and Columbia County (Lake City) adopted the grid but other places did not.. When my mom was a kid Gainesville had named streets, the sign blades in Gainesville have the historic names
Joliet has Chicago Street (IL-53) for the east-west divider, and Washington Street (east of Raynor)/Jefferson Street (west of Raynor) as the north-south divider.
Chicago has State Street as the east-west divider, and Madison Street as the north-south divider.
In Santa Barbara, the baseline streets are State Street and Cabrillo Boulevard. Although, the grid is offset from true north by about 48 degrees at the beach, getting worse as you head inland, to the point where things marked "West" are actually due south.
Also (you didn't ask for this, but I found it interesting), the side of the street with even numbers is the right side of the street as the numbers increase. So, east of State Street, the even numbers are on the south side of the street, but west of State Street, they are on the north side of the street. This is opposed to Chicago, say, where the even numbers are always on the north or west side of the street.
Finally, in the part of the Santa Barbara that's a grid, there are 10 blocks to the mile. At least in the ideal. Some of the streets are skewed because of faulty surveying equipment. (The intersection of Mission and De La Vina streets being particularly off.)
Grand Rapids: Division Ave. (get it?) and Fulton St.
In Detroit, John R divides east from west, even though it runs at a NW angle from downtown out to 6 Mile (McNichols) Rd. I don't even know what divides north from south.
Quote from: GaryV on July 29, 2015, 05:10:05 PM
Grand Rapids: Division Ave. (get it?) and Fulton St.
In Detroit, John R divides east from west, even though it runs at a NW angle from downtown out to 6 Mile (McNichols) Rd. I don't even know what divides north from south.
Michigan Avenue divides north from south until it dives south, and then it's Ford Road. I always assumed Woodward, not John R was the east-west dividing line.
For Atlanta:
From downtown northward, Peachtree Street is the baseline dividing west from east (except where West Peachtree Street exists; there, West Peachtree serves this role. I mean, except for that northernmost segment of West Peachtree that's actually east of Peachtree.), though once it gets up into Buckhead the addresses sometimes start doing their own thing. Then the downtown grid sort of tilts a little bit, and the dividing line sort of muddles its way south through there before eventually emerging onto Capitol Avenue. Once that ends at University Avenue, it just keeps going more or less due south, whether there's a street along for the ride or not.
Heading east from downtown, Edgewood Avenue is the baseline dividing north from south until you reach roughly Krog Street; there, Edgewood turns slightly north and the dividing line sets out on its own more or less due east before eventually resting on Hosea L. Williams Drive, which it follows east to the city limits. Heading west, it doesn't really start out following a street, but eventually picks up on MLK. It may continue going west when MLK deviates to the south, but it's hard to tell; there seems to be a fair amount of inconsistency in that direction.
Pretty much it's more based on straight north/south/east/west lines than it is on any actual streets (apart from staying on Peachtree north of 19th Street).
Seattle can't do anything the easy way, so we have several baselines streets.
In north Seattle, avenues NW start at 1st Ave. NW, a block west of Palatine Ave. N. Avenues NE start at 1st Ave. NE, a block east of Sunnyside Ave. NE.
In Queen Anne, Queen Anne Ave. N is the baseline. 1st Ave. N runs parallel a block east, and 1st Ave. W runs parallel a block west.
Downtown, Belltown, and Capital Hill feature avenues with no directional indication, starting a block east of Western Ave. near Elliot Bay.
Broadway on Capital Hill is the division between streets with no designation on the west and streets with an E designation on the east.
There's more to it and I'm leaving out the south end of the city altogether but that's a start. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_layout_of_Seattle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_layout_of_Seattle)
Not sure if Hillsboro, Oregon is above the 100,000 people mark (I should know this because they post population numbers on signs when entering the city) but there is an actual Baseline Rd that separates north and south - at least west of Cornelius Pass Rd. East of there, Baseline curves a little further south and then continues heading east, and there are SW streets on both sides, even though Baseline itself is always W Baseline, never SW Baseline - at least if you trust Bing Maps. Out in the field I haven't paid much attention.
Burnside St in Portland, Oregon separates north and south, and that's pretty much maintained until you hit Barnes Rd and Skyline Blvd to the west, and at the point where it starts curving southeast at E 181st Ave, if you draw a line heading due east from that point, that line continues separating north from south all the way east to about SE 242nd Dr, but by then you're in a different city.
West and east are divided by the Willamette River, though that's not really a road you can drive down. Things get hairy in North Portland when the river starts curving northwest, and leads to a "fifth quadrant" where the streets are east of the river, but west of the (defined?) line of longitude that separates things further south. Instead of NW or NE, the streets are simply prefixed "N". Looking at a map, it appears the dividing street is N Williams Ave.
For Baltimore:
E-W is US 40, W. Mulberry and W. Franklin, and I-170. Until you hit downtown at the east end of Seton Hill, W. Mulberry and W. Franklin (I-170) merge into Orleans St. past MD 2. However, Orleans St. gives way to Pulaski Highway, so the grid changes a little bit, as Pulaski curves northeast towards I-895.
Between Cooks Lane (MD 122's extension) and Poplar Grove Street, the main E-W changes to Edmondson Avenue. So, west of the city, the grid is a little messy due to US 40 having to curve down from Edmondson onto the couplets of W. Franklin and W. Mulberry.
N-S doesn't really start on a street, but north of Baltimore, it would be St. Paul Street and North Calvert Street. At North Avenue (US 1), MD 2 appears out of nowhere and uses St. Paul and North Calvert until East Saratoga Street (just south of US 40). Due to St. Paul ending a block later at East Lexington Street, MD 2 SB curves into Light Street, and MD 2 NB becomes South Calvert Street. However, due to Baltimore Harbor in the way, at East Pratt Street MD 2 NB becomes Light Street. However, at Key Highway, Light Street loses MD 2 (MD 2 SB has to dance around East Montgomery Street, MD 2 NB via South Hanover Street, West York Street, South Sharp Street, and then back to South Hanover Street via West Hill Street). I am now unsure here, but Light Street becomes a dead end within I-95, due to railroad tracks, so N-S may switch to South Hanover Street/MD 2.
Quote from: kkt on July 29, 2015, 05:38:42 PM
Seattle can't do anything the easy way, so we have several baselines streets....
Couple of minor nitpicks... First, Capit
ol Hill.
Downtown, the baseline is
west of Western Avenue
at Elliot Bay. Western to 1st isn't a full block; everything west of 1st constitutes the "00" block for downtown addresses.
The division between no-prefix streets downtown and East streets is crooked. On
First Hill (south of Union), the dividing line is Broadway. On Capitol Hill, it shifts to Minor/Melrose Avenues. Lord knows why.
This isn't a correction, since the thread is asking for baselines and not necessarily "zero" points. But the only ones of these that are true zero points are Queen Anne Avenue, and Elliot Bay. North Seattle has no zero points; NW, N, and NE addresses all start at 100. That squiggly line west of Capitol Hill and First Hill is really weird. My favorite hair salon is at 1213 Pine Street just west of Melrose. Cross Melrose, and you're at 300 East Pine Street. (My guess is this got tweaked when I-5 was built, and the missing two "East" blocks are buried under the freeway.)
Now to add on, you left off north/south baselines (that is, streets that run east/west, which are baselines for addresses on avenues which run north/south). Basically there are two. The one north of downtown is Denny Way, which applies to everything north of downtown/Capitol Hill on either side of the ship canal. (West of Queen Anne/Palatine, avenues are labeled W south of the ship canal and NW north of it, and likewise east of Eastlake Ave/Lake Union/Sunnyside Ave, but addresses don't reset at the ship canal. Avenues in the center are labeled N on both sides of the canal.)
Yesler Way is the baseline south of downtown. Addresses on unsuffixed avenues count north from there, addresses on South avenues count south from there.
And again, neither of those are true zero points. The first block north of Denny is 100N, the first block south of Yesler is 100S. And the first block north of Yesler is 100... except downtown because the streets don't meet at right angles, so you're missing the first few blocks.
So yeah, it's complicated.... and we still haven't really touched South Seattle.
ETA: My I-5 hypothesis is wrong. A 1957 map shows the baseline in the same place pre-construction, and other than Minor and Yale not actually crossing over the freeway, there aren't really any "missing blocks" there post-construction.
Quote from: Brandon on July 29, 2015, 05:16:24 PM
Quote from: GaryV on July 29, 2015, 05:10:05 PM
Grand Rapids: Division Ave. (get it?) and Fulton St.
In Detroit, John R divides east from west, even though it runs at a NW angle from downtown out to 6 Mile (McNichols) Rd. I don't even know what divides north from south.
Michigan Avenue divides north from south until it dives south, and then it's Ford Road. I always assumed Woodward, not John R was the east-west dividing line.
In western Wayne county, Cherry Hill Road is the base line for addressing, not Ford Road.
Philadelphia: Market St divides the northern and southern halves.
For all intents and purposes, there is no SE quadrant; the centerline is effectively the Delaware River below roughly the 500 block of N Front St, then N Front St until the 1000 block, Frankford Ave up to roughly the 1800 block, and then N Front St again the rest of the way.
Columbus (and the rest of Franklin County excluding a few of the suburbs) uses Broad St and High St as the axes of its address grid. Downtown, the grid is rotated about ten degrees or so counter-clockwise; outside of downtown, High St continues this approximate angle towards Delaware and Circleville, and Broad St roughly continues its angle towards Newark, but the rest of the streets generally don't continue the downtown orientation. Even numbers are always on the east and north sides of the streets. The numbers progress at about 700 per mile, which doesn't correlate with counting blocks at all, but culminates at approximately 9000 (varying quite a bit) at the county perimeter. I think this system extends a bit into Delaware County within the City Of Columbus, at least near the Polaris mall.
Quote from: Ace10 on July 29, 2015, 05:50:36 PM
...there is an actual Baseline Rd that separates north and south...
Interestingly, the name of that road did not get its name from the fact that it's the addressing baseline. Rather, it (or actually, part of it) is aligned with the surveying baseline that extends east/west from the Willamette Stone. http://tinyurl.com/WillametteStone
Back on topic: for Denver, Broadway divides east from west. Many locals would say the focal point of the city is where Broadway intersects Colfax Av (US 40-287) at the State Capitol, but for whatever reason the city planners did not make Colfax the north/south dividing line. Rather, that was placed 15 blocks south, at a minor street called Ellsworth. Numbered avenues increase to the north from there, so a coincidence of using Ellsworth as the axis is that US 6 runs along 6th Ave.
In Bolingbrook IL, it is Rt 53 (Bolingbrook Dr) and Briarcliff Rd.
In Princeton WI, it is Main St and Fulton St. That corner is where Wis 23 and 73 change from an east-west alignment to a north-south alignment.
In Oshkosh WI, it is Witzel Ave and Main St.
In Cincinnati, Vine Street is the E-W divider. There really isn't a N-S divider: The streets are just numbered north from the Ohio River.
Too bad the OP said my town (New Bern NC) is too small because its an interesting one. The Zero/Zero line is the confluence of the Neuse River and Trent River.
I'm rolling with Raleigh for the purposes of this thread, and its a little different, too. The state capitol building is the 0/0 point, so depending on where one is in the city, either New Bern Ave or for a short distance to the west Hillsborough St is the N/S divider and Fayetteville St is the E/W divide south of the capitol bldg and Halifax St north of it.
Quote from: noelbotevera on July 29, 2015, 06:00:05 PM
For Baltimore:
E-W is US 40, W. Mulberry and W. Franklin, and I-170. Until you hit downtown at the east end of Seton Hill, W. Mulberry and W. Franklin (I-170) merge into Orleans St. past MD 2. However, Orleans St. gives way to Pulaski Highway, so the grid changes a little bit, as Pulaski curves northeast towards I-895.
Between Cooks Lane (MD 122's extension) and Poplar Grove Street, the main E-W changes to Edmondson Avenue. So, west of the city, the grid is a little messy due to US 40 having to curve down from Edmondson onto the couplets of W. Franklin and W. Mulberry.
N-S doesn't really start on a street, but north of Baltimore, it would be St. Paul Street and North Calvert Street. At North Avenue (US 1), MD 2 appears out of nowhere and uses St. Paul and North Calvert until East Saratoga Street (just south of US 40). Due to St. Paul ending a block later at East Lexington Street, MD 2 SB curves into Light Street, and MD 2 NB becomes South Calvert Street. However, due to Baltimore Harbor in the way, at East Pratt Street MD 2 NB becomes Light Street. However, at Key Highway, Light Street loses MD 2 (MD 2 SB has to dance around East Montgomery Street, MD 2 NB via South Hanover Street, West York Street, South Sharp Street, and then back to South Hanover Street via West Hill Street). I am now unsure here, but Light Street becomes a dead end within I-95, due to railroad tracks, so N-S may switch to South Hanover Street/MD 2.
That's not right at all...
Baltimore has Charles St (divides east and west) and Baltimore St (north and south) within the city line. Interestingly enough, in Brookyln, south of the Patapsco River, Hanover St takes over for Charles St. to the city line, where Ritchie Hwy (MD 2) starts, which is the e-w divider for AA county until Crain Hwy starts.
Green Bay WI:
E/W is the Fox River, N/S is Shawano Ave/Walnut St, then east of the East River it is Deckner Ave.
Quote from: kj3400 on July 29, 2015, 08:32:58 PM
Quote from: noelbotevera on July 29, 2015, 06:00:05 PM
For Baltimore:
E-W is US 40, W. Mulberry and W. Franklin, and I-170. Until you hit downtown at the east end of Seton Hill, W. Mulberry and W. Franklin (I-170) merge into Orleans St. past MD 2. However, Orleans St. gives way to Pulaski Highway, so the grid changes a little bit, as Pulaski curves northeast towards I-895.
Between Cooks Lane (MD 122's extension) and Poplar Grove Street, the main E-W changes to Edmondson Avenue. So, west of the city, the grid is a little messy due to US 40 having to curve down from Edmondson onto the couplets of W. Franklin and W. Mulberry.
N-S doesn't really start on a street, but north of Baltimore, it would be St. Paul Street and North Calvert Street. At North Avenue (US 1), MD 2 appears out of nowhere and uses St. Paul and North Calvert until East Saratoga Street (just south of US 40). Due to St. Paul ending a block later at East Lexington Street, MD 2 SB curves into Light Street, and MD 2 NB becomes South Calvert Street. However, due to Baltimore Harbor in the way, at East Pratt Street MD 2 NB becomes Light Street. However, at Key Highway, Light Street loses MD 2 (MD 2 SB has to dance around East Montgomery Street, MD 2 NB via South Hanover Street, West York Street, South Sharp Street, and then back to South Hanover Street via West Hill Street). I am now unsure here, but Light Street becomes a dead end within I-95, due to railroad tracks, so N-S may switch to South Hanover Street/MD 2.
That's not right at all...
Baltimore has Charles St (divides east and west) and Baltimore St (north and south) within the city line. Interestingly enough, in Brookyln, south of the Patapsco River, Hanover St takes over for Charles St. to the city line, where Ritchie Hwy (MD 2) starts, which is the e-w divider for AA county until Crain Hwy starts.
Missed it by
that much.
Ha. All you people out there in Murica talking about baselines. Come to the northeast some time. We don't do that shit up here. :P
Almost all streets in the northeast curve. A lot. There are many attempts out there of imposing an address grid on things (just look at Queens) but all of them are haphazard at best.
The typical method of determining addresses in this part of the world is simply to start from the beginning of the street, and count up by some standard increment. Stamford CT, for example, assumes 25 foot wide lots, so if you take your house number and multiply by 12.5, you can will get the distance in feet from the beginning of the road to the spot on the road that lines up with your front door.
And this is pretty accurate - CT 104 runs entirely along Long Ridge Road, the first address on the part of the road that is state maintained is 60 and the last is 2916. Subtract the two, multiply by 12.5, divide by 5280, and you get 6.76 miles. The official length of CT 104? 6.82 miles. We can assume the dangling 0.06 miles are accounted for by the distances from the first and last front doors to the ends of the route.
Anyways, for a more major city... in Manhattan, 5th Ave is the divider between east and west, and on crosstown streets the addresses increase by 100 every block. Except Madison and Lexington don't count as blocks, so 100 E. XXth St is at Park Ave (which once was called 4th Ave), and 200 E. XXth St is at 3rd Ave. Also, from 59th St through 110th St, everything west of Central park is shifted down by 300, because the addresses start counting from Central Park West (which is an extension of 8th Ave) rather than 5th.
In The Bronx, Jerome Ave serves as the dividing line, since it spans the height of the borough and roughly lines up with 5th Ave. But since the streets are not straight or in a consistent grid, and addresses count by length along the street rather than coordinates... while you can generally say that numbers get bigger as you head further away from Jerome, it's VERY approximate.
Going north-south in Manhattan, addresses increase by roughly (not exactly) 100 every 5 blocks, but there is no baseline. Zero is wherever the avenue begins. 875 3rd Ave, 599 Lexington Ave, 373 Park Ave, 509 Madison Ave, and 665 5th Ave are all in line with each other along 53rd Street. Have fun!
Quote from: Ace10 on July 29, 2015, 05:50:36 PM
Not sure if Hillsboro, Oregon is above the 100,000 people mark (I should know this because they post population numbers on signs when entering the city) but there is an actual Baseline Rd that separates north and south - at least west of Cornelius Pass Rd. East of there, Baseline curves a little further south and then continues heading east, and there are SW streets on both sides, even though Baseline itself is always W Baseline, never SW Baseline - at least if you trust Bing Maps. Out in the field I haven't paid much attention.
Burnside St in Portland, Oregon separates north and south, and that's pretty much maintained until you hit Barnes Rd and Skyline Blvd to the west, and at the point where it starts curving southeast at E 181st Ave, if you draw a line heading due east from that point, that line continues separating north from south all the way east to about SE 242nd Dr, but by then you're in a different city.
West and east are divided by the Willamette River, though that's not really a road you can drive down. Things get hairy in North Portland when the river starts curving northwest, and leads to a "fifth quadrant" where the streets are east of the river, but west of the (defined?) line of longitude that separates things further south. Instead of NW or NE, the streets are simply prefixed "N". Looking at a map, it appears the dividing street is N Williams Ave.
Baseline and Burnside represent the same division point throughout the metro area. The difference is Baseline in Hillsboro directly matches up with Stark St in Portland, so Burnside's a quartermile off from the Township and Range lines.
Within the Portland Metro Area, there are several street grids, all overlapping onto Portland's.
Portland's are, of course, Baseline through Hillsboro and Burnside St through Portland, with the division line consistent through Beaverton and onto Burnside's beginning on SW Barnes Rd, and east of 187th Ave in Rockwood, Gresham to the Multnomah/Hood River County line, though Corbett will generally use the "E" prefix over "NE" or "SE".
The Willamette River acts as the following:
NW and N (Kelly Point Park to Steel Bridge)
NW and NE (Steel Bridge to Burnside Bridge)
SW and SE (Burnside Bridge to Clackamas River)
SW and S (Clackamas River toward Wilsonville)
Williams Ave splits N and NE from the Steel Bridge to the Columbia River
The Clackamas River splits SE and S. 'South Portland' isn't in Portland, but functions as the metro's 6th 'quadrant', encompassing areas outside of Oregon City, which uses its own grid.
As mentioned, Hillsboro overlaps. So does Gresham. Vancouver's avenues semi-function as an extension of Portland's (Portland's 162nd Ave roughly correspond's to Vancouver's 164th Ave), and Vancouver follows a similar baseline system. All three use a NW-NE-SE-SW grid.
Quote from: odditude on July 29, 2015, 06:52:32 PM
Philadelphia: Market St divides the northern and southern halves.
For all intents and purposes, there is no SE quadrant; the centerline is effectively the Delaware River below roughly the 500 block of N Front St, then N Front St until the 1000 block, Frankford Ave up to roughly the 1800 block, and then N Front St again the rest of the way.
Also in the NW part of the city is a completely separate grid with Germantown Av as the centerline of the E/W streets up there. There is no N/S divider but Windrim Av. is the southern end of that grid. I'm pretty sure the Northwest has a different grid as a holdover from when it was a pair of townships outside the city proper and there was no real way to integrate it into the main grid when the county merged with the city.
I wanted to start a similar thread about base line and non baseline streets but have the N-S-E-W direction headers in the name. However this comes close and most is said of what I anticipated of discussion of if I did it.
Glad to be hearing someone and others discuss this as I find numbering much easier to find doing it this way. Heck look at Chicago.
Quote from: Bickendan on July 29, 2015, 11:46:29 PM
Quote from: Ace10 on July 29, 2015, 05:50:36 PM
Not sure if Hillsboro, Oregon is above the 100,000 people mark (I should know this because they post population numbers on signs when entering the city) but there is an actual Baseline Rd that separates north and south - at least west of Cornelius Pass Rd. East of there, Baseline curves a little further south and then continues heading east, and there are SW streets on both sides, even though Baseline itself is always W Baseline, never SW Baseline - at least if you trust Bing Maps. Out in the field I haven't paid much attention.
Burnside St in Portland, Oregon separates north and south, and that's pretty much maintained until you hit Barnes Rd and Skyline Blvd to the west, and at the point where it starts curving southeast at E 181st Ave, if you draw a line heading due east from that point, that line continues separating north from south all the way east to about SE 242nd Dr, but by then you're in a different city.
West and east are divided by the Willamette River, though that's not really a road you can drive down. Things get hairy in North Portland when the river starts curving northwest, and leads to a "fifth quadrant" where the streets are east of the river, but west of the (defined?) line of longitude that separates things further south. Instead of NW or NE, the streets are simply prefixed "N". Looking at a map, it appears the dividing street is N Williams Ave.
Baseline and Burnside represent the same division point throughout the metro area. The difference is Baseline in Hillsboro directly matches up with Stark St in Portland, so Burnside's a quartermile off from the Township and Range lines.
Within the Portland Metro Area, there are several street grids, all overlapping onto Portland's.
Portland's are, of course, Baseline through Hillsboro and Burnside St through Portland, with the division line consistent through Beaverton and onto Burnside's beginning on SW Barnes Rd, and east of 187th Ave in Rockwood, Gresham to the Multnomah/Hood River County line, though Corbett will generally use the "E" prefix over "NE" or "SE".
The Willamette River acts as the following:
NW and N (Kelly Point Park to Steel Bridge)
NW and NE (Steel Bridge to Burnside Bridge)
SW and SE (Burnside Bridge to Clackamas River)
SW and S (Clackamas River toward Wilsonville)
Williams Ave splits N and NE from the Steel Bridge to the Columbia River
The Clackamas River splits SE and S. 'South Portland' isn't in Portland, but functions as the metro's 6th 'quadrant', encompassing areas outside of Oregon City, which uses its own grid.
As mentioned, Hillsboro overlaps. So does Gresham. Vancouver's avenues semi-function as an extension of Portland's (Portland's 162nd Ave roughly correspond's to Vancouver's 164th Ave), and Vancouver follows a similar baseline system. All three use a NW-NE-SE-SW grid.
Don't forget that there are segments of SW Portland, that actually encroach past the defacto division between E and W, and they continue to be SW, but have zeros prepended to their addresses.
AKRON, OH:
Market Street (SR-18) is the N/S divider, although that road runs primarily NW to SE. Main Street/State Road (in Cuyahoga Falls) splits Akron East & West.
CLEVELAND, OH:
Cleveland is trickier as it uses an imaginary line dividing most of East vs. West Cleveland and the numbered North-South running streets. The exceptions being Ontario Street in part of the downtown area and Broadview Road (SR-176), a few blocks south of Ridgewood Drive. By and large, most Clevelanders just refer to the winding Cuyahoga River as the "official" East/West division. For the most part, the Lake Erie Shoreline is where the N/S streets start at zero and get larger inland.
Quote from: TEG24601 on July 30, 2015, 02:39:18 PM
Quote from: Bickendan on July 29, 2015, 11:46:29 PM
Quote from: Ace10 on July 29, 2015, 05:50:36 PM
Not sure if Hillsboro, Oregon is above the 100,000 people mark (I should know this because they post population numbers on signs when entering the city) but there is an actual Baseline Rd that separates north and south - at least west of Cornelius Pass Rd. East of there, Baseline curves a little further south and then continues heading east, and there are SW streets on both sides, even though Baseline itself is always W Baseline, never SW Baseline - at least if you trust Bing Maps. Out in the field I haven't paid much attention.
Burnside St in Portland, Oregon separates north and south, and that's pretty much maintained until you hit Barnes Rd and Skyline Blvd to the west, and at the point where it starts curving southeast at E 181st Ave, if you draw a line heading due east from that point, that line continues separating north from south all the way east to about SE 242nd Dr, but by then you're in a different city.
West and east are divided by the Willamette River, though that's not really a road you can drive down. Things get hairy in North Portland when the river starts curving northwest, and leads to a "fifth quadrant" where the streets are east of the river, but west of the (defined?) line of longitude that separates things further south. Instead of NW or NE, the streets are simply prefixed "N". Looking at a map, it appears the dividing street is N Williams Ave.
Baseline and Burnside represent the same division point throughout the metro area. The difference is Baseline in Hillsboro directly matches up with Stark St in Portland, so Burnside's a quartermile off from the Township and Range lines.
Within the Portland Metro Area, there are several street grids, all overlapping onto Portland's.
Portland's are, of course, Baseline through Hillsboro and Burnside St through Portland, with the division line consistent through Beaverton and onto Burnside's beginning on SW Barnes Rd, and east of 187th Ave in Rockwood, Gresham to the Multnomah/Hood River County line, though Corbett will generally use the "E" prefix over "NE" or "SE".
The Willamette River acts as the following:
NW and N (Kelly Point Park to Steel Bridge)
NW and NE (Steel Bridge to Burnside Bridge)
SW and SE (Burnside Bridge to Clackamas River)
SW and S (Clackamas River toward Wilsonville)
Williams Ave splits N and NE from the Steel Bridge to the Columbia River
The Clackamas River splits SE and S. 'South Portland' isn't in Portland, but functions as the metro's 6th 'quadrant', encompassing areas outside of Oregon City, which uses its own grid.
As mentioned, Hillsboro overlaps. So does Gresham. Vancouver's avenues semi-function as an extension of Portland's (Portland's 162nd Ave roughly correspond's to Vancouver's 164th Ave), and Vancouver follows a similar baseline system. All three use a NW-NE-SE-SW grid.
Don't forget that there are segments of SW Portland, that actually encroach past the defacto division between E and W, and they continue to be SW, but have zeros prepended to their addresses.
For those, SW Water Ave is the baseline.
Omaha is interesting for a couple reasons. The N-S divider is Dodge Street up to 84th Street. People think since W. Dodge Road is just the continuation of Dodge Street that the number system should do likewise, but its not so. There are street addresses south of W. Dodge Road with a North address. As for E-W, many assume its the Missouri River, which is silly, since its not straight. There's a 1st Street, but its a minor street. As far as I can tell, the numbered N-S streets with East at the end in the general vicinity of Eppley Airfield are based off of Carter Lake, Iowa's grid.
Lincoln's N-S divider is O Street, which Alan Ginsberg mistakenly called Zero Street. Lincoln has a 1st Street as its E-W divider, but everything west of there is either NW or SW.
Oddly enough, both the Omaha and Lincoln street grids exist in Cass County, Nebraska. East of Highway 50 is Omaha's grid, while Lincoln's is to the west.
Davenport, IA: The origin is the corner of River and Brady, right downtown, and the axes are imaginary lines headed in all four cardinal directions. It's pretty simple, until you take into consideration that both origin streets curve. Further west, the N-S divider is 1st Street (imagine that), and Fair Avenue is the E-W divider when Brady curves out of the way.
Cedar Rapids, IA: This is a fun one. There are four quadrants, separated by 1st Avenue and the Cedar River. Avenues run parallel to 1st Avenue and streets run perpendicular, for the most part. There are a few instances where the suffix "Drive" is attached to the end of a street name (29th St Dr SE, Wilson Ave Dr SW, etc.). This is to prevent duplicate addresses, either due to a street name popping up in two different grids (one parallel to 1st, one aligned with the compass), or to account for extra distance because of the curvature of the Cedar River.
Peoria, IL: Downtown streets run along the Illinois River at a 45-degree angle (give or take), and the NE-SW divider is Main St. (only NE-SW streets have suffixes; address for cross streets simply increase from the river). In the rest of the city, streets follow the compass. The N-S divider is Aiken Ave, and the E-W divider is Knoxville Ave.
Flint, Michigan is a bit strange in this regard.
The N/S division is nominally the Flint River, E/W is Saginaw St/MLK JR. Blvd.
However, roads that do not cross one of the division lines, have no direction information. Additionally, numerical roadways north of the Flint River are all avenues, and south are all streets.
In Huntsville, AL, the postal addresses are divided E/W with a line that runs along Meridian St.-Whitesburg Dr.-Memorial Parkway and N/S with a line that runs along I-565-Governors Dr.-Clinton Ave. as far as I'm aware.
For what most people use to divide the city when referring to places, E/W is divided by Memorial Parkway and N/S is divided by I-565.
Duluth's zero-point technically is Lake Avenue (NW-SE) and Michigan Street (SW-NE), but those two no longer intersect because of I-35. Lake now crosses Michigan on an overpass because of its interchange with I-35 immediately adjacent to Michigan.
St. Paul: Has a bizarre street grid conforming to the river. Zero point appears to be Kellogg Blvd (E-W) and Wabasha St (N-S).
Phoenix, AZ, most of its suburbs, and most unincorporated parts of Maricopa County use Central Avenue as the east/west divider and Washington Street to divide north/south. The suburb of Tempe (home of ASU) uses its own grid, with Mill Avenue (partially former US 60) dividing east/west, and Rio Salado Parkway dividing north/south. The suburb of Mesa uses its own grid, with Main Street (former US 60) dividing north/south and Center Street dividing east/west. Main Street continues east as Apache Trail into Apache Junction where it serves as part of that city's north/south dividing line. Interestingly, all 4 cities have a Baseline Road which does not serve as a divider, but instead received the name because it runs along the primary baseline for the PLSS in Arizona.
In addition to Philadelphia as was mentioned, Market Street is a popular zero point across several Pennsylvania cities: Wilkes-Barre, Harrisburg, York, Williamsport, and many smaller cities and boroughs.
Alexandria, Va., has multiple systems within city limits. In Old Town, numbers go north and south from King Street and west (only) from the waterfront. In Del Ray, numbers go east and west from Commonwealth Avenue (which, conveniently, does not run straight) and north (only) from King Street. In the West End, numbers go north and south from Duke Street; numbers on east-west streets continue Old Town's system. Areas outside of city limits, but still within the Alexandria postal area, use Fairfax County's system.
Off the cuff, I'd say Salt Lake City's address grid (the ubiquitous "Mormon Grid" in the Intermountain West) is centered around Main and South Temple, but you have the issue with the Avenues and areas up the hills which have their own addresses. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
I usually say that if you give me an address in Salt Lake or any other Utah or Idaho town, I can get to it practically without a map. I may not take the fastest way, but because of how they addresses are essentially coordinates, I'll get there across the grid somehow.
Quote from: Duke87 on July 29, 2015, 10:32:42 PM
Going north-south in Manhattan, addresses increase by roughly (not exactly) 100 every 5 blocks, but there is no baseline. Zero is wherever the avenue begins. 875 3rd Ave, 599 Lexington Ave, 373 Park Ave, 509 Madison Ave, and 665 5th Ave are all in line with each other along 53rd Street. Have fun!
I wonder where 123 Sesame Street would be.
In South Bend, Washington Street divides north from south. The east-west divider is Michigan Street. That's odd, considering that Main Street parallels Michigan, just a block to the west. I've got no idea why it's done that way.
Quote from: odditude on July 29, 2015, 06:52:32 PM
Philadelphia: Market St divides the northern and southern halves.
For all intents and purposes, there is no SE quadrant; the centerline is effectively the Delaware River below roughly the 500 block of N Front St, then N Front St until the 1000 block, Frankford Ave up to roughly the 1800 block, and then N Front St again the rest of the way.
This is enhanced by the fact that the river is also the north/south zero point in Camden on the other side (with Federal Street the east/west zero point)
Quote from: bandit957 on July 31, 2015, 11:11:25 AM
I wonder where 123 Sesame Street would be.
If I knew, I'd tell you how to get there. :bigass:
Tucson, Arizona has Congress St as the north/south divider and Stone Ave as the east/west divider. However, Broadway Blvd is the north/south divider east of downtown, and 6th Ave is the east/west divider south of downtown.
Quote from: theline on July 31, 2015, 07:21:02 PM
In South Bend, Washington Street divides north from south. The east-west divider is Michigan Street. That's odd, considering that Main Street parallels Michigan, just a block to the west. I've got no idea why it's done that way.
I would guess this has to do with Michigan Street being the major north-south road through the center of South Bend, at one time being US 31. Michigan Street is the main street through several communities along that corridor through that part of the state.
As for another example, Indianapolis has the two main baselines of Meridian Street (to separate east and west) and Washington (to separate north and south.) Washington ceases being the baseline on the westside at the spot where Rockville Road turns off and heads off west to become the baseline heading west to Hendricks County. I imagine some people would erroneously presume that Monument Circle (the de facto center of town) is the point where the two baselines meet but that intersection is one block to the south.
Hamilton County to the north of Indianapolis continues the Marion County address system, which means that there is no north-south divider. With the exception of street grids in some of the communities like Carmel and Noblesville (and only in the center of those communities) there are no streets that has a "South" in the address. The US 31 (almost) freeway serves as the east-west divider up to the point where it curves north of Main Street, at which point the east-west divider is an invisible line heading north to the edge of the county. AFAIK there is no street that separates east and west north of there.
A couple of other communities with populations over 70,000 with baselines. Muncie has Walnut Street (east/west divider) and Main Street (Jackson Street/SR 32 one block to the south serves as the unofficial north/south divider.) Bloomington has Walnut Street (east/west divider) and Kirkwood Avenue (north/south divider.) As with the Muncie example, 3rd Street (two blocks south of Kirkwood) serves as the unofficial north/south divider and in both examples the county courthouse is located at the junction of the two baselines but that's probably very common anywhere.
Quote from: vtk on July 29, 2015, 08:02:45 PM
Columbus (and the rest of Franklin County excluding a few of the suburbs) uses Broad St and High St as the axes of its address grid. Downtown, the grid is rotated about ten degrees or so counter-clockwise; outside of downtown, High St continues this approximate angle towards Delaware and Circleville, and Broad St roughly continues its angle towards Newark, but the rest of the streets generally don't continue the downtown orientation. Even numbers are always on the east and north sides of the streets. The numbers progress at about 700 per mile, which doesn't correlate with counting blocks at all, but culminates at approximately 9000 (varying quite a bit) at the county perimeter. I think this system extends a bit into Delaware County within the City Of Columbus, at least near the Polaris mall.
Pickaway county continues it going south, getting up around 31000 in the SE corner. E-W it uses the Scioto as a weird, meandering baseline that doesn't exactly work.
Edit: my mother was a planning engineer for Ohio Bell/Ameritech/AT&T, she told me long ago that for any given side of a street, the address increases every 15 feet. That works out to 704 per mile, so you're bang on.
For Los Angeles, First Street is the N-S divider and Main Street is the E-W divider. This is the main zero point for all of LA county, but some cities (and even some cities that are now part of LA like Venice and San Pedro) have their own address system.
As you go north along Main Street, when you cross the LA river, Pasadena Avenue and then Figueroa Street becomes the E-W divider.
As you go west, First Street is the N-S divider. For part of the Westlake area the divider is Beverly Blvd. Between La Cienega and Beverly Hills, there is no first street, it is known as Gracie Allen drive or Alden Drive. These are relatively minor streets. In Beverly Hills, Wilshire is the N-S divider. West of Beverly Hills, Sunset Blvd is the N-S divider.
This leads to a lot of confusion for some streets on the east side of Beverly Hills:
Swall Drive has its northern end at Beverly Blvd in West Hollywood, which follows LA numbering. North Swall is separated from South Swall at Alden Drive. Then, numbers continue going south until Burton Way. Now you cross into Beverly Hills on North Swall Drive again, until you hit Wilshire and then you're on South Swall again. When you leave Beverly Hills at Whitworth, the numbers jump from 400 south block (Beverly Hills) to 1100 south block (the numbering if it was consistent from Alden). Swall ends one block later at Pico.
Quote from: Duke87 on July 29, 2015, 10:32:42 PM
Ha. All you people out there in Murica talking about baselines. Come to the northeast some time. We don't do that shit up here. :P
Almost all streets in the northeast curve. A lot. There are many attempts out there of imposing an address grid on things (just look at Queens) but all of them are haphazard at best.
The typical method of determining addresses in this part of the world is simply to start from the beginning of the street, and count up by some standard increment. Stamford CT, for example, assumes 25 foot wide lots, so if you take your house number and multiply by 12.5, you can will get the distance in feet from the beginning of the road to the spot on the road that lines up with your front door.
And this is pretty accurate - CT 104 runs entirely along Long Ridge Road, the first address on the part of the road that is state maintained is 60 and the last is 2916. Subtract the two, multiply by 12.5, divide by 5280, and you get 6.76 miles. The official length of CT 104? 6.82 miles. We can assume the dangling 0.06 miles are accounted for by the distances from the first and last front doors to the ends of the route.
Anyways, for a more major city... in Manhattan, 5th Ave is the divider between east and west, and on crosstown streets the addresses increase by 100 every block. Except Madison and Lexington don't count as blocks, so 100 E. XXth St is at Park Ave (which once was called 4th Ave), and 200 E. XXth St is at 3rd Ave. Also, from 59th St through 110th St, everything west of Central park is shifted down by 300, because the addresses start counting from Central Park West (which is an extension of 8th Ave) rather than 5th.
In The Bronx, Jerome Ave serves as the dividing line, since it spans the height of the borough and roughly lines up with 5th Ave. But since the streets are not straight or in a consistent grid, and addresses count by length along the street rather than coordinates... while you can generally say that numbers get bigger as you head further away from Jerome, it's VERY approximate.
Going north-south in Manhattan, addresses increase by roughly (not exactly) 100 every 5 blocks, but there is no baseline. Zero is wherever the avenue begins. 875 3rd Ave, 599 Lexington Ave, 373 Park Ave, 509 Madison Ave, and 665 5th Ave are all in line with each other along 53rd Street. Have fun!
Yes, the addresses in Manhattan are complicated that way.
AAA and a number of other guide books have a system printed, get your calculators :hmmm:
If you have an address on a major N-S avenue and want to know the (approximate) cross street do the following:
A) cancel the last figure of the address
B) divide by 2
C) Add KEY number
Ave A, B, C, D (Key Number =3)
1st Ave & 2nd Ave (3)
3rd Ave (10)
4th Ave (8)
5th Ave:
1-200 (13)
201-400 (16)
401-600 (18)
601-775 (20)
776-1286 (skip step B and use -18 as key number)
6th Ave (key number = -12)
7th Ave:
1-1800 (12)
Above 1800 (20)
8th Ave (9)
9th Ave (13)
10th Ave (13)
11th Ave (15)
Amsterdam (59)
Columbus (59)
Lexington (22)
Madison (27)
Park Ave (34) [note: not Park Ave South]
West End (59)
Broadway:
1-754 are below the numbered streets
754-858 (-29)
858-958 (-25)
Above 1000 (-31)
For CPW and Riverside the computation is different, divide the address by 10 and then add the key number:
CPW (60)
Riverside Dr:
1-567 (73)
Above 567 (78)
Platteville's grid system centers N-S on Main Street, E-W on 4th St/Rountree Ave. The grid's far from perfect so there lots of twisting. Streets that continue beyond the city limits into the town acquire the county grid.
Santa Clarita, CA uses Los Angeles County's numbering scheme centered on 1st & Main in Downtown LA as mrsman's post (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=16093.msg2083228#msg2083228) describes. Even prior to the city's incorproration in 1987, Valencia, Saugus, Canyon Country and Newhall used the county grid.
In San Francisco, Market Street is the natural choice for baseline for the traditional downtown grid and the South of Market grid (but not necessarily the Potrero Hill/Dogpatch/Mission numbered streets, whose starting points are not consistent but tend to begin from 3rd Street westward); the Embarcadero also serves as a baseline for streets heading southwest from the bay (Market, Mission etc.). Lake Street serves as the first block going southbound for the numbered avenues (as the northernmost east-west street in the Richmond district).
Quote from: theline on July 31, 2015, 07:21:02 PM
In South Bend, Washington Street divides north from south. The east-west divider is Michigan Street. That's odd, considering that Main Street parallels Michigan, just a block to the west. I've got no idea why it's done that way.
Michigan Street was the original routing of the old Michigan Road, Dixie Highway and US 31. That made it the logical choice to be the E/W divider.
Washington street is a much less logical choice. Colfax Ave is longer, has a bridge over the river, and used to carry US 20, so it would have made more sense as the N/S divider.
In Louisville, the E/W divider is First Street. The N/S divider is Main Street, which jogs and becomes Mellwood Avenue. East of Mellwood's intersection with Frankfort Avenue, Frankfort takes over as the N/S divider.
With Louisville being a river city, the directions N/S/E/W should all be taken with a grain of salt. Even the section of the city that is on a grid is tilted 10 or so degrees from following the true directions.
Across the river in Jeffersonville, there is no N/S division. Building numbers count up from the river. Spring Street/Hamburg Pike is the E/W division, though only a very tiny sliver of the city is actually west of Spring/Hamburg.
The city of Kalamazoo's E/W dividing line is Burdick Street while the rest of the county's E/W divider is Westnedge Avenue. The county's N/S dividing line is the line where Michigan Avenue runs downtown. The city of Portage does not have its own grid as it probably just kept the county's system when it incorporated as a city in 1963 (all N/S addresses are a continuation from Kalamazoo). As for the other cities and villages in the county, Galesburg, Parchment, Schoolcraft, and Vicksburg all have their own address grids while Richland does not.
Quote from: cabiness42 on August 04, 2015, 03:42:18 PM
Quote from: theline on July 31, 2015, 07:21:02 PM
In South Bend, Washington Street divides north from south. The east-west divider is Michigan Street. That's odd, considering that Main Street parallels Michigan, just a block to the west. I've got no idea why it's done that way.
Michigan Street was the original routing of the old Michigan Road, Dixie Highway and US 31. That made it the logical choice to be the E/W divider.
Washington street is a much less logical choice. Colfax Ave is longer, has a bridge over the river, and used to carry US 20, so it would have made more sense as the N/S divider.
I just meant that one might think that the street called Main Street would be the logical candidate as a baseline road. Of course, Michigan Street was the historic location of the Michigan Road and then US 31, which makes it a good choice as the baseline. Through much of the downtown area US 31 was removed from Michigan Street when it was transformed into a pedestrian plaza in the 1960s. NB 31 was routed on St. Joseph Street and SB on Main Street. Later, 31 was rerouted around the city on the St. Joseph Valley Parkway, though the city route remains signed as Business Route 31. Even when the plaza was reopened to vehicles, BR 31 and SR 931 remained on St. Joseph and Main Streets.
Washington Street was a logical choice as the other baseline since it passes right by St. Joseph County Courthouse. It was at the historic center of the city. It also passes right in front of Tippecanoe Place, the Studebaker mansion.
Quote from: theline on August 05, 2015, 07:13:08 PM
Quote from: cabiness42 on August 04, 2015, 03:42:18 PM
Quote from: theline on July 31, 2015, 07:21:02 PM
In South Bend, Washington Street divides north from south. The east-west divider is Michigan Street. That's odd, considering that Main Street parallels Michigan, just a block to the west. I've got no idea why it's done that way.
Michigan Street was the original routing of the old Michigan Road, Dixie Highway and US 31. That made it the logical choice to be the E/W divider.
Washington street is a much less logical choice. Colfax Ave is longer, has a bridge over the river, and used to carry US 20, so it would have made more sense as the N/S divider.
I just meant that one might think that the street called Main Street would be the logical candidate as a baseline road. Of course, Michigan Street was the historic location of the Michigan Road and then US 31, which makes it a good choice as the baseline. Through much of the downtown area US 31 was removed from Michigan Street when it was transformed into a pedestrian plaza in the 1960s. NB 31 was routed on St. Joseph Street and SB on Main Street. Later, 31 was rerouted around the city on the St. Joseph Valley Parkway, though the city route remains signed as Business Route 31. Even when the plaza was reopened to vehicles, BR 31 and SR 931 remained on St. Joseph and Main Streets.
Washington Street was a logical choice as the other baseline since it passes right by St. Joseph County Courthouse. It was at the historic center of the city. It also passes right in front of Tippecanoe Place, the Studebaker mansion.
interesting, i always wondered why there was a weird jog there.
Indianapolis is pretty simple, Meridian street is the E/W divider, and Washington st is the N/S, until it crosses Rockville road and it takes over. In hamilton county it follows the same grid as indy so there's no south direction, only e/w and the east west divider gets weird when 31 turns to meet keystone parkway.
In my hometown (Beauharnois), house numbers progress from the northwest corner of the city limits.
My current city, Longueuil, uses Chemin de Chambly as its E/W baseline, with no N/S baseline. Chemin de Chambly is a de-facto N-S road despite physically being E-W (in fact, our entire logical grid is almost 90° off, as weird as it sounds) because settlers used the St. Lawrence River as the E-W reference.
In Montreal, the E/W baseline is St. Laurent Blvd and there's no N/S division. The logical cardinal points are also off for the reason cited above.
Little Rock has a Baseline Road, but that has nothing to to with the numbering system. It refers to the baseline of the state survey system running east-west.
Quote from: rawmustard on August 04, 2015, 04:24:17 PM
The city of Kalamazoo's E/W dividing line is Burdick Street while the rest of the county's E/W divider is Westnedge Avenue. The county's N/S dividing line is the line where Michigan Avenue runs downtown. The city of Portage does not have its own grid as it probably just kept the county's system when it incorporated as a city in 1963 (all N/S addresses are a continuation from Kalamazoo). As for the other cities and villages in the county, Galesburg, Parchment, Schoolcraft, and Vicksburg all have their own address grids while Richland does not.
You know, as someone who lives in Kalamazoo, I've wondered why the northernmost city address numbers end at 4200 instead of 4999 to match up with the 5000 block being "G" Avenue. I wonder why the gap of 800 numbers. I know in Kalamazoo County there are approximately 1000 numbers per mile (lettered avenues and even numbered streets.
Quote from: Road Hog on August 06, 2015, 08:55:50 PM
Little Rock has a Baseline Road, but that has nothing to to with the numbering system. It refers to the baseline of the state survey system running east-west.
San Bernardino, CA also has a similar Baseline Rd. It extends quite a bit west into LA County and is a fairly main street in the northern Pomona area (La Verne).
Baseline streets in Toledo, Ohio (and Lucas County in general) depend on where you are in town.
If you are downtown, where the streets are angled because of the Maumee River, the N-S baseline is Washington Street and the E-W baseline would be the Maumee River. Away from downtown, the grid "straightens" out. On the west side of the River the N-S baseline is Hill Avenue. On the east side of the River, the N-S baseline is Seaman Street. The E-W baseline for all Lucas County is Franklin Avenue, Crabb Road and Telegraph Road. The E-W baseline continues into Monroe County, Michigan up Crabb Road and Geiger Road to Morrocco Road, which is approximately 7-1/2 miles north of the Ohio/Michigan state line.
In El Paso, Oregon Street divides E-W while San Antonio Avenue then Alameda Avenue divides N-S.
These two streets intersect in Downtown. Because of the historic center's proximity to the International Border, there are a LOT more N and E than S or W. As a result, addresses under about 1100 are typically the only ones that use directions to avoid ambiguity. E.g., there is a 1100 Block of North Stanton Street and a 1100 Block of South Stanton Street. However, the 1200 block of South Stanton would be in Mexico. There's an 1100 Block of East Schuster Avenue and West Schuster Avenue; While the 1200 Block of East Schuster is in the city, the 1200 block of West Schuster would be in Mexico.
Replies for Nevada:
RENO:
*E/W division: Virginia Street (old US 395). (Exception: Sun Valley area uses Sun Valley Blvd/SR 443 as division)
*N/S division: the Truckee River.
SPARKS:
*E/W division: Stanford Way, and it's northerly extension ("W" designator is left off in most cases, despite amount of city on either side)
*N/S division: approximately I-80 ("N" designator is left off, since most of Sparks lies above the north baseline).
Major exception: McCarran Blvd/SR 659 is divided into north and south by I-80, with numbers starting at the east I-80 interchange and increasing around the loop in both directions (and it gets a little muddled on N McCarran in Reno).
HENDERSON:
*E/W division, from south to north: Horizon Ridge Pkwy / Pacific Ave / Water St > Boulder Highway (SR 582 & Old US 93/95).
*N/S division, from east to west: Drake St / ? / Lake Mead Pkwy (SR 564) > I-215
(Note: There are some overlaps from the greater Las Vegas numbering system within the City of Henderson.)
LAS VEGAS / NORTH LAS VEGAS / UNINCORPORATED CLARK COUNTY TOWNSHIPS (in the Las Vegas valley):
*E/W division, from east to west: Charleston Blvd > Fremont St (old US 93/95) > US 95 freeway > Westcliff Dr > western extension of Westcliff Dr alignment.
*N/S division, from south to north: Las Vegas Blvd (old US 91) > Main St (old US 91/US 91A) > Goldfield St or the alignment thereof (where the street does not exist).
I haven't been able to explain the origins of some of the oddities in Henderson's street numbering grid, especially in old Henderson near the downtown/government facilities. However, the Las Vegas grid has somewhat of a historical explanation. The origin point is at Main & Fremont streets, which is on the original Las Vegas townsite grid that was laid out parallel to the railroad tracks (a north/south line that is probably 20° askew from true north/south). Only the downtown core streets are laid out this way; the remainder of Las Vegas is on the PLSS grid/section lines, which causes a jog to reconcile between the two systems.
Reconciling the N/S boundary to the east is somewhat interesting. Due to the numbering that was adopted, there is a considerable skip in block numbers when crossing E Charleston Blvd: from S 1100 to N 00. Reconciling to the west is easier, since US 95 and Westcliff Drive follow what was originally the W Fremont St alignment. Still unexplained is how Goldfield St was chosen as the E/W boundary to the north, as it's a relatively minor street and is not continuous--North 5th St would have made a better choice, as it is a more major road and is much more continuous.
Apologies for bumping the thread; when I saw this, I thought of something that I wanted to post, and I figured that it would be better to put it on an existing thread rather than starting a new one.
Anyway, with that out of the way, here's what I wanted to post: the baselines for my city - Kansas City.
The east-west baseline in KCMO is Main Street - until 85th Street, that is. South of there, it's mainly an imaginary line until Red Bridge Road (equivalent to 111th Street), where Wornall Road assumes that role, realigning itself after deviating slightly eastward just south of I-435. It continues south along Wornall to its end at 135th Street in Martin City; south of there, it follows an imaginary line once more.
The north-south baseline is rather varied - starting out in the River Market area near downtown (that is, the original "Town of Kansas" townsite), it simply follows the Missouri River. However, just east of downtown, the river swings to the north, and in the Historic Northeast neighborhood east of the Paseo, the baseline follows St. John Avenue, with cross-streets to the north having a "North" prefix like you would see in the Northland. (Interestingly, those streets in Historic Northeast don't have a "zero block" as is the case on the first block east or west of Main on the numbered streets; rather, the first block north or south of St. John is numbered 100.) The eastern limit of Historic Northeast is Belmont Boulevard; east of there, the north-south baseline is largely an imaginary line, aside from occasional sections where it hitches a ride on whatever roads might run in the area, such as Kentucky Road in Sugar Creek and Salisbury Road in east Independence.
On the Kansas side, Johnson County just extends the main KC grid westward, but Wyandotte County (KCK) has its own grid. In that county, numbered streets run north-south instead of east-west; the baseline for those is simply the Missouri line. As for the north-south divider, it follows Central Avenue (even though the street itself runs at an angle) until 18th Street, and then Riverview Avenue and Park Drive up to 38th Street. From 38th to 57th, the north-south baseline happens to align with the Kansas River (as well as Kaw Drive, which runs parallel); west of there, the river swings southward and the baseline continues along an imaginary line just south of I-70.
Quote from: Rothman on July 31, 2015, 08:53:06 AM
Off the cuff, I'd say Salt Lake City's address grid (the ubiquitous "Mormon Grid" in the Intermountain West) is centered around Main and South Temple, but you have the issue with the Avenues and areas up the hills which have their own addresses. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
The entire county uses the same address grid - even the Avenues and up in the mountains.
I should note, though, that there is a slight offset to all Avenues addresses. A Street is addressed as 200 East (despite lining up with something more like 275 East on the other side of South Temple). After that, each successive street is addressed 50 units further east (so B is 250, C is 300, etc.) - but the length of an Avenues block is still a little more than half a downtown block, so the discrepancy starts to add up even more. By the time you get to the other end of the neighborhood, you're at U Street, which is addressed as 1200 East but lines up with something even greater than 1300.
Most towns in Utah are centered around the intersection of a Main and Center Street, but you'll often see one of those replaced with something like State Street or perhaps something more local. The Utah GIS people have actually put together a whole list of every address grid origin in the state (https://gis.utah.gov/data/address/address-grids/).
This would be kinda hard to do for Houston I think just because of how big it is and how there are multiple major districts. Inside the loop, I'd say the two would be main and Richmond/wheeler. Or maybe weetheimer/Elgin.
For the entire city, Westheimer for sure for E-W. And main/shepherd for n-s maybe. That's using downtown ish as the centerpoint.
Now for the west side which is the more heavily developed and populated side, it's definitely Westheimer for E-W and Gessner for N-S
For the east side where I am, Harrisburg for E-W and Lockwood for N-S.
Quote from: US 89 on July 21, 2021, 11:37:04 PM
Quote from: Rothman on July 31, 2015, 08:53:06 AM
Off the cuff, I'd say Salt Lake City's address grid (the ubiquitous "Mormon Grid" in the Intermountain West) is centered around Main and South Temple, but you have the issue with the Avenues and areas up the hills which have their own addresses. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
The entire county uses the same address grid - even the Avenues and up in the mountains.
I should note, though, that there is a slight offset to all Avenues addresses. A Street is addressed as 200 East (despite lining up with something more like 275 East on the other side of South Temple). After that, each successive street is addressed 50 units further east (so B is 250, C is 300, etc.) - but the length of an Avenues block is still a little more than half a downtown block, so the discrepancy starts to add up even more. By the time you get to the other end of the neighborhood, you're at U Street, which is addressed as 1200 East but lines up with something even greater than 1300.
Most towns in Utah are centered around the intersection of a Main and Center Street, but you'll often see one of those replaced with something like State Street or perhaps something more local. The Utah GIS people have actually put together a whole list of every address grid origin in the state (https://gis.utah.gov/data/address/address-grids/).
Heh. Took you long enough to clarify. :D
I've moved since I last posted in this thread. In my current town, there is no E/W and everything just counts up from the state line so that makes State Line Ave the baseline. There is also no N/S and numbers are just an extension southward from Hammond, which is an extension of Chicago but subtracting 10000.
So I guess if you really think about it, the central point for address numbering for both Munster and Hammond is a point out in Lake Michigan where the state line is on the same latitude as 100th Street.
Madison: Gorham/Johnson/East Washington on the east, Park Street on the south, Campus Drive/University Ave on the west, and maybe WI-113 on the north.
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 29, 2015, 07:10:03 AM
What the names of the streets that form the baselines in your city? These are the axes that serve as the zero points for addressing and probably also serve to divide the city into quadrants. Where these two streets intersect, the buildings on the corners could all theoretically have the address 1.
I'd like to limit this to larger cities so we can learn something that might come in handy about the US's major cities, so if you live in a town of less than about 100,000 please pick the nearest large city. Knowing this fact about Wichita, KS might be useful some day, but learning Wellington, KS's street grid probably won't be.
In Oklahoma City, these streets are Reno Avenue (east-west) and Santa Fe Avenue (north-south).
Regarding Wichita, KS: The baseline dividing north from south is Douglas. That's handy to know, but it only tells half the story. The annoying part is that there's no zero-hundred block, yet the numbered streets pretend there is. That is to say, 13th Street is the 1400 line, 21st Street is the 2200 line, 37th Street is the 3800 line, and so forth. It drives me batty, for example, that 1350 N Hillside is half a block
south of 13th Street.
Regarding smaller towns: Some of these do have surprises in store. Take a town I used to live in for example: Herrin, IL. The baseline between east and west is Park Avenue. Well, that seems commonsense, considering it's IL-148 through town. But the wacky part is that the numbered streets begin at a theoretical point east of town. In fact, AFAIK, is starts with Third Street on the edge of town. Therefore, the first block west of the "baseline" is 16th Street, and the first block east of the "baseline" is 14th Street. This knowledge comes in handy if, say, someone invites you to their house and their address is 1201 W Something, and you live on 24th Street. Sounds like you might need to drive, but really it's just a block away.
Newark, NJ E-W is briefly Orange St then Market St, which branches off from it. Then east of 1st St it jumps back to Orange St which by then is 5 blocks to the north. Then east of Norfolk St/Clifton Ave there is no longer a baseline street, and numbering is erratic. N-S it's extremely inconsistent, but where there is a baseline street, it's Broad St.
Quote from: kphoger on July 22, 2021, 10:08:12 AM
Regarding Wichita, KS: The baseline dividing north from south is Douglas. That's handy to know, but it only tells half the story. The annoying part is that there's no zero-hundred block, yet the numbered streets pretend there is. That is to say, 13th Street is the 1400 line, 21st Street is the 2200 line, 37th Street is the 3800 line, and so forth. It drives me batty, for example, that 1350 N Hillside is half a block south of 13th Street.
OKC does that too. I don't know why that is.
Quote from: Brandon on July 29, 2015, 05:16:24 PM
Quote from: GaryV on July 29, 2015, 05:10:05 PM
Grand Rapids: Division Ave. (get it?) and Fulton St.
In Detroit, John R divides east from west, even though it runs at a NW angle from downtown out to 6 Mile (McNichols) Rd. I don't even know what divides north from south.
I always assumed Woodward, not John R was the east-west dividing line.
It is from the river to McNichols then it jogs over and John R is the dividing line between McNichols and 8 Mile.
There really isn't a north-south in Detroit. It starts at Cherry Hill in western Wayne County, then east of there it follows the Rouge River, railroad right of way and then the Detroit River. Some suburbs have their own systems but many suburbs use the Detroit system and it goes out far up to 81951 in northern Macomb County.
Addresses on Woodward use the Detroit system in all cities that Woodward travels through.
For St Louis, E-W address start at the Mississippi River. The "Zero Point" for N-S streets seem to be a combination of Market St, Forest Park Ave, Forsyth Blvd, and Ladue Rd, cutting through Forest Park in the middle.
Let's see
For Saginaw, MI the Saginaw River is the E-W dividing line. On the east side of the river the N-S dividing line is E. Genesee Avenue, then Lapeer Street after Lapeer starts. On the west side Court Street is the dividing line. Gratiot also is a dividing line for N-S which is kind of confusing. West of the city Gratiot is the dividing line between N-S.
For Flint, MI the N-S dividing line is the Flint River and Robert T. Longway Blvd. and the E-W dividing line is Saginaw Street south of the river and Martin Luther King north of the river.