Redundant Street Names

[vtk]

Relating to recent posts:

There's a Federal Road south of Springfield, Ohio which is just a county highway that essentially dead ends in the middle of nowhere.  It probably has a sensible history but it's not obvious today.

In the Columbus area we have Lane Avenue, Lane Road, and Parkway Lane.  I think Hardy Parkway Street and (E/W) North Broadway have already been mentioned.

In Easton Town Center, there's a street called The Strand, which does like I-35 and splits into parallel East and West halves.  Obviously a recent attempt at antique naming.

[InterstateNG]

There's a State Road in West Branch, Michigan which is neither a state road nor a county-designed highway.

There are plenty of State Road/Streets out there (Ann Arbor, MI for one), but how is that redundant?

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

Between Cleveland and Wadsworth there is State Rd. In Cuyahoga Co. Oh 94 is State Rd. In Medina Co. State Rd parallels (generally by one block) Oh 94.
East of Cleveland, in Geauga Co. Oh 608 is named Old State Road. What's so old about it, I don't know.
North of Columbus, in Delaware Co. there is another Old State Road. Though in this case, the road was a "state road" back in the 19th Century.
http://www.roadfan.com/strdcohx.html

[roadman65]

Parkway Drive in Clark, NJ.
Broadway Avenue in Kissimmee, FL (unofficial name, but actual with street signs leaving out the avenue)
Vine Street Expressway in Philadelphia, PA.

[Takumi]

There's also a Parkway Drive in Williamsburg. It serves the purpose of connecting the Colonial Parkway to other roads (it was even a state route for awhile, VA 163), so I don't consider that redundant. I don't know about the one in NJ, though.

[huskeroadgeek]

When Lincoln built a new baseball stadium about 10 years ago, the access rd. into the stadium from the main road was cleverly designated as "Line Drive" with  the word "drive" having a dual use. Yet originally when it was built the street signs read "Line Drive St.". Whoever made the signs in the shop must not have caught the dual use of the word "drive". They were later changed and now just read "Line Drive" as originally intended.

[roadman65]

There's also a Parkway Drive in Williamsburg. It serves the purpose of connecting the Colonial Parkway to other roads (it was even a state route for awhile, VA 163), so I don't consider that redundant. I don't know about the one in NJ, though.

Its a drive to the Parkway.

[roadman65]

In Clark, NJ its called that because Union County, NJ established the entire right of way along the Rahway River as the Rahway River Parkway from the Amtrak NE Corridor (defunct PRR) and the Essex County Line. The roadway is in two segments (never completed), but completely along the boundary of this tract of land.

It is one place that the name Parkway is not for a street or road, but to land itself to keep developers off the riverbanks. So in this case the way the name is being used, just like in Williamsburg, is a proper noun, so its not redundant.  However, it uses a name that can be being Parkway and Drive are commonly used as types of roadways.

[tdindy88]

Not sure if it's redundant or not, but on the southwest side of Indianapolis there is a short road that follows a railroad track that's called Railroad Road. If nothing else, it's fun to say.

[roadman65]

Not sure if it's redundant or not, but on the southwest side of Indianapolis there is a short road that follows a railroad track that's called Railroad Road. If nothing else, it's fun to say.

It is fun to say. Nonetheless, its like people saying PIN number or TWA airlines.  Both abbreviations have the accompying word in it already that are and were common misconceptions.

[formulanone]

Not sure if it's redundant or not, but on the southwest side of Indianapolis there is a short road that follows a railroad track that's called Railroad Road. If nothing else, it's fun to say.

Yeah, there's also an Old Railroad Bed Road in Huntsville, Alabama. I suppose as "railroad" is a compound word, it doesn't really count.

[1995hoo]

The Bowery does take the definite article in common usage, even if not signed that way. It's a rare construction in the US (definite article + proper name), where we almost exclusively use proper name + designator (street/road/avenue etc.). It tends to give things an antique or old-world flair, though I'd wager that most current instances are newly fabricated just for that reason. The Bowery is one authentic example, at least.

In this vein, there is a street not far from where I live called "The Parkway." What I find amusing about it is that my Acura's sat-nav, which displays the name of a street without the descriptor (e.g., Duke Street shows up on the sat-nav map as "Duke"), displays that street as "The" unless and until you click the joystick somewhere along it to display an address or get directions. Google Maps displays it as "The Pkwy," which is similar in that it implies that the street is "The." So if you were just looking at the map on my nav screen, you'd think you had to turn left from "Kings" onto "The."

I wonder if the band "The The" ever visited that street.

Regarding "Bowery," the word is derived from a Dutch word meaning "farm." A few years ago for Christmas my mother gave me a copy of Edward Rutherfurd's novel New York, which is historical fiction set in New York City beginning in the 1600s when it was still New Amsterdam and continuing up through September 11, 2011; as with his other novels, it follows a couple of fictional families. Anyway, one of the things that was interesting was seeing how many old Dutch names have become ubiquitous in ways we don't realize. The term "bouwerij" (sometimes anglicized to "bouwerie") was apparently a fairly common term back then used to refer to farmers' property in the area, especially as you went further north towards upper Manhattan or the land further north belonging to Jonas Bronck. Supposedly the street now known as either "Bowery" or "the Bowery" got its name in the same way that many other roads in the US got their names–it connected the small town of New Amsterdam to the farms ("boweries") located further out. (Same principle "kphoger" mentions in his comment further up the thread.)

I have absolutely no idea why the name has no descriptor, though. My gut suggests to me that the word "Bowery" is unique enough that people didn't feel the need to add anything to distinguish it and so the use of the descriptor just dropped away over time. "Broadway" at least works as an elision of "Broad Way" such that no descriptor would be needed.

[empirestate]

I have absolutely no idea why the name has no descriptor, though. My gut suggests to me that the word "Bowery" is unique enough that people didn't feel the need to add anything to distinguish it and so the use of the descriptor just dropped away over time.

As to that, I'd just reiterate that descriptors are not necessarily the historical norm, and if you go over to England you'll doubtless find a whole lot more examples. New York being about as old an English-speaking settlement as you'll find in this country, there are still a few holdovers. I don't think Bowery ever had a descriptor; you'd just say "I'm going to the Bowery" the same way we now say "I'm going to the Mall".

(Actually, that's another good example: The Mall in Washington, DC. It's not Mall Avenue or Mall Boulevard or anything; it's just The Mall.)

[1995hoo]

I have absolutely no idea why the name has no descriptor, though. My gut suggests to me that the word "Bowery" is unique enough that people didn't feel the need to add anything to distinguish it and so the use of the descriptor just dropped away over time.

As to that, I'd just reiterate that descriptors are not necessarily the historical norm, and if you go over to England you'll doubtless find a whole lot more examples. New York being about as old an English-speaking settlement as you'll find in this country, there are still a few holdovers. I don't think Bowery ever had a descriptor; you'd just say "I'm going to the Bowery" the same way we now say "I'm going to the Mall".

(Actually, that's another good example: The Mall in Washington, DC. It's not Mall Avenue or Mall Boulevard or anything; it's just The Mall.)

Technically it's the National Mall.

I know a fair number of newcomers to the area who hear "the Mall" and they automatically assume you mean Tysons Corner Center.

[roadman65]

Kansas City, MO has a street called the Paseo.  Matter of fact the I-35 Bridge across the Missouri River is called that cause the freeway is in line with this boulevard type arterial.

[kphoger]

Kansas City, MO has a street called the Paseo.  Matter of fact the I-35 Bridge across the Missouri River is called that cause the freeway is in line with this boulevard type arterial.

Which means "The Drive" in Spanish.  Not exactly redundant (not that most of the ones we're mentioning actually are anyway), but funny nonetheless.

[mightyace]

In my hometown of Bloomsburg, you have an extension of East 5th Street into Scott Township called 5th Street Hollow Road.

http://maps.google.com/?ll=41.008184,-76.433827&spn=0.00353,0.010568&t=m&z=17&vpsrc=6

I remember Cuyahoga Falls, OH has a State Road as well.  Now, before the freeway was built, it did carry OH 8!

[sp_redelectric]

In Tigard, Oregon there is a "Southwest North Dakota Street".

In Salt Lake City there is West North Temple, East North Temple (the street name is "North Temple", you are either West or East), West South Temple and East South Temple (street name is "South Temple") and North West Temple and South West Temple (the street name is "West Temple".)

In Kalispell, Montana there is a 1st Street West and a 1st Street East (which is the same street), a 1st Avenue West, and a 1st Avenue East (which are not the same street).

You can literally be at the corner of "First and First", and two blocks away again be at "First and First".  This is also true for streets in Utah that use the coordinate system.

Portland, Oregon is notorious for having redundant and duplicate streets - North Portland Road and Northeast Portland Highway are two very different streets.  Grant Street and Grant Avenue are not the same.  On the bus not too long ago a rider asked if the bus stopped "at Hall".  The bus driver said yes.  At 5th and Hall Street in downtown Portland, the rider did not get off.  At Hall Boulevard in Tigard, the bus didn't stop.  The rider admonished the driver (who was confused - he wasn't too familiar with Tigard) until I let him know that there is a Hall Boulevard in Tigard and that the express bus we were on stopped a couple blocks past Hall.

[The High Plains Traveler]

Pueblo West CO where I live is a "planned community", all laid out in the late 1960s by McCulloch Corporation, the same people who brought you Lake Havasu City AZ. There are a good number of streets in this area with Spanish names including the modifiers that would be suffixes in English (i.e., Calle, Via, Paseo, etc.) that precede the street name. For some inexplicable reason, most streets with these names also have English suffixes, so as an example there is a Calle de Caballos Drive.

[JustDrive]

Alameda Street in L.A. and Alameda Avenue in Burbank are redundant.  "Alameda" means "parkway" in Spanish.

[xcellntbuy]

NY 32 on the south side of Kingston is called "Boulevard."  Nothing else.

[mgk920]

Here in Appleton, there is a 'Parkway Boulevard' (it does not have a median anywhere along its length) and a 'Rail Rd'.

Also, between Appleton and Neenah, WI is a major road called 'East Shady Ln' - its address numbers go up the farther west one goes.

Mike

[Scott5114]

Alameda Street in L.A. and Alameda Avenue in Burbank are redundant.  "Alameda" means "parkway" in Spanish.

Ah, I didn't know that. That makes Alameda Street (or is it Avenue?) in Norman, OK redundant too.

[Mark68]

Alameda Street in L.A. and Alameda Avenue in Burbank are redundant.  "Alameda" means "parkway" in Spanish.

Ah, I didn't know that. That makes Alameda Street (or is it Avenue?) in Norman, OK redundant too.

As well as Alameda Ave in Denver.

Denver has a lot of "X Avenue Parkway"-named E/W streets, especially those with wide medians. Also a "6th Avenue Freeway" on the west side of town (US 6).

[national highway 1]

Alameda Street in L.A. and Alameda Avenue in Burbank are redundant.  "Alameda" means "parkway" in Spanish.

Ah, I didn't know that. That makes Alameda Street (or is it Avenue?) in Norman, OK redundant too.

Therefore, Alameda County, CA is literally 'Parkway County'.