Streets with 2 names? (one name per side)

[bulkyorled]

Where one side of the street has one name and the other side has a different name, any near you?
I was in Lynwood, CA the other day and noticed one side of the street was signed Century Blvd and the other MLK Jr Blvd and then I remembered another in Burbank, CA where one side is Clark Street and the North Hollywood side has Addison Street but has no houses on it.... I can't think of another instance like this but I just thought it was strange. The Lynwood one was just one city so that's kind of odd.

[cpzilliacus]

One example that immediately comes to mind is U.S. 29/Va. 237, where it forms the boundary between the independent city of Falls Church, Virginia and unincorporated Fairfax County (Google Maps here).

To add to the fun, U.S. 29 is a north-south highway (and posted as such, but it runs east-west across Northern Virginia), though Va. 237 is posted east-west.

Now, to answer your question, on the north side of the street (in the City of Falls Church), the street signs read South Washington Street.  On the south side of the  street (in Fairfax County), the signs read Lee Highway.

I am certain this confuses the Hades out of some people.

[Takumi]

Back in the '90s, a local street was posted as Brander's Bridge Road on the north side and Kent Avenue on the south side of one intersection. The latter sign was eventually removed.

[pianocello]

For streets on city or county borders, this would be pretty common. See 1st St/55th St in E. Moline/Moline, IL.

[Compulov]

Off the top of my head there's one intersection in Newtown, PA... Go south off the bypass and it's Buck Road. Go north at the bypass and it's Sycamore St. I know there's a lot more of them in the area. I'm just drawing a blank at the moment.
It tends to happen in suburban areas where the border between municipalities is along a road, where two roads on different alignments were realigned to meet at one intersection, or in the case of wall-to-wall developments, where two developments have entrances across the street from each other (and hence, different road names). Not sure if those last two really count, since they're cases of different roads that just happen to meet at an intersection.

[cpzilliacus]

For streets on city or county borders, this would be pretty common. See 1st St/55th St in E. Moline/Moline, IL.

The border between the District of Columbia and Maryland is mostly made up of streets.  The street is entirely in D.C., but there are homes on the Maryland side that are entirely in Maryland, but must use the D.C. street network to get anywhere (some of the blocks on the  Maryland side have alleys, but most do not).

On the northwest side (bordering, among other things, Chevy Chase, Maryland) it's Western Avenue.

On the northeast side (bordering, among other things, Silver Spring, Takoma Park, Mount Rainier and Fairmont Heights), it's Eastern Avenue.

On the southeast side (bordering, among other things, Capitol Heights, Suitland, Forest Heights and Glassmanor), it's Southern Avenue.

[The High Plains Traveler]

East of St. Paul, there is a road that is Century Avenue on the Ramsey County side and Geneva Avenue on the Washington County side. North of I-94 it's still MN-120 but south of I-94 the state turned back the road, and it is posted with county highway numbers from both counties. I don't know if it's so posted in the same segment or if the segments alternate.

[roadman65]

Market Street and Raymond Boulevard in Newark run together as one wide arterial east of Penn Stqtion.  The southside of this is Market Street. The side that faces the Passaic River is Raymond Boulevard.

Where NJ 27 runs along the border of Roselle and Linden it is East St. George Avenue in Linden, but in Roselle the same road is St. Georges Avenue.   Interestingly Linden, NJ uses Wood Avenue as its baseline from East to West and the Amtrak Corridor as the North- South Baseline.  All points east of Wood Avenue are on the Linden- Roselle Line, but points west of Wood Avenue the entire street is in Linden.  Therefore, East St. George is only a half a street while the neighboring borough calls their part St. Georges Avenue, cause it has a different grid.   Linden, also, is the only community that does not use the name "Georges" like Roselle, Linden, and Woodbridge do and refers to it as one singular person.  However, locals call it "St. George" and many do not even know the NJ 27 part as NJ 27.  The part that is NJ 35, people do call it either by name or number.

[1995hoo]

Off the top of my head there's one intersection in Newtown, PA... Go south off the bypass and it's Buck Road. Go north at the bypass and it's Sycamore St. I know there's a lot more of them in the area. I'm just drawing a blank at the moment.
It tends to happen in suburban areas where the border between municipalities is along a road, where two roads on different alignments were realigned to meet at one intersection, or in the case of wall-to-wall developments, where two developments have entrances across the street from each other (and hence, different road names). Not sure if those last two really count, since they're cases of different roads that just happen to meet at an intersection.

Unless I'm misunderstanding, I don't think that's what the OP meant. I'm sure if the question were "Street Name X if you turn left but Y if you turn right" we could come up with thousands of those sorts of things. I understood the OP to be referring to a single road where the lanes heading in one direction have one name and the lanes heading in the other direction have another name. The example cpzilliacus gave from Falls Church, Virginia, is a great example: US-29/VA-237 straddles the border between Fairfax County and the independent City of Falls Church. If you drive towards the District of Columbia from Fairfax County, you're on Lee Highway until the entirety of the road crosses into Falls Church (except for one tiny segment where the city limits deflect slightly to the north). But if you drive the other way, you're on Washington Street until the entirety of the road crosses into Fairfax County. In other words, for about six-tenths of a mile, one side of the street is called Lee Highway and the other side of the street is called Washington Street.

See Bing Maps link here. I've marked what I understand to be the beginning and end points of this segment–notice the dotted line on the map at either end that represents the city limits. I believe the city limits deflect slightly via Maple Avenue at the east end of this segment, so the part between point "B" and the dotted line would be just Lee Highway. If you flip the map into the "Bird's Eye" view you can get a pretty good idea of where the city limits are based on where things are built. The Saab dealer is in the City of Falls Church but the building to its left is not, although the US Postal Service uses a Falls Church ZIP code for all these places.


Now, to give an unofficial example of the scenario cited in the OP: I-395 and I-695 in DC make up most of the Southwest Freeway and the Southeast Freeway; a small segment to the east of I-695 is, as far as I know, unnumbered now but used to be part of I-295 (and is scheduled for reconstruction as an at-grade boulevard). I frequently hear people use the term "Southwest—Southeast Freeway" to refer solely to the eastbound carriageway (i.e., going west to east across DC, heading towards Pennsylvania Avenue and RFK Stadium) and the term "Southeast—Southwest Freeway" to refer solely to the westbound carriageway (i.e., going east to west across DC, heading towards Maine Avenue and the 14th Street Bridge to Virginia). Neither name is "official" and this usage is also by no means universal–indeed, the radio traffic reporters just refer to the road as "the Freeway" because the word "freeway" is not in common use in this part of the country the way it is in California–but it can be a useful distinction if the person to whom you're speaking has a sense of DC geography.

[national highway 1]

Would two opposing one-way frontage roads on a freeway count? I mean, it could be easily thought that the freeway were travelling through the median of the two combined streets.

Not exactly two streets, but WA 41 is the southbound lanes and ID 41 is the northbound lanes of State Ave in Newport WA/Oldtown ID.

[Bickendan]

Portland has one: SE 35th/36th Ave, at SE Steele St. 35th and 36th split into their own respective entities about a 150' north of Steele.

[Bigmikelakers]

I can name a few in the LA area.

Long Beach/Hawaiian Gardens: Woodson St/226th St

Manhattan Beach/Redondo Beach: 2nd St/Robinson St

Hermosa Beach/Manhattan Beach: 33rd St/Homer St

Redondo Beach/Hermosa Beach: Havemeyer Ln/7th Pl

La Palma/Cerritos: Caballero Bl/183rd St

Cerritos/La Palma: Del Amo Bl/La Palma Av

Cerritos/La Palma: Carmenita Rd/Moody St

Cerritos/La Palma: Marquardt Av/Walker St

Carson/Harbor Gateway (Los Angeles): Victoria St/190th St

Rancho Palos Verdes/San Pedro (Los Angeles): Miraleste Dr/9th St

Carson/Long Beach: 223rd St/Wardlow Rd

Calabasa/Woodland Hills (Los Angeles): Calabasas Rd/Ave San Luis

I'll post more if I find any

[cpzilliacus]

The example cpzilliacus gave from Falls Church, Virginia, is a great example: US-29/VA-237 straddles the border between Fairfax County and the independent City of Falls Church. If you drive towards the District of Columbia from Fairfax County, you're on Lee Highway until the entirety of the road crosses into Falls Church (except for one tiny segment where the city limits deflect slightly to the north).

Until looking this up online (I used Google Maps), I never knew about that "deflection" of the City/County border.

I wonder if this section of road is maintained by VDOT up to the "defection" near South Maple Avenue, or is maintenance shared between VDOT and the City?  The VDOT traffic volume book is not especially enlightening, as it says the border is at Marshall Street, which is about the halfway point of the "shared" segment of U.S. 29/Va. 237.   Maybe VDOT maintains both sides up to that point (if headed "north" on U.S. 29) and Falls Church picks up there and maintains it the rest of the way through the city (including that "deflection") to the north side (where U.S. 29 enters Arlington County)?

And there's also the matter of which police agency handles crash reports. Is it the Falls Church Police or the Fairfax County Police?  If the boundary runs down the middle of the street, then Falls Church would handle the "southbound" side and Fairfax County would handle the "northbound" side.

Regarding police jurisdiction, there's a similar situation along Md. 650, New Hampshire Avenue starting at Eastern Avenue, N.E. (which is D.C.) and headed north to Md. 410 (East West Highway).

The boundary between Montgomery County (and the City of Takoma Park) and unincorporated Prince George's County runs down the median of the street. So traffic incidents on the southbound side (west side of the street) are handled by the Takoma Park Police Department).  On the northbound (east) side, they are handled by the Prince George's County Police.  At Md. 410 (East West Highway), the boundary runs east along that street, and all of Md. 650 is in Montgomery County and Takoma Park up to Md. 193 (University Boulevard), where Md. 650 enters Prince George's County for about 2 miles, before it (re)enters Montgomery County "for good."

[Takumi]

^ There's another situation like that on VA 147 in Richmond/Chesterfield County, although it's all Huguenot Road.

[KEK Inc.]

Grand Ave/MLK Jr Blvd (OR-99E) in Portland, although that's typical with one-way streets.   Technically with any noted highway, this list is countless. 

One interesting one is St. Johns Blvd and St. James Blvd in Vancouver, WA.

[ClarkE]

In rural Indiana, many counties are rectangular due to the Public Land Survey System, and county roads are numbered by 100s from a center point. I'm sure it happens in many places, but I know of one in particular at the county line of Greene and Sullivan where the road that marks the county line is named County Road 1600W in Greene Co, and County Road 900E in Sullivan, and County Line Rd. in both.
I've seen it signed either on one sign, with a different number on either side, or, as in this street view, each county simply puts up their own sign - http://goo.gl/maps/tGFEb

[cpzilliacus]

In rural Indiana, many counties are rectangular due to the Public Land Survey System, and county roads are numbered by 100s from a center point. I'm sure it happens in many places, but I know of one in particular at the county line of Greene and Sullivan where the road that marks the county line is named County Road 1600W in Greene Co, and County Road 900E in Sullivan, and County Line Rd. in both.
I've seen it signed either on one sign, with a different number on either side, or, as in this street view, each county simply puts up their own sign - http://goo.gl/maps/tGFEb

Md./Del. 54 runs smack on the boundary between Sussex County, Delaware and Wicomico County, Maryland for quite a few miles, changing names several times (though it's the same name on the Maryland and Delaware sides of the road).

[triplemultiplex]

I'm working on some maps in Louisiana right now that have exactly this kind of scenario.  They are divided roadways with wider than expected medians and different names for each direction of travel.

Here's Plaquemine, LA:
http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=30.28323,-91.24004&z=17&t=M

There's a one-way pair straddling a railroad and another that probably once straddled a railroad.

[kj3400]

I was wondering when this would pop up.

In Baltimore County, just west of Southwest Blvd (US 1) in Halethorpe, there is a road that is Oregon Av. NB and Carville Av. SB.

[Coelacanth]

East of St. Paul, there is a road that is Century Avenue on the Ramsey County side and Geneva Avenue on the Washington County side. North of I-94 it's still MN-120 but south of I-94 the state turned back the road, and it is posted with county highway numbers from both counties. I don't know if it's so posted in the same segment or if the segments alternate.

There are places where the blade sign on one side of the street says Geneva and on the other side it says Century.

This same street is also known as Division Street and County Line Road at various points along its length. All of the BGS which refer to it (on I694, MN-36, and I94), refer to it as Century Ave.

[bulkyorled]

I don't think Frontage roads would count in this situation since there are a lot of them.

Its strange that these instances are so common, I feel like it would confuse people. The 2 ones that I mentioned are very short portions but Century Blvd/MLK in Lynwood is a major street but I feel people would call it Century before they would call it MLK because that's the one that's more consistent.
That's usually how it would go wouldn't you guys say? The one that's more consistent is the one it gets called.
There's San Fernando Rd but one city decided to make it San Fernando Blvd but people still say San Fernando Road. Unless it goes through more than one city then that's when I'd think it gets hairy


Also I think some cities don't agree on street names. Los Angeles is famous for changing other cities streets to what it wants. LA didn't want Clark Av so they changed it to Addison when it enters the city, there's a lot of other instances. LA wants to be dominant and be the leader in it all so they don't let anyone change the formal names haha PCH is kind of an example even though a lot of cities don't always call it PCH

[iowahighways]

Part of IA 28 straddles the Des Moines/West Des Moines border. It's 63rd Street in Des Moines and 1st Street in West Des Moines, since WDM has a different street numbering system.

Here's a street sign with both street names:

[1995hoo]

....

Also I think some cities don't agree on street names. Los Angeles is famous for changing other cities streets to what it wants. LA didn't want Clark Av so they changed it to Addison when it enters the city, there's a lot of other instances. LA wants to be dominant and be the leader in it all so they don't let anyone change the formal names haha PCH is kind of an example even though a lot of cities don't always call it PCH

That's pretty common when roads cross city or county lines. US-501 north of Durham, North Carolina, is named "Roxboro Road" in Durham County (because Roxboro is the next place of significance to the north), but as soon as it crosses into Person County it becomes "Durham Road" (because Durham is the next place of significance to the south). I might argue that this sort of thing is an ideal scenario for a road to have a different name on each side based on where the road is going, or alternatively call it "Durham—Roxboro Road."

But to give an extreme example of a road changing names when it crosses jurisdictional boundaries, check out this map from Virginia. Arlington County has an extremely regimented street-naming system. Notice where the dotted lines meet on the map. To the left (where Langston Lane is) you're in the City of Falls Church; towards the top of the map (where West Street is) you're in Fairfax County; everything to the right of the two dotted lines is in Arlington County. Notice the street that crosses into Arlington. In Fairfax County and Falls Church it's called Meridian Street. That name would not fit into Arlington's street-naming system, which uses a series of "alphabets" where each "alphabet" contains more syllables than the one before. In this instance, the street is renamed to "Arizona Street" when it crosses into Arlington because that location calls for a four-syllable name using the first letter of the alphabet.

What's a bit absurd about it is that Arizona Street is only 230 feet long before it crosses back out of Arlington AND that tiny piece is the only four-syllable street in the entire county. Seems to me to be an ideal situation for making an exception to their street-naming rules, especially since "Meridian" is also four syllables. I seem to recall that the county line isn't even marked with a sign.

(The real claim to fame of that spot is that there is a small park on Arizona Street and within that park you can find the boundary stone marking the original far western corner of the District of Columbia under its original boundaries before Virginia's portion was retroceded in 1847.)

[cpzilliacus]

....

Also I think some cities don't agree on street names. Los Angeles is famous for changing other cities streets to what it wants. LA didn't want Clark Av so they changed it to Addison when it enters the city, there's a lot of other instances. LA wants to be dominant and be the leader in it all so they don't let anyone change the formal names haha PCH is kind of an example even though a lot of cities don't always call it PCH

That's pretty common when roads cross city or county lines. US-501 north of Durham, North Carolina, is named "Roxboro Road" in Durham County (because Roxboro is the next place of significance to the north), but as soon as it crosses into Person County it becomes "Durham Road" (because Durham is the next place of significance to the south). I might argue that this sort of thing is an ideal scenario for a road to have a different name on each side based on where the road is going, or alternatively call it "Durham—Roxboro Road."

Similarly, U.S. 1 changes names on the south side of Laurel's corporate limits in Prince George's County, Maryland.  In Laurel and north of there in Howard County, it's Washington Boulevard.  South of Laurel, in unincorporated Prince George's County, it's Baltimore Avenue.  Curiously, the name does not change at the Patuxent River, the boundary between the two counties, but  for some reason Laurel, even though the municipality is entirely in Prince George's County, uses the name that Howard County does, not that of Prince George's County.

Actually, to be technical, it's the southbound side of U.S. 1 that changes names - through this area, the northbound side is 2nd Street, a block to the east of the original U.S. 1.   But where the couplet ends, the names above prevail. 

[Perfxion]

Here is one ultimate intersection in Houston:

Northside: Steubner-Airline Road
Southside: Veterans-Memorial Road
East Side: FM1960
Westside: Cypress creek parkway