Where are address numbers made from?

[vtk]

I mean, I don't know...if you don't think addresses are appropriate for emergency response, I'd really like to hear what a better idea is. For purposes of this exercise, you can only use technology that existed 20 years ago, since that's what existed when emergency response became address dependent.

A proper system for identifying locations or buildings rather than mailboxes would probably either be a 2D coordinate system of some kind (for places with a lot of very open space and/or a lack of named roads) or something that looks a lot like mailing addresses.  But such a system should certainly not be guaranteed or even encouraged to match mailing addresses in all cases, and should have rules to prevent oddities that make it difficult for a visitor to find a specified location.

Actually, I think it would be really useful to have a geographic position shorthand (Lat/Lon or UTM-grid-based) which leaves off several most-significant digits, instead using a city name to disambiguate.  Local city maps can be made available with this grid overlaid, and GPS navigation devices can be made to understand this system.  Then, a business or your cousin or the guy who answered your Craigs List ad can inform you of their location in this system, and you can look it up on a map or enter it in your GPS to find them, without being subject to faulty geocoding services or having to walk up and down the block looking for an out-of-sequence mailbox number.  Sadly, that's not been a popular strategy.

[Brandon]

Plainfield used to have their own addressing system based on a point in the Village.  In the early 2000s, the Village then changed addressing systems to that used by unincorporated Will County, based on State and Madison in Chicago's Loop.  The addresses went from one, two, and three digits to five digits and only south or west, no north or east.

A lot of addresses around the country were changed in the early 2000s when E-911 was implemented, which allowed for computer-aided dispatch (i.e. when you call 911, the location automatically flashes on a map in the dispatch center/dispatched vehicles). That required a lot of address cleanup.

However, the Plainfield address system change had nothing to do with E911.  They switched systems from their own, perfectly valid system based on a grid off a point in downtown Plainfield to the Chicago-based system.  I'm not exactly sure why the Village did it, but they were the only municipality do to so around here.  Everyone else uses their own addressing system.

Many unincorporated areas around here were set up well anyway for E911 as they already used the grid based off State and Madison in the Loop.  It only required a software change locally.

[corco]

or something that looks a lot like mailing addresses.  But such a system should certainly not be guaranteed or even encouraged to match mailing addresses in all cases

I guess that's where I get confused- why would you want to have two distinct locators when you can have one? Are you that concerned about privacy?

Why do you want to discourage visitors from finding locations? Remember there's two sides to that- there's people like you, who clearly don't want anybody knowing where they are, and then there's things like businesses, which want to be publically advertised and findable.

It's easy enough to hide though- become unlisted in the phone book and get a PO Box and that will prevent most from finding out where you live without making life less convenient for the majority of people who aren't afraid of visitors.

[vtk]

or something that looks a lot like mailing addresses.  But such a system should certainly not be guaranteed or even encouraged to match mailing addresses in all cases

I guess that's where I get confused- why would you want to have two distinct locators when you can have one? Are you that concerned about privacy?

I am not that concerned about privacy, though I do recognize that's a side effect of the way I'd prefer we do things.  If you want someone to email you, you give them one of your email addresses. If you want someone to call you or fax you, you give them one of your phone numbers. If you want someone to mail you a physical something, you give them your mailing address, which may or may not be a PO box. If you want someone to visit you, you tell them where you are (not where your mailbox is).  This is logical, no?  I understand that, because mailboxes generally don't move around, mailing addresses are often decent substitutes for location information. But as illustrated in the first post of this thread, that's not always the case. 

[allniter89]

I actually assign addresses for a living.

We do rural addresses in the following ways-
1. State/US highways are assigned based on their milepoint with 1000 addresses per mile, so if your address is 144412 US HIGHWAY 12, you live at milepost 144.412 on US 12.
2. County roads are assigned with 1000 address numbers per mile from their origin. The origin is either a US/State highway if they originate at one of those, or failing that it's the place the side closest to the county seat. So if you live at 123 Whatever Creek Rd, you're .123 miles down Whatever Creek Rd from the road's origin.
3. Two or more addressable structures that share a driveway over 1000 feet long are assigned off a unique road name.

Our numbers start at 0. Missoula County starts at 100 and has 1500 addressable structures per mile, but otherwise does it the same. This is more confusing, in my opinion, because you can't set your trip odometer to find a house, which is really useful in rural areas.

Our communities have 30 address numbers per block from a common grid beginning at a 0-0 point in the middle of town.

The state of Wyoming uses a 100-100 system, so address numbers radiate out from a 100-100 point.

Boise goes grid based even off grid, which some places do. Your address number could be at a corner in a subdivision but be 650 or something, because if you drew a line straight south you'd be halfway between 6th and 7th streets where there actually is a grid. That's...helpful I guess.

Distance based addresses are good where there's no grid as opposed to super-imposing a grid, because if you can find the road, you can set your odometer and find the location.

If you have a grid, a grid based address is probably the easiest for emergency services to find.

Interestingly, most E911 dispatch softwares by default dispatch based on address relative to road, which makes accurate addressing important. If a call comes in from 550 Ferguson St, the dispatch software will go to wherever 550 should be on the road line based on what percentage down the address range it is (so it finds road line labelled FERGUSON in the 500-600 range and plots a point in the middle). There are programs available to dispatch based on structure point (so when the call comes in it looks for the point at 550 Ferguson St), but that's a bit more complicated because it requires dispatch to be updated constantly with regards to new construction, and a good number of 911 calls come from new construction.

What that means is that assigned addresses have to be really accurate to work properly- in an urban area that's important because if you have a lot of structures and people aren't so great at posting their addresses, you need to know exactly where you're going, so the plotted point on the map needs to plot to exactly the correct point on the line or your responders could get lost. In an rural area where somebody may own 100 acres and shift their driveway significantly, they're often surprised (and disgruntled) to learn they need a new address because of that, but you don't want the fire truck to have to hunt for the driveway. 

Of course there are always variations and oddball addresses within any system that were assigned improperly or using older techniques, but end up grandfathered in since they have been in use for many years; and changing the address would entail having to alter records with the post office, utility companies, city/county/parish/state government, etc. etc. which is a lot of hassle, meaning it's easier to just keep the oddball addresses and make note of them when necessary.

NENA Standards call for addresses to be assigned to structures, not parcels, and that's something that throws a lot of people.  Your structure address may be different than your legal parcel address, which sometimes causes problems with financing- I have to write a letter or two a week to mortgage companies clarifying legal addresses. In that case we change the legal parcel address to the structure address.

That said, if I need to change somebody's address, I contact the post office and utility companies as well as the requisite governments. You still need to update personal information, but as far as mail/billing addresses/etc, I take care of that. I also work directly with the post office and utility companies to make sure no "rogue" addresses are coming through- if an address is assigned that nobody has ever heard of, they contact me to make sure it's a legitimate address.

How is it decided which side of the street will be even or odd addresses?
Is there a "regulation" that dictates which is even or odd, ie even are north side or odd is the south side?

[DSS5]

I mean, I don't know...if you don't think addresses are appropriate for emergency response, I'd really like to hear what a better idea is. For purposes of this exercise, you can only use technology that existed 20 years ago, since that's what existed when emergency response became address dependent.

The town of Boone has recently begun a "crackdown" of sorts on buildings without clear address numbers because of emergency response concerns. Just sending notice to homeowners and landlords that they should put something up to avoid a fine. Mostly these are mountain homes, but sometimes it's older buildings closer to town.

[corco]

How is it decided which side of the street will be even or odd addresses?

It's stipulated in our addressing ordinance that the right side from the origin will be even and the left side will be odd. In the case of a cul-de-sac, addresses are assigned as if the right side of the cul-de-sac were the right side of the road and the left is on the left. For houses in the middle, the door location determines whether it's odd or even.

In a grid system, if your origin is in the middle of the road, typically your north and west sides of the street will have odd numbers.

[iwishiwascanadian]

Baltimore City is grid based, with Charles Street dividing the city between East and West and Baltimore Street dividing the city between north and south. For the downtown core and Charles Village the grid makes sense.  Addresses on streets running north-south increase by 100 after each street (not alley) progressing higher as one travels further north as long as that street is north of Baltimore Street.  This is evident with the numbered streets north of North Avenue (20th-42nd).  Addresses on East-west streets increase by 100 after each street it progresses by Charles Street.

For example, 2322 Saint Paul Street would be on Saint Paul between 23rd and 24th Street.  204 East 33rd Street would be on 33rd between Calvert Street and Guilford Avenue.

It may sound complicated but it begins to make sense once you travel around Baltimore.  If you know where the major roads fall within the grid it can make finding an address easier. 

[NE2]

They're mad from the father's side of the family, usually.

[roadman65]

They're mad from the father's side of the family, usually.

FYI it was a typo as it is supposed to be "made" however you cannot edit topic thread titles or I would have fixed it.

Also about grids, why does Newark, NJ have two boundary lines for East and West?  You have Elizabeth Avenue that has streets with East and West on each side of it, then in another section of Newark you have East Kinney in Ironbound that becomes West Kinney either at the Amtrak NE Corridor or Broad Street.  Not in any linear line for the two bases and also you have  Elizabeth Avenue does not even run the whole length of the city either so to be a dividing base line would not be the best choice their either.

In nearby Linden, NJ they at least get it right with the Amtrak Corridor as base line for N-S and Wood Avenue as base line for E-W and it and Roselle (neighbor to Linden) uses Chestnut Street  for E-W running streets, hence why East St. George Avenue in Linden is just plain St. George Avenue where NJ 27 straddles the Roselle- Linden Border because both Roselle and Linden have the two different base lines.  In fact East St. George is only NB NJ 27 as the community boundary begins at Wood Avenue and its entire length is the boundary line.

The bottom line is each city or town has its very own way of numbering streets, only seem to be keeping odd and even numbers separate on different sides.  I am wondering though, where streets do straddle municipal borders might have a rare case where both sides of the street may have odd or even numbers together though.  There should be a least a uniform way of numbering them for public safety sake and continuity purposes.

[NE2]

however you cannot edit topic thread titles or I would have fixed it.

You can. Edit the first post.

[roadman65]

however you cannot edit topic thread titles or I would have fixed it.

You can. Edit the first post.

I ll Check it out.

And I believe I got it!  Thanks.

[realjd]

I mean, I don't know...if you don't think addresses are appropriate for emergency response, I'd really like to hear what a better idea is. For purposes of this exercise, you can only use technology that existed 20 years ago, since that's what existed when emergency response became address dependent.

A proper system for identifying locations or buildings rather than mailboxes would probably either be a 2D coordinate system of some kind (for places with a lot of very open space and/or a lack of named roads) or something that looks a lot like mailing addresses.  But such a system should certainly not be guaranteed or even encouraged to match mailing addresses in all cases, and should have rules to prevent oddities that make it difficult for a visitor to find a specified location.

Actually, I think it would be really useful to have a geographic position shorthand (Lat/Lon or UTM-grid-based) which leaves off several most-significant digits, instead using a city name to disambiguate.  Local city maps can be made available with this grid overlaid, and GPS navigation devices can be made to understand this system.  Then, a business or your cousin or the guy who answered your Craigs List ad can inform you of their location in this system, and you can look it up on a map or enter it in your GPS to find them, without being subject to faulty geocoding services or having to walk up and down the block looking for an out-of-sequence mailbox number.  Sadly, that's not been a popular strategy.

UK post codes work well for this. For many addresses the post code itself is unique. For others, post code and house number are unique. It makes things much simpler to enter into a GPS.

[sammi]

UK post codes work well for this. For many addresses the post code itself is unique. For others, post code and house number are unique. It makes things much simpler to enter into a GPS.

Same goes for Canada. The first half (or the Forward Sortation Area, FSA) of my postal code "L3T" refers to the city in which I live (look to the left), while the second half (or the Local Delivery Unit, LDU, which for privacy reasons shall not be posted on this forum) narrows it down to about 40 apartment units. In the case of houses, that might refer to about 10-20 houses or a block.

[theline]

ZIP+4 in the US gets it down to the city block. The street number does the rest. Of course, only the bulk mailers know the ZIP+4 codes.

[vtk]

UK post codes work well for this. For many addresses the post code itself is unique. For others, post code and house number are unique. It makes things much simpler to enter into a GPS.

Same goes for Canada. The first half (or the Forward Sortation Area, FSA) of my postal code "L3T" refers to the city in which I live (look to the left), while the second half (or the Local Delivery Unit, LDU, which for privacy reasons shall not be posted on this forum) narrows it down to about 40 apartment units. In the case of houses, that might refer to about 10-20 houses or a block.

Yes but the GPS device still needs an accurate database of all these postcodes, and forget about manually looking them up on a map...

[Big John]

ZIP+4 in the US gets it down to the city block. The street number does the rest. Of course, only the bulk mailers know the ZIP+4 codes.

I have seen some do zip+6 to get all unique zip codes, with the last 2 digits being the last 2 digits of your address.

[thenetwork]

In Cleveland & Cuyahoga County in Cleveland, there are two sets of grids (at least for numbering on east-west streets) -- one is for the East Side, one for the West side.  The line of division is based on Ontario Street in downtown Cleveland, and ultimately runs south down the center of Broadview Road/OH-176 by the time you reach the Summit County line.

In much of the Grand Junction/Mesa County CO area, the streets running east-west have addresses based on the # of miles your house or business is due east of the Utah state line and the North-South streets are (I believe) based on the distance from the geographical north/south center of Mesa County. 

Because of this, you'll find a lot of houses and businesses (especially in densely-packed areas) with addresses with the -1/2 suffix (i.e. 752-1/2 Horizon Drive), which can cause hissy fits for some GPS systems and postal/package delivery services -- people may list it as "752.5 Horizon Drive" or may just leave off the 1/2 (or .5) completely.


Look at how much fun you can have if your address is something like 1502-1/2 K-3/10 Road, Apt. G!!   

[theline]

253-1/8 Elm St., Navin Johnson's ill-fated filling station washroom abode:


Source: http://cinema-fanatic.com/2012/08/14/movie-quote-of-the-day-the-jerk-1979-dir-carl-reiner/

[Mark68]

In Denver, the street grid starts at 0/0 (sometimes listed on street signs as 00/00) at the corner of Broadway (a major north/south arterial) and Ellsworth (an otherwise nondescript neighborhood street). The east/west blocks generally run 16 per mile, and the north/south blocks run 8 per mile. The grid prevails throughout Denver, Arapahoe, Adams (except parts of the City of Brighton), and Jefferson (except parts of the City of Golden) counties. It also extends into the northern part of Douglas County (the Highlands Ranch/Lone Tree areas) which are essentially southern extensions of Denver Metro, and parts of Broomfield (which used both the Denver and Boulder numbering systems--as well as its own--before becoming an independent City and County). Another "quirk" is that if you're given an address of "1182 Broadway", it's assumed that it's 1182 NORTH Broadway. North addresses do not have the "North" direction added.

[WichitaRoads]

In Denver, the street grid starts at 0/0 (sometimes listed on street signs as 00/00) at the corner of Broadway (a major north/south arterial) and Ellsworth (an otherwise nondescript neighborhood street). The east/west blocks generally run 16 per mile, and the north/south blocks run 8 per mile. The grid prevails throughout Denver, Arapahoe, Adams (except parts of the City of Brighton), and Jefferson (except parts of the City of Golden) counties. It also extends into the northern part of Douglas County (the Highlands Ranch/Lone Tree areas) which are essentially southern extensions of Denver Metro, and parts of Broomfield (which used both the Denver and Boulder numbering systems--as well as its own--before becoming an independent City and County). Another "quirk" is that if you're given an address of "1182 Broadway", it's assumed that it's 1182 NORTH Broadway. North addresses do not have the "North" direction added.

Ellsworth must have been an important street in Denver in the way back past, I assume... either that, or some big wig lived on the street and wanted the numbers to start with him!

ICTRds

[WichitaRoads]

Wichita, and all of unincorporated Sedgwick County, bases all addresses and streets off of the intersection of Main (N-S) and Douglas (E-W). They tend to be eight blocks to a mile N-S, and 16 blocks to a mile E-W, and they figure in 100 blocks. I don't think numbering continues out into other counties around us (haven't seen it), but some street names do. For example, one could theoretically drive on Oliver Street from the Oklahoma border to north of US 50, at the northern edge of Harvey County.

ICTRds

[Mark68]

In Denver, the street grid starts at 0/0 (sometimes listed on street signs as 00/00) at the corner of Broadway (a major north/south arterial) and Ellsworth (an otherwise nondescript neighborhood street). The east/west blocks generally run 16 per mile, and the north/south blocks run 8 per mile. The grid prevails throughout Denver, Arapahoe, Adams (except parts of the City of Brighton), and Jefferson (except parts of the City of Golden) counties. It also extends into the northern part of Douglas County (the Highlands Ranch/Lone Tree areas) which are essentially southern extensions of Denver Metro, and parts of Broomfield (which used both the Denver and Boulder numbering systems--as well as its own--before becoming an independent City and County). Another "quirk" is that if you're given an address of "1182 Broadway", it's assumed that it's 1182 NORTH Broadway. North addresses do not have the "North" direction added.

Ellsworth must have been an important street in Denver in the way back past, I assume... either that, or some big wig lived on the street and wanted the numbers to start with him!

ICTRds

Ellsworth was made the N/S divider so that Colfax Ave (the 15th Ave equivalent in the normal grid) connected to 15th St (diagonal downtown grid) at Broadway.

[KEK Inc.]

King County's is based entirely on Seattle's road numbering system, which continues to the rest of the county.

If you lived just north of NE 47th St on 17th Ave NE, then your address would be 47XX 17th Ave NE.  If you lived just west of that intersection on 47th St, your address would be 16XX NE 47th St.  It makes it pretty damn easy to find where you need to go.  You can literally look at the address and know immediately where it is geographically.  You just have to know where NE changes to N or NW, etc.

I'm pretty sure most counties with numbered roads do this.   

[JMoses24]

I'm not sure how Florence does it, so I'll use Cincinnati as an example, specifically downtown.

In downtown, East/West numbers begin at 0, with Vine Street being the transition from east to west. No east to west street in downtown extends more than 1 mile continuously except 9th Street (which combines with 7th once it crosses over I-75 to form West 8th Street -- go figure). In measuring, however, every mile east or west of Vine is 1000.

Once you get into north/south streets, that 1000 addresses/mile thing goes out the window to an extent because the river is the de facto boundary (being the southern boundary of the city and state). Also, there are no 10th or 11th Streets, but there are Court Street and Central Parkway. So it's +/- 100 on that end of things.