Signage pet peeves

[Scott5114]

*I'm aware that there are a few places here and there where a directional prefix actually distinguishes between two separate roads, often half-circles, and apparently all the numbered streets in Cleveland.  In these cases I do consider the direction word to be part of the name, and the line is blurred between those and roads whose names just happen to begin with a direction word such as North Star Rd, Westpark St, or North Broadway.

In a lot of the major cities in Oklahoma, you get two directional prefixes/suffixes, one of which distinguishes between other roads and one doesn't. Oklahoma City is the canonical example here–N.W. 10th Street is ten blocks north of Reno Ave, and S.W. 10th Street is a completely different street ten blocks south of Reno. But N.W. 10th Street and N.E. 10th Street are the same street...it just switches from west to east when it crosses Santa Fe Avenue. This is rarely confusing because the major streets are numbered in such a way that the major streets are different numbers than the major streets on the south: N.E. 10th, 23rd, 39th, etc. vs. S.E. 15th, 29th, 44th, etc. So if someone says such-and-such place is "on 59th Street" you can be reasonably sure that they mean S. 59th because N. 59th is some anonymous residential street or minor collector.

Norman does something similar, except rotated ninety degrees; there is a 24th Avenue on the west side and the east side. Norman also puts both at the back: "24th Avenue N.W." Unfortunately Norman always numbers major streets in multiples of 12 so there is a 24th, 36th, and 48th on both sides of town, leading to occasional confusion when someone shows up at a gathering twenty minutes late because they went to 36th Avenue West when the house they wanted to go to was off 36th Avenue East.

bugo might need to correct me on this but I think Tulsa does something similar to OKC but even weirder, namely, streets are of the format "E. 51st St. S.". I think the N/S one is the important one but truly I don't know for sure!

[vtk]

bugo might need to correct me on this but I think Tulsa does something similar to OKC but even weirder, namely, streets are of the format "E. 51st St. S.". I think the N/S one is the important one but truly I don't know for sure!

That one actually makes sense to me, as I'm used to the prefix being only useful as part of the housenumber, and the suffix distinguishing between different streets.  I didn't bring it up in my post, but halves of roughly-circular streets are usually distinguished around here with a suffix rather than a prefix. I can't think of any examples I'd have been aware of, but somehow I got the notion a long time ago that a suffix could also be used to distinguish two parallel streets across town from one another. Combine that with directional prefixes as used in central Ohio and the result is the system described above for Tulsa.

Taking it one step further, with this setup one can have a complete grid, all using the same name suffix "street".  For example, 2800 W 82nd St S would be on the corner of 82nd St S and 28th St W.  Yes, 34th St N would intersect 34th St E, as well as 34th St W, and the latter two would also intersect 34th St S. This is much like how county roads in Indiana are named, actually.  If this grid system were implemented, however, I would hope that the "directional prefix" is presented as part of the block number on signs, or left off the signs completely, because if it's presented as part of the street name, people will get confused.  Though it may be logical, I can understand certain people just refusing to try to figure out the intersection of E 27th St S with S 27th St E; but when you take away the prefixes, which are pointless at intersections anyway, it becomes much less intimidating.

[Scott5114]

I think that isn't an issue in Tulsa because the streets that run opposite to the numbered ones are named.

The system you describe is almost like that used in most of Utah. There, instead of being "82nd Street S" it would be "8200 South", and "28th Street West" would be "2800 West". So the address you describe would be "2800 West 8200 South". Ultimately a logical one but it confuses the hell out of everyone not familiar with it. I particularly remember someone from Utah hitting a jackpot at work and going into the the cashier cage to work on another jackpot and finding three people, two of them management, poring over the guy's driver license trying to figure out what the deal is with the address.

[PurdueBill]

The SLC addresses made me think of the county road number system that is common in places like Indiana (and probably many others) with the origin in the middle and a grid around it.  100E would be the north-south road a certain increment east of the origin, with the part north of the baseline being N 100E and that south being S 100E.  (The baselines can be numbered as CR 0 or sometimes have names like "Base Line Rd" or "Division Rd" like in Tippecanoe County.)  Usually the grid determines address numbers; I recall in Tippecanoe County that there were hypothetically 1000 address numbers per 100 increment in CR number.  That is, heading south on S 100E, you would pass #2000 crossing CR 200S, and #3750 passing CR 375S.  Thus, there are tons of fun addresses like 4750 N 500E vs. 4750 E 500N--in this case, if there were two properties with those addresses, they wouldn't be too far away from each other because 4750 is close to 5000 which puts it near the intersection with the other 500.  Both would be near the intersection of N 500E and E 500N.  What fun!  (The intersection of N500E and E500N is off IN 25 near its intersection with IN 225, fwiw.  It's far from unique though--there is a S600E/E600S intersection southeast of Lafayette as well, among others.  It's going to happen many times near the y=x and y=-x lines through the origin of the grid.)

When I was first befuddled by the SLC numbering, I realized that it's not too different in principle from the Indiana county road addressing, and it made a little more sense.

[mukade]

100E would be the north-south road a certain increment east of the origin, with the part north of the baseline being N 100E and that south being S 100E.

That certain increment is always one mile between the n00 roads.

The baselines can be numbered as CR 0 or sometimes have names like "Base Line Rd" or "Division Rd" like in Tippecanoe County.

Or something like CR 00NS or CR 00EW. Where roads go along county lines, you see either "County Line Rd" or two names - one for each county. For example, a road could be simultaneously CR 500S and CR 600N.

As for street addresses numbers, doesn't the post office set them?

[PurdueBill]

That certain increment is always one mile between the n00 roads.

The baselines can be numbered as CR 0 or sometimes have names like "Base Line Rd" or "Division Rd" like in Tippecanoe County.

Or something like CR 00NS or CR 00EW. Where roads go along county lines, you see either "County Line Rd" or two names - one for each county. For example, a road could be simultaneously CR 500S and SR 600N.

As for street addresses numbers, doesn't the post office set them?

Yes, I knew that certain counties use 1 mile = 100 increment in route numbers, but felt that I didn't know enough specific ones to be certain enough to generalize...I'll defer to someone who knows that it's always that case.

It is very interesting to see the dually-numbered roads; there are many good examples of it, and sometimes one county goes with County Line Rd. and the other with a numerical name.

I can't believe that I forgot Meridian as another name for the zero line.

I know that there are other examples of addresses following mileage; US 52 in southern Ohio has places where if you watch the white ODOT mile markers by county and the house numbers, they correspond.  Not sure who comes up with it first or how.  Same was true on US 30's old two-lane section in western Ohio--it's possibly true in more places but I haven't noticed or checked.