Navigating in a City with Illogical Street Names

[Travis B.]

To me "thoroughfare" indicates a pretty good-sized road, the kind you would drive on if you were trying to get to some destination a distance away rather than just the last half-mile to get to someone's front door. And yes, a "circle" certainly is not a "thoroughfare" to me.

[doctor shark]

Here in Wisconsin, city streets have names, while state and US highways have numbers, interstates have I- followed by numbers, and county highways have letters ─ with one notable exception ─ everyone refers to Highway 100, which is definitely a city street, in Milwaukee County as Highway 100 and only uncommonly by its other names such as 108th Street or Mayfair Road, while practically no other numbered or lettered highways are referred to by such in Milwaukee County.

Unless things have changed (milennials ruining everything), people refer to the interstates in Chicago by name:

290 - Eisenhower
90/94 - N, Kennedy; S, Dan Ryan
294 - Tri-State

Numbered routes may or may not be referred to by names... e.g. it'd be odd to call North Avenue "route 64". It probably helps that the major streets keep their name across the whole region. E.g. Ogden Ave. keeps its name from the city 30 miles out.

In referring to interstates by names, in Chicago, it makes sense: the numbers for some of them do change, particularly the toll roads. For example, the Tri-State changes from I-294 to I-94 en route to the IL–WI border. Similarly, in Snowhio, at least, one refers to the Ohio Turnpike and not the individual route numbers (I-80, I-90, and I-76), and same for the Kansas Turnpike in Kansas. But especially when the name changes (e.g. I-40 in North Carolina), it's often more common to use the route number.

That said, often a lot of motorways here in Luxembourg are referred to by their names, which normally refers to where the road goes to; in Belgium, most motorways are referred to by the E-route number rather than the Belgian A-number (the A4 towards Brussels, for example, is the E411 between Arlon and Brussels; it's sometimes also called the Autoroute des Ardennes, but most commonly traffic reports will talk about the E411).

[alice]

A "lane" or a "place" or a "court" doesn't sound like a "thoroughfare" to me.

I mistyped something.
To me a “lane” is possibly the smallest kind or least “thorough” kind of thoroughfare.
But a “drive” is a thoroughfare. The second time I mentioned “drive”, I meant “circle”.
“Circles” don’t strike me as thoroughfares.

There's an Oval in Glasgow, and it is an actual oval, almost an ellipse. There are two roads joined on to it, so it might qualify as "thorough" if you go from one to the other.

[zompist]

In referring to interstates by names, in Chicago, it makes sense: the numbers for some of them do change, particularly the toll roads. For example, the Tri-State changes from I-294 to I-94 en route to the IL–WI border.

This isn't quite right. Interstate numbers don't change: 94 is a national route that goes from Billings MT to Detroit MI, just as 90 goes from Seattle to Boston. Within the Midwest it goes through St Paul, then Milwaukee, hugs the lake as it goes through Chicago, then heads east to Detroit.

3-digit interstate numbers are spurs or ring roads:294 is a ring road that goes farther out from downtown, skirting the whole city.

But the Tri-State is also a thing, and consists of parts of three different interstates, including the entirety of 294.

[TomHChappell]

In the UK I would expect an "avenue" to be lined with trees and/or to be used on a housing estate to give the impression of some idyllic setting.
….

In the system I was taught, avenues have trees lining each side, whereas boulevards have trees planted down the middle, like a kind of divider.
But note that system could allow a thoroughfare to be neither an avenue nor a boulevard. Or both an Avenue and a boulevard, if there were enough trees.

And besides all that, I’ve never been anywhere that this system wasn’t honored more in the breach than in the observance.

[doctor shark]

In referring to interstates by names, in Chicago, it makes sense: the numbers for some of them do change, particularly the toll roads. For example, the Tri-State changes from I-294 to I-94 en route to the IL–WI border.

This isn't quite right. Interstate numbers don't change: 94 is a national route that goes from Billings MT to Detroit MI, just as 90 goes from Seattle to Boston. Within the Midwest it goes through St Paul, then Milwaukee, hugs the lake as it goes through Chicago, then heads east to Detroit.

3-digit interstate numbers are spurs or ring roads:294 is a ring road that goes farther out from downtown, skirting the whole city.

But the Tri-State is also a thing, and consists of parts of three different interstates, including the entirety of 294.

I think I inelegantly tried to explain my point, but more of what I meant was that it's more useful in a place like Chicago to navigate with the names of routes rather than numbers that might change on said route. For example, when I drove from Snowhio to Wisconsin through Chicago, I went on the Tri-State and stayed on the Tri-State until the Wisconsin border. And many times names predate the numbering (ex. the West Virginia Turnpike).

That said, on the topic of where I live now (Luxembourg), the naming isn't very logical, though normally we navigate with the bus lines and main things. Though many times the names of roads won't change within municipal boundaries: for example, the Rue de Beggen will no longer be called Rue de Beggen once you get into Beggen...

[Raphael]

for example, the Rue de Beggen will no longer be called Rue de Beggen once you get into Beggen...

Why yes, of course: once you're in Beggen, the former Rue de Beggen is no longer the road that takes you into Beggen.

[Ketsuban]

This sent me down a rabbithole. I had thought the Radley Road continued to be the Radley Road into Radley itself, but checking the map it becomes the Foxborough Road past the junction with White's Lane (which marks the current boundary of Radley itself) and then Church Road past the junction with a road marked on Google Maps as "Lower Radley" leading to... the hamlet of Lower Radley. This struck me as weird so I did some digging, and it seems like this is what may have happened:

1. The road from Radley to Lower Radley, as well as all the roads in Lower Radley itself, didn't have names at first.
2. At some point someone numbered the houses in Lower Radley for postal purposes, so there's a bunch of houses with addresses which superficially look like house numbers on a road called Lower Radley. Google Maps took that at face value and, believing all roads have names, labelled the road "Lower Radley".
3. Some of the previously unnamed roads in Lower Radley have since gained names, so the houses on them are now 12 Baker's Cottage rather than 123 Lower Radley, muddying everything.

[sasasha]

If you live in a city that hasn't embraced the logic,

I'm in the UK, so... yeah. The light of such logic has only hit utopias like Milton Keynes (shudders)

I have the following questions:
(1) Do "street" and "avenue" signify something else that I'm not aware of? (Maybe the width of the road?)

Yes, I would expect the width of an avenue to be greater, but it's not at all a hard and fast rule. I never knew that streets are EW and avenues NS in NYC until I went there.

(2) How do you navigate when every street has a name name instead of a number name?

Mostly like Torco. Though everything here sounds a little less exotic. 90% of it can be achieved by "you know Tesco in [area name]? Just down the hill[/whatever] on the right." Areas having names is normal here -- I do think we could explain that better in our signage (i.e. "Welcome to Gorton" -- though I did used to live right next to a sign that said those words on it -- more shudders).

The crucial thing really is that basically all city roads/streets have street signs with the street name on them, and they're usually quite obvious. So you can memorise a chain like "left onto Rickman Avenue, 3rd right onto Allan Street" (However, the street signs have different designs and placement conventions in different cities/boroughs. Which gets annoying -- I can never find the street signs in Manchester, and they're depressing as hell compared to the ones I grew up with, which had a nice crest on them and an attractive font.)

I'm from a hilly city, and directions growing up inevitably involved "up", "down" or it was on a different hill.

I like the American system of referring to intersections -- we don't do that here. But, it doesn't really make a great deal of sense to, as we have zanier intersections at much less predictable places. It's not much good knowing that you're going to the intersection of Joe Parkway and Bloggs Crescent if both of those streets can curve wherever they damn well please before they meet.

(3) How many of the streets with name names (elm, johnson, etc) do you actually know (name and location relative to each other) off the top of your head?

Probably more than I expect, but again, I agreed with Torco's answer, only some of these are actually known precisely; others are telling me that I need to be on the other side of town somewhere and then work it out from there.

(4) Am I overestimating how useful logical road names are in the modern internet era?

I'll concur with most people, yes. I'd guess that it's not even in the modern internet era that systems like yours are much more useful. People use the systems they are used to and they still find places. In your city, what happens if you can't remember if it was 36 & 25 or 37 & 26 or 26 & 63? In my city, there's only one Wilmslow Road, and it's hard to get it mixed up with Oxford Street. (Trick example: they're contiguous with no obvious delineation between one and the other. Ok, so I admit that that that is confusing.)

(5) If you're old enough to have driven in the pre-internet era, was it more cumbersome in the past?

I didn't do it myself but I navigated for my dad a lot. You used to have an A-Z street map in the car for the city you lived in, and if you visited a different city you might buy one from a petrol station unless you knew where you were going.

[sasasha]

If you live in a city that hasn't embraced the logic,

I'm in the UK, so... yeah. The light of such logic has only hit utopias like Milton Keynes (shudders)

I have the following questions:
(1) Do "street" and "avenue" signify something else that I'm not aware of? (Maybe the width of the road?)

Yes, I would expect the width of an avenue to be greater, but it's not at all a hard and fast rule. I never knew that streets are EW and avenues NS in NYC until I went there.

(2) How do you navigate when every street has a name name instead of a number name?

Mostly like Torco. Though everything here sounds a little less exotic. 90% of it can be achieved by "you know Tesco in [area name]? Just down the hill[/whatever] on the right." Areas having names is normal here -- I do think we could explain that better in our signage (i.e. "Welcome to Gorton" -- though I did used to live right next to a sign that said those words on it -- more shudders).

The crucial thing really is that basically all city roads/streets have street signs with the street name on them, and they're usually quite obvious. So you can memorise a chain like "left onto Rickman Avenue, 3rd right onto Allan Street" (However, the street signs have different designs and placement conventions in different cities/boroughs. Which gets annoying -- I can never find the street signs in Manchester, and they're depressing as hell compared to the ones I grew up with, which had a nice crest on them and an attractive font.)

I'm from a hilly city, and directions growing up inevitably involved "up", "down" or it was on a different hill.

I like the American system of referring to intersections -- we don't do that here. But, it doesn't really make a great deal of sense to, as we have zanier intersections at much less predictable places. It's not much good knowing that you're going to the intersection of Joe Parkway and Bloggs Crescent if both of those streets can curve wherever they damn well please before they meet.

(3) How many of the streets with name names (elm, johnson, etc) do you actually know (name and location relative to each other) off the top of your head?

Probably more than I expect, but again, I agreed with Torco's answer, only some of these are actually known precisely; others are telling me that I need to be on the other side of town somewhere and then work it out from there.

(4) Am I overestimating how useful logical road names are in the modern internet era?

I'll concur with most people, yes. I'd guess that it's not even in the modern internet era that systems like yours are much more useful. People use the systems they are used to and they still find places. In your city, what happens if you can't remember if it was 36 & 25 or 37 & 26 or 26 & 63? In my city, there's only one Wilmslow Road, and it's hard to get it mixed up with Oxford Street. (Trick example: they're contiguous with no obvious delineation between one and the other. Ok, so I admit that that is confusing.)

(5) If you're old enough to have driven in the pre-internet era, was it more cumbersome in the past?

I didn't do it myself but I navigated for my dad a lot. You used to have an A-Z street map in the car for the city you lived in, and if you visited a different city you might buy one from a petrol station unless you knew where you were going.

[zompist]

I like the American system of referring to intersections -- we don't do that here. But, it doesn't really make a great deal of sense to, as we have zanier intersections at much less predictable places. It's not much good knowing that you're going to the intersection of Joe Parkway and Bloggs Crescent if both of those streets can curve wherever they damn well please before they meet.

That's how Boston works. Or doesn't work. Plus they have the cute idea that cross-streets should be named, but not the road you're on; plus if you hesitate for a moment drivers immediately get aggressive.

In your city, what happens if you can't remember if it was 36 & 25 or 37 & 26 or 26 & 63? In my city, there's only one Wilmslow Road, and it's hard to get it mixed up with Oxford Street.

Reminds me of Dave Barry's line about subway lines in New York being helpfully named for famous numbers and letters.

In Chicago, only the E-W streets are numbered, and only on the South Side, so you get intersections like "71st and Jeffries"— not hard. State routes are often referred to by number, and there aren't enough of them to be really confusing. I kind of viscerally know where 53, 83, and 59 are, for instance, and they have lots of associations: 53 is where my parents used to live, 83 is by Oak Brook, 59 is where my sister lives, etc.

[TomHChappell]

Sorry if this is necro-posting: but;
What about Watling Street in the U.K. ?

[jcb]

'll concur with most people, yes. I'd guess that it's not even in the modern internet era that systems like yours are much more useful. People use the systems they are used to and they still find places. In your city, what happens if you can't remember if it was 36 & 25 or 37 & 26 or 26 & 63? In my city, there's only one Wilmslow Road, and it's hard to get it mixed up with Oxford Street. (Trick example: they're contiguous with no obvious delineation between one and the other. Ok, so I admit that that that is confusing.)

(1) Write it down.
(2) Businesses are usually on only a few big streets, which one remembers, even if it's just numbers.

Furthermore, the "street" or "avenue" designation is often left off if the context is clear. For example, "13th" in theory could refer to 3 streets: 13th Street N/S, 13th Avenue N, or 13th Avenue S, but the last one is a major street with many businesses, and the other two are minor ones, thus in practice people usually mean the last one.

[sasasha]

Sorry if this is necro-posting: but;
What about Watling Street in the U.K. ?

Well, I live near a portion of it, and even though it’s a small country road for some of its way through these parts we still use it as a (long, thin) local landmark. The A5 and M6 toll follow it roughly and the former twists in and out of being it at various points, so there is still a set of arterial routes based on it ‒ but ‘just off Watling Street’ is probably nearly as common a thing to say as ‘just off the A5/M6 toll’. (And like the latter requires further qualification to pinpoint where along its length you mean.)

So it has an elevated status among local street names (no other named road I can think of round here is as long and thus as noteable). I wonder if the same is true for many Roman roads.