I am not sure I get it, but I actaully like those curves very much, I have drawn a lot of conic curves with them and it is amazing that you almost always find the right segment to fit your need. Did not know that they were called French curves in English, for me they were plantillas de Burmester (or more colloquially: pistoletes, probably because you can grab them like a toy pistol). When years later I learned to draw Bézier curves on computers they became in my mind “the analogue Béziers”.
Anaway: the chaos & anarchy remark was not meant to be taken seriously. And I have the impression that particular German student was being snarky, if not a downright jerk.
He was just about the most stereotypical “German” person I’ve ever met. His hand-written lab reports looked almost type-written, his letters were so consistently formed, all on the exact same line. I really think he was serious when he said it 
There is a DIN/ISO norm for that as well (DIN EN ISO 3098-0), and I was pretty good at hand writing too 
I had several of those very same orange stencils too but found it easier, faster and more accurate to draw the letters by hand.
Interesting. And an actual answer to my question. BTW, it was about halfway to the curb from the house. As far as I have read this thread, it seems no one has heard of the practice. Yet it must have been standard at one point.
In my town, the town actually owns the first 10’ above the sidewalk, so they can blow snow there. And there are no verges so they can plow the sidewalks.
BTW, there are many regional words for the verge. That’s what I called it in Philly. Montreal doesn’t have any. Other words I’ve heard are tree lawn and boulevard.
Yeah, the Driven Way vs. the Right of Way. Typical residential street is 36’ wide. But the right of way as deeded on the subdivision is 50’ wide. So 7’ from curb/edge of pavement. That’s typical for Denver anyway, back when I lived down there and was a draftsman.
Might have for older houses. I’ll try to remember to ask my dad if he’s heard of it.
The house I grew up in had a meter pit (thanks @robby for the term).
https://www.seattle.gov/utilities/your-services/water/metering/keeping-meters-accessible
Switzerland uses something similar, for water and natural gas lines.
In southern California the strip of grass (sometimes gravel or bushes) and occasional trees between the street and sidewalk is often referred-to as the parkway (I guess because people park their cars next to it?). I had never heard of the ‘meter pit’ but it’s an appropriate name for it. I think I used to refer to it as the Main Valve box – though it’s technically a bottomless box with the pipe, meter, and valve sticking up from under it. In the neighborhood (tract) where I grew up (San Diego) the main line meter/valve was in the parkway right next to the curb indentation for the driveway. In the neighborhood where I now live (Simi Valley but, oddly enough, the tract was built in the same year as the homes where I grew up), the meters appear to be paired-up on the property line between two houses, then paired-up between the next two houses further down the street, ad infinitum.
When I needed to repair a broken sprinkler system (which, for some odd reason, a previous owner had installed between the main valve and the house shut-off), I had to contact the water company and make an appointment to have them send a guy out to turn the main valve off with one of those tools that Just Asking Questions posted in his response. The water company’s website very clearly posts that those main valves are not on customers’ property and customers are not allowed to turn those valves on or off^. I told the guy to give me 4 hours (I had a choice of four-hour increments) and he could come back and turn it on again.
My two-hour effort repaired one of the four sprinkler valves and taught me that the others were just as old and worn out. So I planned ahead, bought one of those T tools on Amazon, cranked the valve control by myself, and replaced the other three sprinkler valves in about 2 hours (with experience helping me improve my efficiency). I did notice the PVC on the main line was pretty old and felt brittle, but I didn’t manage to break it so it didn’t seem to matter that I didn’t have a an ‘authorized water company valve-turner representative’ come out to do it for me.
–G!
^I assume it’s also strictly forbidden for customers to cut the water company’s locks with bolt cutters in order to turn their potable supply back on…
I would have spent the first hour installing a cutoff valve between the meter and the sprinklers. Then you could do your other repairs at your leisure without pissing off the water company.