There’s a road in the (at least for now) rural western part of this county named: “Yellow Water Road” … I don’t even want to know why.
Mexico City is famed for presenting the greatest addressing difficulties on earth.
The city is made up of several hundred colonia, each of which can have one or several occurences of a common name like Calle Juarez. IIRC there are examples of names that occur over 1000 times.
Streets frequently change name for no apparent reason.
Street numbers are not always consecutive.
If you ever send a letter this will help.
During the Quiet Revolution when Montreal discovered oh my god, most of the people who live here are French, there was a big campaign to take a lot of streets with bilingual names and make them French. So me and my friends are all used to the French names (av. des Pins, rue Saint-Jacques, boul. René-Lévesque). Once in a while you come across someone who calls a street by a name it doesn’t have anymore just to make a point.
Someone told Hamish once - right after he had arrived from Vancouver - to go find something on Pine Ave. Of course, he was completely incapable of finding Pine Ave., until he clued in that they were talking about av. des Pins.
What kind of yo-yo intentionally gives people the wrong directions just to make a political point? That’s like telling someone to change at Albert metro because you don’t like Lionel Groulx. (You Montrealers will know what I’m talking about.)
Moving right along, streets that run north-south in downtown Montreal have a particular habit of changing names several times. There is for example rue Saint-Pierre which turns into rue de Bleury which then becomes av. du Parc, or rue Amherst which becomes av. du Parc-La Fontaine and then rue Christophe-Colomb.
However, the winner in this regard starts from the Old Port as rue McGill, then turns into square Victoria, côte du Beaver-Hall, place Phillips, and finally rue Aylmer. Yes, five different names in the space of two kilometers, an average of about 400 metres per name. Yeesh.
And let’s not even talk about the autoroutes. My dad ONLY knows them by their numbers (10, 15, 20, 25, 40); I ONLY know them by their names (Bonaventure, Décarie, Ville-Marie, Lafontaine, Métropolitaine).
Bowie, Maryland is another town where one could live in the “S’s” or the “B’s” – between three households which moved around the town a bit, I’ve had friends there who have lived on Starwood, Superior, Stonybrook, Sandridge, (the ubiquitous) Saddlewood and Southward (I think).
In my little hometown in Mississippi, there is a subdivision where all of the streets are dog breeds: Boxer, Fox Terrier, Jack Russell, Whippet, Great Dane, Dalmation and Beagle. There’s even a Pomeranian Lane. Can you imagine?
The last time I was back to visit, I noticed a new tony development going up with a bunch of McMansions with streets like Platinum, Diamond, Mercedes, Porsche, and, most obnoxiously, Stock Option and Bearer Bond! I don’t want to see what kind of people move into that community.
In the same town, my parents live on Sherwood Court, in a plan with Forest, Nottingham, Friar Tuck, Maid Marian, and my personal favorite, Merrimen (they couldn’t bring themselves to go to Merry Men) which are all spokes off of Robin Hood, of course.
That’s just goofy, but I may be tainted by my hatred of pre-fab developments.
Oh! That reminds me: there’s a subdivision in the Montreal suburb of Kirkland where all the streets are named after WINE.
Madeira, Champagne, Chardonnay, Sauvignon, Beaujolais, Sangria, Cabernet, Chablis, Medoc, Chianti, Bourgogne…
In the Atlanta neighborhood where I used to live, there is a sequence of four streets named “Merry,” “Christmas,” “Jody,” and “Bramble” - the first three designated as Lanes, the last a Road. (The story I heard was that the developer’s wife and mistress were both named Jody, and that Bramble was the latter’s last name, so that he did it this way in order to be able to cover his tracks - his wife would think that Bramble Road was the beginning of a new sequence of street names, unrelated to the other three.)
In turn, Christmas Lane has, branching off it, Reindeer and Holly (as well as North Holly) Lanes.
All of this is in the middle of a large Jewish community. I know several folks living on Christmas Lane who prefer to call it Chanukah Lane; some of them even receive their mail addressed to them that way!
RedNaxela
On the north side of Chicago, minor residential streets are frequently named in letter groups. Starting at Touhy and Harlem and going west on Touhy you find the "O"s: Oconto, Octavia, Odell, Oketo, Osceloa, Olcott, Oleander, Oriole, Ottawa, Overhill, and finally Ozark. The next street is Ozanam on the east side and Merrill on the west side: the city line runs down the middle of the street and Park Ridge has a different name for that road. If you go further south so you’re back in Chicago, you find even more O-named streets.
If you go down to Devon and Harlem and go east on Devon, you find the "N"s: Neva, Nordica, Sayre (an exception!), Newland, Newark, New England, New Castle, Oak Park (another exception), Normandy, Natoma, Nashville, Naper, and finally Nagle. After Nagle we have the "M"s: Mobile, Merrimac, Melvina, and Moody, and then the Forest Preserve intercedes and there are no more streets until Lehigh. The streets between Lehigh and Cicero are diagonals and most of them seem to be named after Indian tribes. AFter Cicero, though, we go back to a normal north-south grid and they’re almost all "K"s: Keating, Kilpatrick, Knox, Kenton, Kolmar, Kilbaum, Kirkwood, Kostner, Lowell (exception), Kildare, Tripp (exception), Keeler, Kedvale, Karlov, and Keystone. The we hit Pulaski, and this behavior seems to end. I’ve never really looked to see if there are “P” sections further west or “J” sections further east.
Needless to say, this gets quite confusing. You can’t just look for the street that begins with “O”: ALL of them begin with “O”. Grr.
My other favorite is St. Petersburg, Florida: every street, with the exception of the handful of diagonals and the two midlines, is numbered. Furthermore, in order to more readily confuse, they reuse 1st through 10th. As a result, there are a total of eight distinct roadways named “First” (four of them streets, four of them avenues). If they need street half-way between two numbered ones, it gets the lower number and is called “lane” or “place” instead of “street” or “avenue”. Very unimaginative. Very rational. Very confusing. (At least, this is how it was when I was there in 1979. Maybe they’ve fixed this. We can only hope.)
Or Redneck Road, which runs through Moonachie and Little Ferry, New Jersey. I once knew a little fairy who was a redneck, but that’s another story.
Other oddities:
Bloomington, Indiana has two of my favorites: That Road and Sample Road.
There’s a condo complex near DC where the roads are all named after golfing terms: Fairway Drive, Wedge Way, Divot Place, Blue Tee Terrace.
I’m not Math Geek, I’m Suo Na. He left himself logged in and the loading time is ludicrous, so I didn’t feel like logging in properly. You are warned.
On to street names:
In Waterloo, Ontario, I used to live on Keats Way. Now, when you turn onto Keats Way, the first street on your right is Keats Way Place, and the second is Keats Walk. Very confusing, but luckily the insanity ends there.
Waterloo butts up against another city, Kitchener, and they share streets. King and Weber run parallel to each other, but cross three times. If someone gives you directions to “the corner of King and Weber” you have to ask which one.
We had a problem trying to find a campground in Tulsa, OK one night on our road trip. The guide book gave directions from Mingo. Just that, Mingo. Seemed easy enough, since they included a handy map. What they didn’t mention is that coming in from the Mingo Parkway, you couldn’t find the park, because the park was on Mingo Drive (or something like that) which ran parallel and slightly under the parkway, and which they had neglected to include on the map. In driving around in a big circle to find the park, though, we managed to find the best doughnut shop in Tulsa, so it wasn’t a waste.
I live in cambridge, so partly because they called the bit of street outside every college after it whenever they could, most street names last for about 100yds before becoming something else for no discernible reason. At least it’s less confusing than:
“Where’s Queen’s college?”
“On Trinity Street.”
“Shouldn’t it be on Queen’s Road?”
"Well, yes, but it isn’t. What would you like me to do about it?
“I’ve never really looked to see if there are “P” sections further west”
I live on one of the “O” streets, but in Norridge, not the city. Yes, there is a brief “P” section; go west on Irving Park Road, and they begin just past the cemeteries. IIRC, Cumberland Avenue, aka First Avenue, is also Pueblo Avenue, though almost nobody calls it that.
Muncie Indiana has ** Justamere Lane ** and a ** Lois Lane **
I used to complain about our streets until I went to London. You’re on the right street and then suddenly you’re not, and you never passed the place you were looking for, yet you keep on driving as the street goes through 4 or 5 name changes before it gets back to the name you were originally on. Dear god that would drive me wild.
In Honolulu we’re fond of opening a subdivision with handful of streets with names like Opaka Street, Opaka Circle, Opaka Lane etc. All of which meat several times as the roads wind about. Also they all sound so familiar, is that Olomana or Olomona?
Really?!? In Baltimore, the Parkville/Towson area? Or some other “Oak” neighborhood?
Bloomington, Indiana has a Lois Lane, too.
Evanston Illinois,
Let's say you're taking a day trip up to the wealthy land from Chicago... easiest way is to get on LSD (lake shore drive, get your minds outta the 60s)... when you run out of LSD you make a right onto Sheridan Road, you spend 15 to 55 minutes in bumper to bumper traffic, then you curve left, onto sheridan road, then you turn right onto sheridan road, then you turn left onto sheridan road (again), then sheridan road bends around a bit, then you turn right (onto sheridan road)... keep in mind during this trip you've passed sheridan place, sheridan square, sheridan avenue, and sheridan way... I think I'll stay in chicago in chicago from now on.