In Calgary, all addresses end with the quadrant (e.g. NW, SW, NE, SE) which helps a lot. The older numbered streets are generally set up as a grid which further helps.
Finally, the vast majority of residential areas are pretty easy because the street names pretty much spell it out. In the case of the older communities, the street names start with the same letter as the community (e.g. in Varsity, there’s Vegas Way, Vancouver Crescent or Vantage Place). In the case of the newer communities, the street names start with the name of the community (e.g. Royal Oak has Royal Oak Grove, Royal Oak Cove or Royal Oak Heights, but no actual oaks, for the record).
So, I may not be able to tell you exactly where the address is, but I can get fairly close in most cases. It’s certainly a lot easier than San Diego or Chula Vista, where my inlaws live. There, Moorland Drive, Rain Patter Lane or Moraga Avenue could be just about anywhere.
I can, even though the streets are laid out willy-nilly. I grew up in Newport Beach, and have heard of most (if not all) of the streets in the city proper (new construction of “Newport Coast” in the last decade doesn’t count- it’s out on the old landfill, anyway!). Given a street name, and better yet a cross-street, and I can probably find it.
Houston - no way. You have to know the area or have access to a map.
If you learn the block numbers along a major road, that will help. For example, Westheimer runs all the way from downtown out into the boonies. Where it crosses Loop 610 is roughly the 5000 block. Where it crossed Beltway 8 is roughly the 10000 block, etc. Learn the block numbers of the major cross streets and you’ll know where you are, kinda.
But there’s one thing we do. I’m sure other cities do it too, but I find it annoying as hell. We’ll start a street and extend it for miles, but it won’t be continuous. It’ll be a couple of blocks here, then a break, then another couple of blocks, then another break, etc. You can’t drive from one address to another on the same street.
As an example, I picked a street in my neighborhood and a random address, then a second random address five blocks away. Here’s how to get from A to B:
Start at 10000 ELLA LEE LN, HOUSTON going toward BRIARPARK DR
Turn Right on BRIARPARK DR - go 0.2 mi
Turn Left on WESTHEIMER RD(FM-1093) - go 0.6 mi
Turn Left on S GESSNER RD - go 0.4 mi
Turn Right on ELLA LEE LN - go 0.4 mi
Arrive at 9500 ELLA LEE LN, HOUSTON, on the Left
And Ella Lee runs all the way down into the 3000s. Run the driving directions to get to 3200, for example, and it will send you via two freeways. :eek:
Sure. Chicago is incredibly easy. A grid starting at State and Madison with each block 100, 8 blocks to the mile, and major streets every 4 and 8 blocks. For a stretch on the west side, the N/S streets are alphabetized, with a different letter for each mile (I grew up on Mango - in the "M"s). There are less than 10 major streets that run on angles, and their addresses still reflect the grid.
So I’d tell you I grew up on the 3100 block of N. Mango, near Belmont and Central. Belmont is 3200 N, and Central 5600 W. Pretty darned simple. (Perhaps the simplicity of the grid system is one reason I dislike the more recent trend to give neighborhoods fancy little names, a la Upper West Lincoln Park View Heights Center.) Fer crying out loud, that tells me NOTHING! Just tell me the nearest 2 main streets and I’ll know right where it is.)
Around where I live, no. Street names are basically random, and as likely as not to only exist within a single housing development. DC, on the other hand, has a nice system:
The city is divided into quadrants* with the Capitol at the center. Any street address will end in NE, NW, SE or SW.
Capitol Street runs in three directions starting at the Capitol. You have N Capitol St, S Capitol St and E Capitol St. There is no W Capitol St because the Mall is there.
Starting from the Capitol, numbered streets run north-south heading away. (So there are two 1st Avenues, etc.)
Starting from the Capitol lettered streets run east-west heading away. (So again, 2 A Streets.) J is skipped. After you get to Z you start with one-syllable names starting with A, then B, etc. Then two-syllable names, and so on.
The exceptions are the streets running along the Mall: Constitution and Independence, and they continue into the east side of the city. There are “auxilliary” street that run partway down that I can’t remember the names of off the top of my head but know when I see them.
Streets named after states have no rhyme or reason, but the more recently a state entered the union the more likely it is to be in the middle of nowhere.
So, in addition to knowing that 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW is the White House, you also know that it’s about 16 blocks west of the Capitol and north of the National Mall. Similarly, 2300 E Capitol St NE is not only at the corner of Capitol and 23rd (and thus 23 blocks from the Capitol), you know it’s on the north side of the intersection.**
They’re not really quadrants for two reasons: DC gave back the part across the Potomac back to Virginia in the early-to-mid 1800s because the people in Alexandria thought they were getting the shaft with all the work going to the port in Georgetown – DC isn’t a perfect square. It’s also because the Capitol isn’t at the midpoint of the square anyway – it’s offset. The center is a point near the Ellipse (the oval-shaped road running through the White House’s back yard).
** Not always true, as the various Capitol Sts doesn’t always run straight away from the Capitol Building. But going out the east side it’s close enough, except for the couple blocks it detours around RFK Stadium.
And (except for Largo and the beaches), we have only N and S distinctions. Largo has a different numbering scheme than the rest of the county, and it uses NE, NW, SE, and SW centered on Missouri Ave and East / West Bay Drive. The beach communities numbering scheme starts all the way at the very bottom with 1st Ave and work their way up, as opposed to the mainland which starts at Central Ave and is numbered N and S as the avenues go up or down the county. Also, the beaches often use an E and W distinction centered on Gulf Blvd (the north / south artery along our barrier islands).
Further, Central isn’t very central, as we only go down to the 7300 block south, but about the 44000 block north. Streets run north / south and start at our eastern waterline in St Pete.
In the southern half of the county, which is both denser and older, it is very, very easy to find your way around with the grid system and numbering schemes. As you go further north, it starts falling apart a little, but the basics are still there and if you know the names and directions of travel of a few major roads, you can work it out.
Some of our minor roads do that, like Acoma, Paradise, and Utopia, but no one would give you those when telling you cross streets. They’d tell you the closest major road (Thunderbird, Greenway, and Union Hills, respectively), and then tell you to go one block north (or south) on the proper numbered road. Very few of our major roads do that, but there are mountains within the city limits that throw a wrench in the gears of a few roads, and there is one place where Thunderbird inexplicably turns into Cactus. With so few exceptions, though, they’re easily learnable and forgiveable.
Though the naming convention of mosty neighbourhoods follow this pattern, it still won’t help you find your way around town - knowing that a street is called Lindenlaan won’t tell you where in town to look for it…
DC has already been mentioned. The city where I lived prior to moving to the UK was Germany’s only remaining true grit-city Mannheim(Quadratenstadt). Looking a map up on Wikipedia/Google is way easier than me trying to explain it…
Altoona, PA, has a sort-of grid system. Avenues run roughly N-S. Streets run roughly E-W. I say roughly because the city follows the valley, which is actually NE-SW. There ARE named streets, but having lived in the city for 30-odd (some VERY odd) years, I know them pretty well. F’rinstance, if you told me you lived at 5730 Sixth Avenue, I’d know that was out by the TV station and the Sheetz corporate headquarters (which are at 58th St and 6th Ave). If you told me you lived out on Bellmeade Drive, I’d know you were out on the northern outskirts of town, just outside the neighborhood called Greenwood and right before you got to the entrance ramp for I-99. But again, that’s from 30 years experience hearing about and driving around the named streets.
Incidentally, I don’t have near this level of comfort with knowing my current home, Lancaster. I’ve only been here about 5 1/2 years and a lot of the named streets are still kind of floating in an indistinct grey cloud in my brain. I send applications as part of my job, and 8 times out of 10, I’ve heard of the person’s neighborhood or street before, but have no idea exactly where it is in town.
Chicago has a grid system, so in theory it should be pretty easy, but in practice people refer to the street names, so you’ve got to know those. But often, if you ask “What hundred block is Western?” someone in the room will either know (2400 West) or be able to narrow it down.
Numbers start at 1 at State and Madison, and increase outwards from there. Addresses are still indicated by cardinal directions in relation to their position with respect to State or Madison. That is, “1234 North Halsted” is north of Madison, “1234 South Halsted” is south of Madison. And after 10 years driving here, I know all the majors, although I sometimes mix up the order by one or two, and many of the side streets.
Even building numbers are North and West, odds South and East, same as the OP. They conform to the hundred block numbers, so 4240 N. Ridge will be a building north of Madison 42 blocks and some feet, between the 4200 and 4300 blocks (which I can narrow down to between Irving Park and Montrose). Avenues and Streets are not useful directional tools - they both run either way - but trucks and cargo vans are not allowed on Avenues by law, although this is enforced only whimsically.
Here’s something I just found at Wikipediathat I didn’t know. (On Preview, I see **Dinsdale **did. He must be more observant than I am. Well, I knew about K-town, and the “O-streets” but I’ve never noticed the pattern elsewhere.)
Every 1/8 of a mile is a “major” street, and in halfway between each of those is a “secondary” street. A major street can mostly be depended on to remain two-way and go through for a very long time without being stopped by a building or other large feature. A secondary street is a pretty good through way for a while, but it might jog occasionally or turn one way for a short span, and it could be cut short by a building or cemetery or something. Anything in between these streets is called a “side street” and when someone tells you to turn onto a side street, you know to look carefully for small signs and probably there will be no stop light or stop sign there.
“Jogging” and one way streets are probably the biggest barriers to driving when you don’t know where you’re going. Every so often, you’ll have to make a quick right-then-left to stay on the same name street. There are usually, but not always, signs warning you of this. (Though I’ll also add that this phenomenon is WAY worse in Evanston, where, for example, you need to turn at least 4 times in less than one mile to stay on Sheridan, and it’s labeled as other names more often than Sheridan Road, but it’s still considered Sheridan Road even when you turn right onto Forest Ave. Confused yet?)
One way streets mean you sometimes have to go past your target and make three rights or three lefts to get on it going the right way - and one way streets tend to cluster together, so sometimes you go past your target, but the next street is another one way going the wrong way for your adjustment, so you end up going 1/2 a mile out of the way!
But compared to Japan or modern Suburbia with its twisting winding streets and single arteries, Chicago’s a piece of cake.
In Salt Lake City this is incredibly easy. In the first place, the city is laid out in the most regular grid system I’ve ever seen, with 100 numbers to the block, all labeled outwards from the Center of the Universe at Temple Square.
Second, the addresses are given in two coordinates. I used to live at 740 East 300 South. That tells you it’s aout 7 1/2 blocks East of Temple Square and 3 blocks south. Moreover, it’s on the South side of the street (even numbers are south).
Finally, the numbering system runs beyond Salt Lake City, through a pretty good portion of the Salt Lake Valley. The folks in Sandy (for those of you who watch Big Love) use the same grid, with the same numbers, as Salt Lake. And their “zero” is still in Temple Square.
There are a few bumps in the system – streets stop being straight when you get up into the foothills and the Benches. For some reason an entire rehion of streets in the Northeast of the city – The Avenues – doesn’t fit in with everyone else. But they’ree still very regular within themselves. And their street blocks are the closest to true squares I’ve ever seen.
FWIW, a lot of cities, esopecialy in the Midwest and Intermountain West, are laid out in regular, serially-numbered grids. Lincoln Nebraska, for instance. But Salt Lake (and other Utah cities) take it to extremes.
Even in the East, howver, there are eularities. Manhatten steets are regularly numbered, and are pretty close to 100 numbers to the block. The Avenues are numbered, too, aklthough the numbering doesn’t make much sense (they used to publish books of street number addresses, for ease of locating them).
Even in Boston, where they say the streets were laid out along cow paths, there are regularities. When they laid out Back Back, they put in nice, straight, orthogonal streets. And the street names, from the Public Garden going West, are in alphabetical order.
Here I can, to an extent. Many of the main streets are lettered or numbered (except Vine, which is where V Street should be). Of course, this doesn’t help much if you don’t live on one of those streets–most people have no idea where the street I live on is (no wonder–it’s only a block long)
Halifax was nothing like that. They never did the numbering and lettering thing, so while it was a fairly grid-like pattern, on the peninsula at least, finding a location on a map was a pain. And the transit office, being on so wonderful, had all the bus routes online–sans map. Yes, that random squiggly line is very useful.
The best thing about this system is now I know exactly where you used to live, including the building. When I lived in So Cal, I would get lost daily. Any time I had to drive an address I’d never been to before, I always gave myself an extra 45 minutes to an hour, even if I was only driving five or six miles. It was the only way to insure I’d get where I needed to be on time. Fortunately, my husband’s work computer had a pretty comprehensive map program, so any time I got hopelessly turned around and lost, I could call him (this happened once a week or so). The biggest problem was that I never knew which direction was north.
In Salt Lake, I don’t have to worry about any of that! THe lake is always to the west, the mountains to the east, the capital building to the north. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, I can find my way home. Now, the grid system does fall apart in a few places (never take 600 S off Redwood Road if your goal is to get into downtown SLC…learned that one the hard way), but mostly it’s pretty stable. Pretty much every town in Utah is laid out this way, with the numbers south and north being counted from a “center street” and the numbers east and west going from a “state street” or “main street.”
I’m surprised how many big cities are as poorly laid out as the area I grew up in. Remember what a nightmare getting to places you’d never been was before Mapquest? I remember getting directions that took 10 minutes to give and included terribly wrong estimated distances and things like “go left at the 9th light, turn right at the fence, bear right at the oak tree*, left at the blue house,” etc.
*Not a made up example. When I delivered pizza back home, people would literally tell us “turn left at the oak tree,” among other ridiculously bumpkinized directions.
I used to live in Phoenix. One other quirk is Grand Ave, which runs NW/SE from downtown out to Sun City (and beyond). That makes for some daunting three way intersections. They’ve been working on making these freeway style overpasses. One other help is that minor streets between avenues and streets are called ‘drive’ on the west, and ‘lane’ on the east.
Wait, you mean every mile there’s a major street, right? Or are you talking about divisions like 31st Street, 31st Place, 32nd Street?
To add to this, one block is generally 1/8 of a mile. The exceptions are the streets between Madison (0 N/S) and 31st street. There, there’s 12 blocks from Madison to Roosevelt (1200 South). Ten blocks from Roosevelt to Cermak (2200 S) and nine blocks from Cermak to 31st (3100 S). The normal pattern resumes from there. North of Madison, it’s always 800 (8 blocks) numbers to the mile, and on the east-west axis, too.
As for the K-L-M-N-O streets, that’s useful if you know the streets are in those neighborhoods, but there’s plenty of streets beginning with those letters that are not in those neighborhoods, and there’s a number of streets not beginning with those letters that are in those neighborhoods. So you kinda do have to know that Mason is an “M-Street” in that regard, but Mozart and Maplewood aren’t. Or that while Kostner is in the K-section, so is Tripp.
But you can always just request the grid numbers or nearest intersection and you’ll find where you need to go quite easily. Or, if you’re lucky, you get an easy South Side address like, say, 3125 W. 47th Street which tells everyone exactly where you are on the grid.