# Streets, Roads, Avenues, Boulevards, et cetera **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 21, 2013, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306 "2013-04-21T13:32:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/41 "2013-04-23T08:55:06Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > I wpuld be interested in seeing, in connection with this thread, some more examples of “single-name streets”, where the street name has no tag such as street, avenue, boulevard, or drive, but is simply a single word, perhaps with “The” attached. I guess _Strand_ in London will fit in and in Stockholm there’s the street name _Tre Liljor_ = _Three Lillies_ (IIRC it’s named after an old inn). ETA Not really part of this discussion but in Amsterdam there’s a street called Oude Nieuwstraat. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Woo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7c8e57/32.png) [@Dr.Woo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Woo)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/42 "2013-04-23T12:49:46Z")
Ere > [@Senegoid](#): > > “The Alameda” in Berkeley and San Jose has already been mentioned. > > Pretty much ALL the vehicular travel structures (VTS) in San Francisco are given names without a “title”. The above-cited Wiki (post #5 above) mentions several cities like this, with a photo of Kearny in San Francisco. > > The Wiki mentions that all the VTS’s in S.F. actually have “titles”, but that they aren’t shown on the street signs, so nobody really knows what they are. (And also lists several other cities that do likewise.) There are also VTS’s with numbers instead of names, and these ought to show the “title” (although I don’t know if they actually do, but they should) because the same numbers can and do appear on both a “Street” and an “Avenue” in different parts of town. For example, there is a 19th Avenue (a major thoroughfare in the Sunset District) and a 19th Street (a residential side-street in the Mission District). There’s also The Embarcadero in San Francisco and Oakland. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/43 "2013-04-23T13:51:34Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Does California’s many routes named El Camino Real count? I’d say no - “The Royal Road” - it has both a name and a designation. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/44 "2013-04-23T15:39:37Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > I’d say no - “The Royal Road” - it has both a name and a designation. I know the meaning in Spanish. But many streets in California are taken from the Spanish and given modern designations. And many terms from other languages have their original meanings forgotten so an English designation is added, at least unofficially, as in Rio Grande River. I was wondering how English-speaking Californians treat the term. ---
**Author:** ![SpeedwayRyan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@SpeedwayRyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpeedwayRyan)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/45 "2013-04-23T17:51:42Z")
**Boulevards** are often diagonal to the predominant grid system, and are often divided with a planted median. In newer neighborhoods, **Court** almost always means a cul-de-sac. **Place** is also used in this way (or for a dead-end street). **Circle** , as the name implies, loops back around to itself. **Drives** are often winding/meandering, which is why it’s common nomenclature in newer neighborhoods that have all their streets laid out this way. Many times “X Drive” then has a cul-de-sac branching off it called “X Court” (same name). ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/46 "2013-04-23T19:01:49Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > In the area I grew up there were a lot of [name] Street Roads. The significance of the name was pbvious in context, though: they were the extension of what was in a given city/village named [name] Street on out into the countryside. What is now NY Route 283, for example, was the extension, to connect the City of Watertown with Fort Drum, of Pearl Street, which ran from downtown through the industrial area to the city limits, and hence the extension, a county road at the time, was Pearl Street Road. > > I wpuld be interested in seeing, in connection with this thread, some more examples of “single-name streets”, where the street name has no tag such as street, avenue, boulevard, or drive, but is simply a single word, perhaps with “The” attached. Tue two examples I have are Broadway, in New York City, and The Paseo, in Kansas City. I imagine there are more, but they must be quite rare. I used to live on Camino Real, which I believe is Spanish for “Royal Way.” ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/47 "2013-04-23T19:02:46Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > “The Alameda” in Berkeley and San Jose has already been mentioned. > > Pretty much ALL the vehicular travel structures (VTS) in San Francisco are given names without a “title”. The above-cited Wiki (post #5 above) mentions several cities like this, with a photo of Kearny in San Francisco. > > The Wiki mentions that all the VTS’s in S.F. actually have “titles”, but that they aren’t shown on the street signs, so nobody really knows what they are. (And also lists several other cities that do likewise.) There are also VTS’s with numbers instead of names, and these ought to show the “title” (although I don’t know if they actually do, but they should) because the same numbers can and do appear on both a “Street” and an “Avenue” in different parts of town. For example, there is a 19th Avenue (a major thoroughfare in the Sunset District) and a 19th Street (a residential side-street in the Mission District). The late columnist Herb Caen once said that you could tell a long-time San Franciscan from a newbie by the fact that the longtimer knew the proper street suffixes even though they weren’t marked on the signs. It’s “Market Street” but “Van Ness Avenue” and “Arguello Boulevard”. They are marked on the signs of the numbered streets so that you can tell the difference between, say 19th Street and 19th Avenue, in the example you gave. ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/48 "2013-04-24T20:10:29Z")
I live in Brooklyn on \_\_\_ Street between \_\_\_l Road and \_\_\_ Avenue. Parallel to \_\_\_l Road are \_\_\_ Avenue and then a bunch of numbered Streets; past \_\_\_l Road, \_\_\_Street becomes \_\_\_e Road, which is parallel to mostly Avenues with a couple of other Roads. Near where my parents live there are a handful of culs-de-sac called \_\_\_ Court I think at least around here Road and Boulevard and Drive are meant to imply a kind of white-picket-fence suburbanity. > [@suranyi](#): > > They are marked on the signs of the numbered streets so that you can tell the difference between, say 19th Street and 19th Avenue, in the example you gave. When my girlfriend first set foot in Brooklyn, I was living with my parents and she tried to come by, but went to entirely the wrong neighborhood because she’d been given directions to a different street with the same number – the distinction wasn’t the tag, but the directional ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/49 "2013-04-24T21:42:49Z")
In England, as well as streets, roads, avenues, ways, lanes, etc we have drives, crescents, terraces, mews, walks and probably a dozen more that don’t immediately spring to mind. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/50 "2013-04-25T00:33:39Z")
> [@](#): > > When my girlfriend first set foot in Brooklyn, I was living with my parents and she tried to come by, but went to entirely the wrong neighborhood because she’d been given directions to a different street with the same number – the distinction wasn’t the tag, but the directional In some cities, streets that differ only in the directional are really the same street, and just change name slightly at some central line. That is to say, if you keep going east on West 50th Street, eventually you’ll be on East 50th Street. In other cities, streets that differ only in the directional are completely different streets: In Cleveland, for instance, East 50th Street and West 50th Street both run north-south, and are approximately 100 blocks apart. This can be quite confusing in either direction for someone who’s used to the one but visiting a city that uses the other. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/51 "2013-04-25T02:53:14Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > I wpuld be interested in seeing, in connection with this thread, some more examples of “single-name streets”, where the street name has no tag such as street, avenue, boulevard, or drive, but is simply a single word, perhaps with “The” attached. Tue two examples I have are Broadway, in New York City, and The Paseo, in Kansas City. I imagine there are more, but they must be quite rare. How about the Grand Concourse, in the Bronx, New York City? There’s also a Broadway in Queens, completely unconnected and unrelated to the one in Manhattan. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/52 "2013-04-25T04:33:39Z")
“Grand” is the name, and “Concourse” is the tag. ---
**Author:** ![listedmia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@listedmia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/listedmia)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/53 "2013-04-25T06:16:44Z")
> [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](#): > > Agree that “Broadway” isn’t, even though no one uses the space. The Bowery a little east of it is, though. And I think some but not all of the streets in the French Quarter in New Orleans have no tags, or at least the signs have no tags. Nope, most of the streets in the Quarter are \_\_\_\_ Street. Some of the signs don’t have the “St” some do. And most people don’t use the designation when speaking. I go down Esplanade every day and I did not know it was called “Esplanade Avenue” until I googled it just now. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/54 "2013-04-25T08:15:26Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > In some cities, streets that differ only in the directional are really the same street, and just change name slightly at some central line. That is to say, if you keep going east on West 50th Street, eventually you’ll be on East 50th Street. In other cities, streets that differ only in the directional are completely different streets: In Cleveland, for instance, East 50th Street and West 50th Street both run north-south, and are approximately 100 blocks apart. This can be quite confusing in either direction for someone who’s used to the one but visiting a city that uses the other. Or someone used to neither. My first time driving in North America I drove into Calgary and had to park because I didn’t have a good enough map and couldn’t find my accomodations (which on foot I discovered I’d driven by). So I park at the intersection of 1st Street and 9th Avenue, memorize this and go off walking to find the hostel. Find it, walk back and figure the easiest is to go down to 9th Ave and follow that, but when I get to 1st Street there’s no parking lot. I questioned my memory, I questioned my decision not to write the location down, I walked up and down 1st a bit figuring I couldn’t have misremembered that, then walked a bit further wondering what they h\*\*\* I’d do if I couldn’t find my car. That’s when I discovered I’d been walking up and down 1st Street SE and my car was just two blocks up, past Centre Street, on 1st Street SW. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2013, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/55 "2013-04-29T05:44:19Z")
I remember reading about the “avenue” for north-south thoroughfares applying to L.A. as well. Allowing for the expected exceptions, it seems to hold true generally. Boulevards here are usually major multi-lane roads that run east and west (more or less allowing for the way the city was laid out). OTOH some “boulevards” not only don’t run east and west, but also are quiet two-lane residential streets. Funny anecdote about street names from my childhood: Reading a Beatles bio, I learned that when the band first moved down to London, one of them (Lennon?) lived in “Emperor’s Gate”. First of all, I hadn’t yet picked up on the fact that in British English, they say “in” a street to mean “on” a street, in the sense of where your address is. What’s more, I didn’t know that English towns use a wider variety of street name suffixes, many of which are highly evocative. Knowing that London has many more historic buildings than any American city, I thought Emperor’s Gate must be a great monumental arch, like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and that John Lennon’s apartment was somewhere in the upper reaches of this magnificent piece of masonry. ---
**Author:** ![bchris964](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f14d63/32.png) [@bchris964](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bchris964)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2013, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/56 "2013-04-29T07:08:44Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > In a suburb of Rochester, you will find a street named Boulevard Parkway. It is a two block long dead end. W. Boulevard Parkway runs perpendicularly into the middle of it and the two are connected diagonally by Boulevard Parkway Ramp. > > Boulevards were the name given to the wide avenues that Hausmann carved into the older, narrow street grid of Paris. In America, Boulevards were part of the City Beautiful movement, which tried to create similar grand avenues that would bypass the tangle of pre-colonial streets. > > Parkways came a bit later in response to automobiles. They were limited access roadways designed to allow mototists to move from one part of the city to another without having to stop for a light at every corner. They usually had rows of trees planted along the sides instead of shops and houses. > > Avenues, roads, and streets were used fairly interchangeably, although local rules, like those in NYC, might make a difference. > > None of that makes much difference anymore. Suburban developers can name the streets anything they want, and they often get creative or grandiose as above. It was one of the few fun things when I delivered mail to come across a new weird name. [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_or_road_name#Street_type_designations) has a very partial list. interesting topic, different names of places, streets, roads, parks, etc are distinguished to make easy every place to remember and make sense about the particular places or road. Exapno Mapcase thanx for sharing detailed information… superb remarkable job but always remember reference of wiki can’t be accepted due to non-authentic issues. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2013, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/57 "2013-04-29T14:13:21Z")
> [@bchris964](#): > > Exapno Mapcase thanx for sharing detailed information… superb remarkable job but always remember reference of wiki can’t be accepted due to non-authentic issues. First, thank you. Second, that Wikipedia comment needs a response. Is Wikipedia completely accurate about everything? No, of course not. Is there any reference source that is completely accurate about everything? No, of course not. Are the posts of any individual completely accurate about everything? No, of course not. All you’re saying is all cites are worthless, and that can’t be true. How good is Wikipedia? It is extremely good overall. It’s best at compiling facts and figures, worst at placing those into context or giving interpretations. The page in question is a simple listing of street names. It is not complete, but it is completely accurate as far as it goes. Why would anybody suspect otherwise? You’re also confusing Wikipedia being the source of knowledge for people who know nothing about a subject and Wikipedia as being a convenient compilation of information for people who already know the subject. If you know nothing and cite Wikipedia, then the chances increase that something on the page might be wrong without you knowing. A knowledgeable person can point to a page and say, here’s a summary that is accurate. Wikipedia is indispensable. I use many times a day. When I’m doing formal writing as in a book or article, I will check the footnotes and make sure that the information is accurate. But I do that anyway, even from books that are considered authoritative. I’ve caught mistakes in well-regarded books, and I’ve also found many times that footnotes are incorrect. But you can take that only so far. The vast majority of the time, a good source can be cited with confidence. And that includes Wikipedia. ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_X](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@Bob\_X](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_X)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2013, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/58 "2013-04-30T17:32:03Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > In the area I grew up there were a lot of [name] Street Roads. The significance of the name was pbvious in context, though: they were the extension of what was in a given city/village named [name] Street on out into the countryside. What is now NY Route 283, for example, was the extension, to connect the City of Watertown with Fort Drum, of Pearl Street, which ran from downtown through the industrial area to the city limits, and hence the extension, a county road at the time, was Pearl Street Road. > > I wpuld be interested in seeing, in connection with this thread, some more examples of “single-name streets”, where the street name has no tag such as street, avenue, boulevard, or drive, but is simply a single word, perhaps with “The” attached. Tue two examples I have are Broadway, in New York City, and The Paseo, in Kansas City. I imagine there are more, but they must be quite rare. There’s The Alameda in San Jose. But like “paseo”, “alameda” is a Spanish word for a kind of street (I think “alameda” is supposed to mean tree-lined, like boulevards used to be). Similarly there is El Camino Real (the “royal road”) which runs into The Alameda. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306/59 "2013-05-01T10:31:25Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > Atlanta has Boulevard. > > In nearby Marietta, U.S. 41 was called Four-Lane Highway. That was never its official name, but it was the only name given on street maps. > > If anyone knows why certain streets in Nebraska City, Nebr., have the names 15th Corso, 16th Corso, etc., please enlighten me. Corso is Italian , " like “boulevarde” or “avenue” or something like that.. a name to dignify a road. At Manly, Sydney, Australia, the main street is called “The Corso”. Well you are correct, Nebraska City has some idea of its love of the name “Corso”… from the italian usage. [http://www.nebraskacity.com/NCTC/Visitor\_Information.aspx](http://www.nebraskacity.com/NCTC/Visitor_Information.aspx) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streets-roads-avenues-boulevards-et-cetera/656306.md?page=2)