# What do you call this type of street? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 8, 2019, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146 "2019-02-08T01:15:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/21 "2019-02-08T15:05:54Z")
It depends. If it is parallel to a limited access highway, I would call it a service road. But when my daughter lived in Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan and there was such a road parallel to and running along the north side of 14th St. between Ave. C and 1st Ave. It then turned right and continued up 1st Ave. It was often possible to park there. But I never heard of any name for it. ---
**Author:** ![ioioio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ioioio/32/316_2.png) [@ioioio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ioioio)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/22 "2019-02-08T15:16:09Z")
I remember travelling with my family as a child and wondering why so many cities had streets named “Frontage Road” and why we so often wound up on them. This was in the Midwest. ---
**Author:** ![Hapax\_Legomenon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8c91f0/32.png) [@Hapax\_Legomenon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hapax_Legomenon)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/23 "2019-02-08T15:32:45Z")
I put ‘frontage road’, but I’d really only think of something as a ‘frontage road’ if it’s separated from the main road by a grassy median. If it’s separated from the main road only by a curb, I’d just call it a lane of the main road. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/24 "2019-02-08T15:38:48Z")
I chose “something else” because I use different terms in different situations. If we’re talking about a limited-access highway, and the purpose of the auxiliary road is to manage the flow of traffic entering and exiting the highway, it’s a “feeder road.” If the purpose of the road is just to make it easier to access a row of businesses or industrial locations (such as in an industrial park), and the road is likely to be used by large commercial or construction vehicles, I’d call it a “service road.” If the auxiliary road is lined with residences, and the purpose is to make it easier for people who live there to get in and out of their driveways, I’d call it an “access road.” ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/25 "2019-02-08T15:42:03Z")
I answered frontage road but like others I only use it for a street parallel to a limited-access highway. I don’t have a word for other situations, such as when a surface-road highway has a neighborhood street run parallel and very close to it for several blocks. ---
**Author:** ![Chicken\_Fingers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Chicken\_Fingers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicken_Fingers)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/26 "2019-02-08T16:10:59Z")
They’re plentiful in northern and southern VA, and it seems like they’re mostly called access roads. Sometimes I hear people say service roads. I hate them, as they make the car-centric suburban sprawl even worse. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/27 "2019-02-08T18:42:19Z")
The roads next to the highways trailing off to businesses are frontage roads. The roads through parks and recreation areas that are off limits to the general public, and used by park employees, etc. are service roads. The roads around a mall or industrial complex are access roads. I’ve heard the short roads leading on and off the highway called feeder ramps, not feeder roads. I just call them ramps for on, exits for off. I’ve heard of auxiliary roads, but I don’t know what they’re for. Sounds military, or possibly British. Never heard of parallel roads. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2019, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/28 "2019-02-09T02:43:59Z")
Here in the midwest, I’ve always heard them called frontage roads. ---
**Author:** ![sps49sd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@sps49sd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sps49sd)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2019, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/29 "2019-02-09T02:49:26Z")
I consider them a waste of space that could be used for more freeway, unless there is a Cracker Barrel on the road in question. I have also been occaisionally confused when trying to get over there from here with too many roads in the way of each other. I’ve really seen them only in D/FW, and they are called frontage roads there. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2019, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/30 "2019-02-09T05:19:52Z")
> [@GaryM](#): > > Wiki says the whole thing is a boulevard: > "A boulevard (French, from Dutch: Bolwerk – bulwark, meaning bastion), often abbreviated Blvd, is a type of large road, usually running through a city. > > In modern American usage it often means a wide, multi-lane arterial thoroughfare, often divided with a median down the centre, and perhaps with roadways along each side designed as slow travel and parking lanes and for bicycle and pedestrian usage, often with an above-average quality of landscaping and scenery." > > I would call the roads at the side “side roads”. There are occasional attempts to rename the things as boulevards here in Melb.vic.aus. Because French, right? And Paris gets _lots_ of tourists, obviously because they call them boulevards, right? In Melbourne, the whole thing would be a Parade, or a Freeway. A Boulevard would be a winding road that follows the crest of a rise, sort of like you could imagine a road along the top of a city wall. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2019, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/31 "2019-02-09T05:27:14Z")
> [@sps49sd](#): > > I consider them a waste of space that could be used for more freeway, unless there is a Cracker Barrel on the road in question. I have also been occaisionally confused when trying to get over there from here with too many roads in the way of each other. > > I’ve really seen them only in D/FW, and they are called frontage roads there. Out here in SoCal (Los Angeles metropolitan area), there are business along that type of road, many of which provide support to construction companies (thus, they have materials yards in back, preventing any other access to the public-facing parts). So no, we can’t just use the space for a couple of extra lanes on the freeway. The temptation to leave the freeway at rush hour and take advantage of their relatively lighter traffic can be overwhelming. Sometimes it even works. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2019, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/32 "2019-02-09T21:14:52Z")
Either frontage or service road. “Frontage Road” is the actual address for one such road where I live (Denver) and there is an East Frontage Road and a West Frontage Road, at least for a little while. There is certainly not any sign of above-average landscaping and scenery, and pedestrians and bicyclists beware. There are also a couple of areas where this kind of street runs parallel along a more major street, but not a highway. In those cases the side streets have the same name as the major street and it can be really hard to figure out where you need to be if you’re looking for an address on that street. (They may have fixed this; I haven’t had to go to the specific area for years.) There were also at one time a plethora of traffic lights, and it could be very confusing to figure out which one controlled which traffic position. All in all a good place to avoid. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2019, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/33 "2019-02-09T21:30:19Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > There’s a major, main, multi-laned, two way road in the center. On each side of this main road is another street running parallel to it, just one lane, sometimes with space for parallel parking, usually one-way, the same direction as the adjacent lane on the main road, often separated from the main with a curb. > > What do you call those streets on the side of the main road?. If the road in the center is an interstate, or a similar fast, limited-access road, I probably call it a service road. Or possibly an access road, depending on what you can get to from the side road. But I also refer to the entrance ramp as a service road. Which, I guess, is consistent, since it, too, runs alongside the main road for a bit. If the road in the center is an ordinary large city road, or a major suburban artery that isn’t limited access, Then I completely agree with GaryM. > [@GaryM](#): > > Wiki says the whole thing is a boulevard: > "A boulevard (French, from Dutch: Bolwerk – bulwark, meaning bastion), often abbreviated Blvd, is a type of large road, usually running through a city. > > In modern American usage it often means a wide, multi-lane arterial thoroughfare, often divided with a median down the centre, and perhaps with roadways along each side designed as slow travel and parking lanes and for bicycle and pedestrian usage, often with an above-average quality of landscaping and scenery." > > I would call the roads at the side “side roads”. Side roads, or even side lanes. Lanes because they aren’t really a separate entity from the whole boulevard, just a part of it. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2019, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/34 "2019-02-10T00:46:09Z")
I answered “access road,” although “service road” is synonymous here. In other parts of the country I’ve lived in, they have other names. ---
**Author:** ![PoppaSan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/poppasan/32/189_2.png) [@PoppaSan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoppaSan)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2019, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/35 "2019-02-10T04:52:17Z")
Bike path/sidewalk isn’t an option? Until this thread, I’d never heard of a one way street physically separated from the main road. Around here, the roads along the sides are always two way streets/roads. In 40+ years of driving I can’t recall seeing a one way road used like that. The two lane roads are referred to by signage and the locals vernacular as frontage roads. Locations: Wisconsin and the upper Midwest ---
**Author:** ![Bayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bayaker/32/3454_2.png) [@Bayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bayaker)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2019, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/36 "2019-02-10T13:39:23Z")
> [@PoppaSan](#): > > Bike path/sidewalk isn’t an option? Until this thread, I’d never heard of a one way street physically separated from the main road. Around here, the roads along the sides are always two way streets/roads. In 40+ years of driving I can’t recall seeing a one way road used like that. The two lane roads are referred to by signage and the locals vernacular as frontage roads. > Locations: Wisconsin and the upper Midwest We’re talking about two different breeds of the same critter. [This](https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9026321,-77.0326088,113m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en) is an inner-city version that I would call a service road(the one-way portions separated by the brick dividers). It is there so that people going to the businesses can get in and out of their vehicles/load purchases/etc. without worrying about the heavier and faster moving traffic. Going to street view might better illustrate this. [Here](https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7841588,-95.5310312,435m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en) is a typical freeway frontage road set-up. It is where the exit and entrance ramps go and is an integral part of the freeway system to provide access to arterial street-level roads. The businesses are there because of the traffic originating from the freeway(there is never parking on the road), whereas in the DC example(above) the access road is there because of the businesses and to provide parking. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/37 "2019-02-12T06:54:16Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > . . . , _frontage_ roads were frequently used in the Sunbelt in the 1950s and 1960s to allow residential subdivisions to front onto arterial roads. (Nowadays they design the subdivisions to have backyards along the arterials.) . . . . Although most frontage roads are along highways, putting “frontage roads” along arterial streets was a fad that came and went. It took up a lot of space. The most obvious way to know that they are frontage roads, here in Stockton, is to look at their names. There are parallel streets called, for instance, West Lane Frontage Road. If you look in the police database, you’ll find West Lane Frontage Road (E), West Lane Frontage Road (W), and West Lane Frontage Road (it’s a cross street between WLFR (E) and West Lane. If you look at the street signs, all the frontages are named West Lane Frontage Road. It can be confusing. Oh, and the frontage roads are one lane in each direction, not one-way. > [@Hapax\_Legomenon](#): > > I put ‘frontage road’, but I’d really only think of something as a ‘frontage road’ if it’s separated from the main road by a grassy median. If it’s separated from the main road only by a curb, I’d just call it a lane of the main road. Grassy medains are more expensive, especially more expensive to maintain. Ours are raised curb medians filled with either asphalt or gravel. Sometimes there’s also a fence in the median. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/38 "2019-02-12T11:50:18Z")
> [@PoppaSan](#): > > Bike path/sidewalk isn’t an option? Until this thread, I’d never heard of a one way street physically separated from the main road. Around here, the roads along the sides are always two way streets/roads. In 40+ years of driving I can’t recall seeing a one way road used like that. The two lane roads are referred to by signage and the locals vernacular as frontage roads. > Locations: Wisconsin and the upper Midwest Yeah…I chose I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen a one-way road as described in the OP. 100% of the one-way roads I’ve ever seen are side streets in urbanish areas, and they’re regular roads with houses and/or businesses on them. Service roads and access roads, on the other hand, are often unpaved and run into the woods. They get ‘named’ lazy things like “Fire road #11” and may occasionally have a summer cottage on them but may also be a scary trail to nowhere you want to go by car. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/39 "2019-02-12T11:56:58Z")
I call them service road, or access road, I’m from DC region. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146/40 "2019-02-12T12:01:52Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Yeah…I chose I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen a one-way road as described in the OP. 100% of the one-way roads I’ve ever seen are side streets in urbanish areas, and they’re regular roads with houses and/or businesses on them. > > Service roads and access roads, on the other hand, are often unpaved and run into the woods. They get ‘named’ lazy things like “Fire road #11” and may occasionally have a summer cottage on them but may also be a scary trail to nowhere you want to go by car. This article has pictures of the type of road in question: [https://ggwash.org/view/66387/a-shared-space-is-coming-to-connecticut-avenue-cleveland-park](https://ggwash.org/view/66387/a-shared-space-is-coming-to-connecticut-avenue-cleveland-park) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-type-of-street/829146.md?page=3)