If you want to include the rustic, there are two-tracks. If you're going to pay, tollroads and tollways. If you are on foot, include sidewalks, walkways, slidewalks, paths, tracks and dirttracks.
Location. As in Hart's Location ... a few houses ... up in the NH White Mountains. They're the ones who open the polls at 00:01 and vote ... always the first 100% reported vote in any Presidential election. What does "Close" usually mean in UK? Pronounced as it is in "I am close to my destination." wow
The famous circle in Paris is Place de l'Etoile. I have fond memories of driving around it, not at rush hour thank God.
In Baltimore, one of the most common words/names is 'avenue' -- there are more of them than 'streets'. There are also: lane garth mews
Garth and mews are used by developers of tony, would-be high class housing developments and denote a cul-de-sac, or dead end (as we call it here), as do 'close 'and 'court'.
Actually, some of the names have specific connotations. 'Street' is used generally for thoroughfares in the mid-city area, and always for numbered streets, e.g., 33rd Street. You don't have 15th Ave. or 22nd Lane. An avenue is located usually out of city center and is presumed to be wider than a street, although there are plenty of avenues narrower than, say, Saint Paul Street or Charles Street, which are two of the principal streets in the city. A parkway, and we have a number, such as Gwynns Falls Parkway, Northern Parkway, etc., are main traffic arteries, usually 6 lanes with a generous median, usually with trees, in the center. 'Lane' denotes a street which was originally a country lane which became a regular throughfare after being absorbed into the city, such as Cold Spring Lane, Bowleys Lane, etc.
Than, finally, we have a uniquely named street: The Alameda -- just that; one's address might be 5955 The Alameda. For part of its length, it's a parkway, for the rest, an avenue.
Plaza, Square , Terrace are all parts of addresses-- as where all of the names i gave before-- Unlike trail-- there is no mailing address at 123 indian trail... but there 123 Park Plaza, Mew, square, Parkway, ect.....and Slip.
Old piers, that have been filled in, and are now streets have the name of slip, as in "Old Slip" and the World Trade Center just has 1 to 10 WTC.
and Viaduct-- in NY you could live one of several viaducts the most well known is a major road into JFK airport-- the North and South Viaduct-- the roads act as Parkway service roads (parkway do not allow trucks) but the go miles past the airport in either direction, and pass through residential areas.
But Aquaduct-- (a street on top of the #1 water main from the first large reservoir-- is an avenue Aquaduct Avenue)
and finally--Row-- Park Row-- is the address fo NYCityhall...
Ponder won the Kentucky Derby in 1949. (Just tossing in a miscellaneous tidbit, humming the tune of Shady Grove.) I think some places are Walks. Louisville doubles up on two numbered trafficways, just to be sure, maybe: we have Third Street Road and Seventh Street Road. Both of these are more-or-less continuations of 3rd. St. and 7th. St. respectively, once they cross out of the city limits.
One of the greatest on-the-spot puns I've ever heard relates to a motorway. Some of us in my high school orchestra were helping a high school across town with their production of 'The King and I', and we car-pooled. My house was closest to the expressway, so I was the last one picked up. As I squeezed into the back seat, I asked, "Are we taking the X-way?" My goofy friend said, "No, let's take the Y-way." Somebody else had to chime in with, "Why not the Z-way?" At this point, the driver quite understandably said, "Why don't you all go A-WAY?"
If there were ever any trail's in NY, they are long gone-- but curiously, "Stone Street" retains its name-- it used to be breower--(unsure of the old dutch spelling-- brewers street) and one mayor attempt to "clean up the city" promised to do something about it... So the brewers got to gether, and paved the street-- Stone street was the first "cobbled stone" street in NY.. and was renamed to "Stone Street" -- and the brewers loved the increase traffic! all in the late 1600's.. (even then NY mayors were trying to "clean up the city"-- the old alderman must be rolling in their graves to see what goes on now!)
Than, finally, we have a uniquely named street: The Alameda
In the Bay Area we have lots of Alamedas - also used on its own, never as "Alameda Street." I believe it comes from "alamo," the Spanish for poplar, and connotes a broad, tree-lined boulevard. The oddest of the lot is a major road on the peninsula south of San Francisco - it's called Alameda de las Pulgas. I'm always surprised how few people know that the name means "Poplar-lined boulevard of the fleas."
I happen to live on a "Circle," which, as is often the case, is not a circle at all. It's actually a semicircle, a half-moon if you will (imagine a spur off the main road that's shaped like a half-moon). A "Court" in my neck of the woods is, in effect, a circle, since it usually approximates a full moon (or, better, a lollipop...there's usually a straight-away off the main road which leads to the circle, and the whole thing is called a "Court"). "Streets" and "Roads" are generally "secondary" thoroughfares, which means that they (ostensibly) carry less traffic. "Avenues" and "Boulevards" by and large are "primary" thoroughfares with traffic aplenty and multiple lanes in either direction. Of course, there are "Streets" and "Roads" that boast scads of traffic and lanes galore (see, e.g., "Main Street" or "Boston Post Road") and "Avenues" and "Boulevards" that consist of only two lanes and carry little traffic on a daily basis, but these appear to be exceptions to the rule.
As for additional thoroughfare denominations, in my neck of the woods we have "Ridge", as in "Long Ridge," "Hill," as in, "Strawberry Hill" or "Chapel Hill," and "Park," as in "Union Park." For whatever reason, my burg's founding fathers and mothers saw fit not to add "Road," "Street," "Drive," etc. to these denominations, as is the standard practice. This has created, somewhat confusingly, a situation where you can have both "Long Ridge" and "Long Ridge Road," or "Strawberry Hill" and "Strawberry Hill Drive." I suspect that mail carriers and flower deliverers, among others, are none too appreciative of this disjointed system of thoroughfare-naming.
Queens has an Alameda-- but its an Avenue-- but it is lovely poplar lined street-- with a narrow dividing strip in the middle that home owns keep planted and mowed.
and unlike Louisvilles "street Roads"-- Queens is notorious for 23 Street, followed by 23 Avenue, 23 Place, 23 Road, followed by 26 Street., Avenue, Road... and some how 24th and 25th have been lost!--
House numbers are supposed to give a "clue" my house number is 249-26 where 249 is the cross street. Only 249th Street (or road, or anything) doesn't exist!-the "cross street" is a named Parkway* and 36 is the lot number ---
* and Parkway can often be many things.. Grand Centeral Parkway is almost a highway-- (but it does have house on the "service road") Pelham Parkway --is joy-- it does have 12 lanes of traffic-- a 3 lane "service road" with 1 lane filled with parked cars, and 3 lane "express" area, with no parking.(in each direction) . but the median strips between the roadways are wider than the roadways.. (is is almost 1/2 mile from 1 side to the other!) and the median strips have huge trees-- that create boweries.. But Marathon Parkway--my cross street looks like an ordinary Avenue..not particulary wide, or tree lined or anything special!
The famous circle in Paris is Place de l'Etoile. I have fond memories of driving around it, not at rush hour thank God.
A friend of mine described the situation where some drunken Australians on their big OE (overseas experience trip) crossed the Place de l'Etoile during rush hour. They all survived. The luck of the descendants of convicts, I expect.
Gdouttahere, ya pomaphile! There are several groves in Havelock Nth, doncha know?
Havelock where? Sorry, not on any map that I have. Isn't it a suburb of Hastings which is nearly a suburb of Napier? Pretentious place ...
BTW you mentioned that a Pom was coming to Zild. Anyone on the Board?
And what's with the US'n habit of numbering streets, anyway? Makes it real easy for foreigners like me - if you can count - but, miGawd, how banal! Why don't you give them interesting names like Bill Clinton Avenue or Devine Brown Road or Hugh Heffner Tollway?
And it's nice to see you US'ns spelling it "thoroughfare" rather than "thrufare", which I saw in some publication or other some time ago. Oh, that's right, Time Magazine. [/rant]
>And what's with the US'n habit of numbering streets, anyway? Makes it real easy for foreigners like me - if you can count - but, miGawd, how banal! Why don't you give them interesting names like Bill Clinton Avenue or Devine Brown Road or Hugh Heffner Tollway?
In Western Canada there are a lot of numbered thoroughfares as well. One of its biggest virtues, as you pointed out, is that it is hard to get lost. Several years back, when I lived in Surrey, my address was 12233 92nd Avenue. Just reading the address anybody being invited over would know that the nearest intersection was 122 St.
At the other end of the spectrum, I have seen cases where the city planner of the developer must have done the naming while in an alcoholic haze. One of my other former addresses was on Rosebank Crescent. The streets in the area included Rosemary, Roselea, Rosebush, Rose Ad Nauseum lane, etc.
Finally, Richmond, BC had a contest to name the new bridge across river to Vancouver. The bridge was built at the end of #5 Road. Any guesses what the winning entry was? That's right, the #5 Road bridge. It almost like naming your dog, Dog. It displays a certain lack of imagination, although, avoids the political fallout of naming it after somebody someone is sure to dislike.
But as you say, developers have a field day with bad names. The suburb next to mine has streets named after trees and shrubs. Laurel Grove. Acacia Avenue. Cypress Grove. Mulberry Street. Refused to live there on principle.
On the other hand, I live in Titiro Moana Road. Sounds fancy, huh! But literally translated from the Maori, the name is Eye Sea Road. Seaview Road, in other words. Now there's a banal name!
Other way round, ya goomer! What I actually said was that as of June 1st, there would be one more Brit on the Board, and one less Kiwi - a reference to a certain Kiwi taking flight for Mudder Englind!
Oh, silly me. Mine is definitely smaller than other people's. Well, you can take the boy out of Zild, but can you take the Zild out of the boy .... ?
There is an area in Madrid where all the streets are named after world seas: Mar Mediterráneo, Mar de Kara, Mar Caspio, Mar Negro, Mar Amarillo, Mar Rojo, Mar de Aral, Mar Báltico... Most people living there know which one is their street, and everyone knows Mar Caspio because the Post Office is there... but they are all very confused about all the others. Most they can say when you ask for directions is "It must be somewhere around here"... which is not very helpful!
Spellchecking this post has provided me with the biggest laugh all day today: Mar [marathon] Mediterráneo [medium] Kara [Karachi] Caspio [Cassandra] Rojo [Roland] Aral [Aramco] Báltico... [blubber]
A bridleway is a class of route in the UK. Originally, I guess, an unpaved path where you could ride a horse but not necessarily take a carriage or cart.
Also a truly wonderful word that I miss since I left Yorkshire is 'ginnel'. This refers to the kind of alleyway left between gardens in housing estates that allows you to get from one streeet to the next on foot more quickly than the circuitous route a car driver would have to take.
AS for 'mews', according to my Shorter Oxford these were originally places where hawks were kept, then became stables and are now apparently fit for human habitation. Not sure if this is progress...
Street names Any geographical feature can be used in Street addresses: View, Spinney, Copse, Wood, Mead, Bank , Green, Croft, Glades, Rise. Also in this port town I live in, we have in addition to those already mentioned: Esplanade, Promenade, The Hard, Quay, Passage (yes to your question), Wharf, Harbour For driving roads we in UK have Motorway, Bypass, A (and B) Road, Trunk Road.
There's a little neighborhood near mine in Atlanta where the streets are named Geneva, Placid, Michigan, Constance, Erie usw. It calls itself the Lake District. I have never found Wordsworth there, though the daffodils this spring were a host.
Also a truly wonderful word that I miss since I left Yorkshire is 'ginnel'. This refers to the kind of alleyway left between gardens in housing estates that allows you to get from one streeet to the next on foot more quickly than the circuitous route a car driver would have to take.
These are paved in Western (and probably other parts of) Canada and I call them people-paths. I got that one from an old friend.
I was suprised to realize that Street and Avenue don't seem to have the same geometrical connotation everywhere. In a "typical" Canadian city (i.e. not St. John's), Streets run north-south and Avenues run east-west, and both are approximately the same size. Like Rouspeteur said, you can easily tell where someone lives by the number, even if you've never been to the city before. However, it doens't apply in St. John's. We live at a corner of two Streets. My father (a land surveyor) would be greatly displeased.
Some other good ones are "Bay" (a U-shaped residential street), "Extension" (my friend lives on Howley Avenue Extension - not to be confused with Howley Avenue itself). There are lots of hills in St. John's, my favourite being "Hill O'Chips" (I kid you not!).
And "Trails" are the main roads in Calgary, Alberta. Others would call them freeways, I guess, but in Calgary you have Deerfoot Trail (fondly called just "the Deerfoot"), Sarcee Trail, Bow Bottom Trail, Barlow Trail, Blackfoot Trail, Glenmore Trail, and more...all multi-lane divided hellish roads. Calgary's other problem is the aforementioned theme neighbourhoods. There are neighbourhoods where the main word is all the same, and the streets only differ in whether they're "street", "Bay", "Court", "Close", "Boulevard", and so on. ARGH. My parents live in a neighbourhood where all the street names start with "Can".
I have frequently seen addresses, most often in the mid-west of the USA, which have only a name, no word for street etc., like 1245 Elm, or 6622 Grant, etc. This is not, apparently, just an omission or typo -- you see it on letterheads, invoices etc.
At the opposite extemity for elaborateness, is the city of Washington DC. You can easily find a site on the Net which will tell you all about the layout of DC streets and how they are named. Briefly, you have lettered streets, like 'A' Street, 'F' Street, etc. and 'I' Street often written Eye street to avoid confusion, and then there are numbered streets, 15th St., etc., so you can have an intersection of 15th and K Sts. The letter streets go E-W and the no. streets N-S (or is it the other way?) Then there are the avenues, all named after states, which go diagonally. Lastly, the city is divided into 4 quarters, so you can have an intersection of 6th St. & Pennsylvania Ave. NW and a 6th St. and Pa. Ave SE.
Washingtonians think this is a perfectly logical and sensible way of doing things. Anyone who has ever driven in that Godforsaken city knows better. When you get lost, as everyone does, even the natives, the worst think you can do is to try going around the block to get back on track. The diagonal avenues will lead you far, far astray every time.
You forgot to mention the traffic circles! So even when you know which street or avenue it is -- you go round and round to get to it! but as bad as DC is-- Boston is the worst! Boston drivers vie with NYC drivers for aggressivenes-- only at least in Manhattan-- you can, if you miss your turn go arround 3 blocks-- Most streets in Manhattan are one way-- With odd numbered streets going west, and even numbered street going east. the avenues are are also one way-- but not as orderly-- on the west side 6th Avenue is uptown, but on the east side 1st avenue is uptown-- they just alternate-- which would work fine-- except there are extra avenues-- between 3rd Avene and and 5th Avenue you'll find Lexington and Madison Avenues. and then on the west side Broadway cut across several other avenues at a diagonal. It not perfect-- but it is quickly learned.
But Boston! No rhyme or reason! all the streets are narrow, curved and willy nilly! and every one races on them-- and at places the (Boston) MTA comes above ground-- and the runs trolley like cars down the middle of the street! But are there any other countries like Japan? HavardC-- how are streets named in China? In Japan the first house build on any given block is numbered 1, and each house after it is an increment-- so odd and even #'s can be on both sides of the street-- (and if you knock something down, and build something new-- the lot gets a new address! ) -- and most streets don't have "proper names" it more like "the new street next to the old farm road" or "2 streets away from the square" Many Japanese maps don't even list these names... It is chaos to some one trained to a neat grid system.. Even the Japanese recognize it a hard system.. (see reference in "A Taxing Woman")
New York Streets Do they still have the Avenue Sprint in NYC? What I mean by that is the system where the traffic lights on the avenues all turn green as far as you can see at the same time, so of course, everyone goes like a bat out of hell to get as far as possible before they all turn red. That's the way it went back in the 70's, which was the last time I drove in Manhattan. In Baltimore, we have timed lights on the principal traffic arteries. This is a computer-controlled system whereby the lights on a given street are set to turn green in rotation so that if you can maintain a steady 29 mph or so, you can go a long way without ever stopping for a red light. Of course, this is easier said than done; maintaining a steady pace without getting stuck in back of some fool trying to make a left turn (maybe from a middle lane), or avoiding UPS trucks stopped illegally in the right lane to make a delivery or even illegally parked cars, is done by carefully choosing lanes and switching when necessary, which is a real science.
On the subject of strange street names, I just remembered Caracas, Venezuela, where I have often had occasion to send goods or documents. Apparently there are no street numbers there, so you have addresses like, "Avenida Simon Bolivar across the street from Sears Roebuck", or, "Avenida XX Agosto a stone's throw from the public library and around the corner from the Royal Cinema".
If you call it a traffic circle in Boston, you're really in trouble, because the natives (of which I'm one) will know you're an outatowna. They are called rotaries, and they make perfect sense. For example, the person in the rotary always has the right of way over those approaching the rotary, except that those approaching the rotary tend to be moving faster and are thus more able threaten those in the rotary, so they may claim right of way if they so choose. In short, when driving in, near, in sight of, or in any way related to a rotary, just assume you have the right of way and proceed appropriately.
There is actually a part of Boston, the Back Bay, where the streets are named in alphabetical order on a grid (Arlington, Berkely, Clarendon, Dartmouth, Exeter, Fairfield, Gloucester, Hereford, Ipswich...whew!). This always causes great wonderment among Bostonians, and I think it's viewed as a mark of the heights which civilization has attained in that fair city that there's order in that little patch of it - an order utterly lacking elsewhere. One other important fact to remember in Boston - if you ever approach a one-way street (of which there are many), it will always, always be going the opposite direction of where you want to go. You could try the next one, but it probably won't work either.
But I think DC's worse. I've heard the plan it was designed on was intended to foil any armies that might attempt to invade the nation's capital - any truth to this?
But I think DC's worse. I've heard the plan it was designed on was intended to foil any armies that might attempt to invade the nation's capital - any truth to this?
And for the experience of a lifetime try the Magic Roundabouts in UK. http://www.swindonweb.com/life/lifemagi0.htm. Named after the children's TV show by the locals, the Swindon one featured in the picture above was officially renamed to its nickname by the local council. In this system you have several small roundabouts (Uk term = traffic circle) linked round a larger central one where the cars are going the WRONG WAY! I have driven through the Swindon one twice and it is logical but most unnerving, and I am used to driving on the wrong side of the road in Europe.
But I think DC's worse. I've heard the plan it was designed on was intended to foil any armies that might attempt to invade the nation's capital - any truth to this?
Hmmm. Those of you who've read the book "Air America" will remember the bit near the end where the author is riding in a cab from the airport to the city. He asked the driver if he was worried about the North Vietnamese invading Thailand (they were busy sorting out Pol Pot in Cambodia at the time). The driver replied that they could try, but they'd never make it through Bangkok's rush-hour traffic. Those of you who've been there are sure to agree!
Named after the children's TV show by the locals, the Swindon one featured in the picture above was officially renamed to its nickname by the local council. In this system you have several small roundabouts (Uk term = traffic circle) linked round a larger central one where the cars are going the WRONG WAY! I have driven through the Swindon one twice and it is logical but most unnerving, and I am used to driving on the wrong side of the road in Europe.
And I still have uncomfortable moments remembering the Birmingham North Interchange ... Spaghetti Junction!
Was this plan put in place before or after the Canucks visited in 1812?
Before. We just weren't expecting them. Incidently, although people make a big deal about how Washington got burned, they never mention that we had been burning their cities.
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