Hey you boring Americans!

[Jester]

Not exactly a truly opposite problem, as many streets in Phoenix do the exact same thing. They continue along the imaginary grid line they are on, even though the road itself doesn't always continue. Not a huge issue with major arterial roads (most of the time), but I'd imagine for delivery drivers and cabbies it can be a royal pain in the ass for less major streets. I've run into issues with it myself, just tooling around.

[bhskittykatt]

The Phoenix area has several streets that change names as you drive along them.

We almost have the opposite problem.

Behold:


That's one of the streets I deliver to. It is in 7 different noncontinuous sections. It makes finding addresses lots of fun. It is not the only street like this in town...

[Jester]

The Phoenix area has several streets that change names as you drive along them.

Hayden becomes McClintock, Scottsdale becomes Hayden, Olives becomes Dunlap, Apache becomes Main, Mesa becomes McQueen, Cooper becomes Stapley, etc., etc., and those are going in a straight line, more or less. Sometimes, the roads curve into a completely new direction and become entirely new roads, even though you have not turned off of the road you're on. Thus, if you drive far enough north on Mill, you will end up driving west on Van Buren.

It's not limited to Phoenix, either. Here in Key West, without turning off the road you are on, you can drive on Truman, North Roosevelt, South Roosevelt, Bertha, 1st, Palm, and Eaton. And this is only a 2 by 4 mile island!

[Argabarga]

Does anyone out there remember star routes? )

911 did away with that unique piece of Americana.

Until it came in the 21st Century, my address was a Rural Route box number, and it kept changing as more and more people moved out here, on paper, I've moved 5 times without ever packing a box.

Went from RR1 (route 1) to RR3 (route 3) and the box number changed a couple times too, until the road itself got a name, and then, when 911 came around, the driveway got named (it was long enough to qualify as a road, even though the only place it went at the time was the house )

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Street signs in Irv's city are white lettering on a blue background.

I find them easier to read than the white lettering on green signs they replaced.

[protege]

Does anyone out there remember star routes? Basically, a "star route" was someone who was contracted to deliver mail through the post office. My grandparents didn't actually have a street address, because they lived in the country. Instead, they had something like "Joe Smith, Spraggs Star Route. For nearly 5 decades, that was their address, until their country finally joined the regional 911 system. All of the star routes got replaced by address numbers and boring street names in the early 2000s. A shame really, since everyone in the county knew where you meant when you'd say "Spraggs Star Route"

[NecessaryCatharsis]

Also,don't you do house names? Some of your addresses are like trying to decipher a code...

5214 W 38 S 700 #5 . Could be a knitting pattern for all I know...

Some of ours are just as bad, ex

2146 141 Highpoint 37 Cedar 8 A

That's fire number 2146 on road 141, which is called highpoint, 37 on that road is called cedar, number 8 on cedar, then driveway A

The cedar and the highpoint aren't real road names, except in the sense that that's what the sign at the end of the road says, the sign for 2146 or 37 might or might not be marking the road, the 'road' is identified by it's fire number, but that doesn't mean it's signed. It's a real mystery why I get lost sometimes

I'm not sure how naming the houses would help at all though, unless you had a sign saying HOUSENAME at the end of each junction on the way to the driveway.

[Sunshine]

Ours here are white on green. The next town over has white on red. My housing development has oil company names...shell, gulf, etc. We had a few named after airlines too.

[protege]

There's an area of my city where all the roads are named, in alphabetical order, after various species of birds.

We have a couple of areas outside of Pittsburgh where the streets have doggie names--Collie, Pointer, Setter, etc.

Some areas have different colors on the street signs. Most are the boring green/white variety. But, you'll see black/orange, blue/yellow, black/white (not many of these now, since they're not reflective), or blue/white depending on which neighborhood you're driving through.

[wolfie]

Is that why hunter's vests, life jackets, prisoners' jumpsuits, and anything else that needs to be seen for safety purposes is coloured "International Green"?

[Greenday]

What other color would you use? Green is the most visible color in the spectrum.

[Cia]

The street signs in the historic neighborhood district are black lettering on white; everywhere else in town it's white on green although outside of town you can sometimes find signs that are green on white.

[EricKei]

Aria - I looked it up, seems they mostly use place names (Hobbiton, Michel Delving, etc). Been a while since I was down that way

Oddly enough, the next development over uses French Quarter street names.

[mathnerd]

Some areas at least have fun with the names. There's a community outside of Baton Rouge called "The Shire." Three guesses where all of their street names come from

There's an area of my city where all the roads are named, in alphabetical order, after various species of birds.

[Aria]

Some areas at least have fun with the names. There's a community outside of Baton Rouge called "The Shire." Three guesses where all of their street names come from

Is there a Gandalf Avenue? Frodo Way?