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Karl covers it pretty well. When the "E.", "W.", "N." or "S." appears before the street, it can be considered part of the street name and usually identifies part of the street on one side of a boundary. For example, all street numbers in Chicago start with 0 at State and Madison. If you go east, you're on East Madison and the numbers start going up. If you go south, you're on South State and the numbers are going up. Thus, you can always tell which way you're going: If you're on W. Washington Blvd. and the numbers are going up, you're going west.<br><br>Unfortunately, many cities don't follow such a common-sense strategy.<br><br>In the case of a direction coming at the end of the street name, I've seen that when the street is divided by a median of some kind, and traffic goes in opposite directions on either side of the median. Then again, these might also be identified by "North" and "South" simply telling you the relationship of the two halves, as in this Los Angeles example:<br><br>http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=north+venice+blvd.,+venice,+ca<br><br>Gavin<br><br /><hr />Windows Live™ Contacts: Organize your contact list. <a href='http://windowslive.com/connect/post/marcusatmicrosoft.spaces.live.com-Blog-cns!503D1D86EBB2B53C!2285.entry?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_UGC_Contacts_032009' target='_new'>Check it out.</a></body>
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