[talk-au] Most insanely dissected street ?

Tim Challis Tim.Challis at gmail.com
Sat Jun 11 01:30:04 BST 2011


On 10/06/11 21:45, Franc Carter wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 9:18 PM, Tim Challis <Tim.Challis at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Mind you, for sheer municipal perversity, there is a section of Ballina
>> Road in Lismore that has had at least three numbering schemes applied to
>> the same houses.
> 
> ;-)
> 
>> This is probably in a different category to what you
>> intended?
> 
> Yep, I was thinking about things like near where I grew up where there
> is a 40 foot cliff between one house number and the next. But other
> road insanity is just as interesting
> 
Douglas Street in Clovelly does something like that near the Varna
Street intersection. I used to rent at the other end of the street.
Presumably result of a land-slip at some stage? Who says the Sydney
sandstone basin is stable?

I can't point to an example offhand, but I have heard several times from
discussions with professional surveyors of instances where the house
numbers down a street run out of step with property title boundaries...
the first number might cover block one and half of the neighbouring
block, so that as you progress down the street every subsequent house
number lies across the two adjoining blocks. This situation is
apparently far more common than is normally recognised!

Outside the urban areas, it is becoming common for street numbers to be
based upon an approximate odometer reading (odd and even indicate which
side of road.) E.g. 892 XXX Road  indicates the property whose nearest
point of intersection with XXX Road lies 8.92km from the end of the road.

The system has several major weaknesses: my parents' farm is split both
sides of a particular road, and the local council has admitted when they
assigned the numbers 30 years ago they forgot to reset the odometer!

My own property (a corner block) demonstrates another problem (no, I am
not assigned zero.)

The third problem is that different councils have adopted different
conventions for the odd-even split. Mine has even numbers on the right
travelling away from the datum. The (different) council responsible for
my aforementioned parents' farm wants to make even numbers indicate the
left-hand side.

In a final piece of GPS-related insanity, the RTA has been setting up
those illuminated sign boards around this district (I am aware of at
least seven) which are flashing various messages appropriate to the
location, but invariably the alternate blink reads "Ignore GPS"!
Unfortunately all are located in particularly dangerous locations to
wander out (or park nearby) to take a picture.



More information about the Talk-au mailing list