[Talk-us] Would Like To Clean Salt Lake City Street Names

[Mike Thompson]

Sorry, thought I hit "reply all", I have included the list this time.



On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 3:27 PM, Kevin Atkinson <kevin at atkinson.dhs.org> wrote:
> Is there a reason you replied privately?  May I forward your post to the
> list?
>
> On Sat, 31 Jul 2010, Mike Thompson wrote:
>
>> In presume you live in Salt Lake City?
>
> Yes I do.
>
>> I don't live in Utah, but my experience during my travels has been
>> that streets are generally signed like "S 900 E."
>
> Not in salt lake city.
>
>> All cities in Utah
>> (that I am aware of) are laid out in a grid and use grid style
>> addressing (I think you alluded to this in your post).  In the above
>> example, there is probably also a "N 900 E."  If move the "S" or
>> "South" (I don't want to get into the expand vs. not expanding
>> abbreviations here), you introduce a potential ambiguous situation.
>
> There is a North and South 900 East, but they are the same road.  North
> becomes South when it crosses South Template.  The only ambiguous situation
> is if you give an address of "333 900 E", as this has two potential
> locations (one North and one south of South Temple). The correct address is
> 333 S 900 E".  Hence, the directional prefix is more part of the address.
>  In additional most printed maps do not include the directional prefix.  It
> is only really found on online maps.
If the road changes names when it crosses South Temple (other cities
in Utah use "Main" or "Central" as the dividing line), then I would
contend that it is a different road, at least name wise.

Wash DC has a different four quadrant grid system. 14 St NW becomes 14
St SW when it crosses Constitution Ave.  I don't think anyone would
suggest changing it to 14 St W and moving the "N" or "S" to the
address.

I think putting the first "directional" in with the address makes
handling the address more difficult.  When finding a numeric address
it is just a matter of comparison, 850 is between 800 and 900.
Typically anything that follows the address, e.g. "Suite B", just
makes the address more specific, it does not mean the location is on
the other side of town.



 Mike
>
>