[Talk-us] Naming numbered roads as "State Route X", "Interstate X", etc.

[Kevin Kenny]

On Sun, Sep 2, 2018 at 4:18 PM Nathan Mills <nathan at nwacg.net> wrote:
> My personal opinion is that if local practice and the USPS continue to use the old name, that name should stay in the name tag, while the Legislature's political name should be tagged as an alt_name. That said, there are situations in which most/all signage refers to the new name, in which case switching them makes sense. (Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Fayetteville, AR being an example. Most still call it 6th Street, but the city, nearly all signage, and the USPS' preferred name are all "Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard," and they are going to keep it up until everyone gets with the program)

Heh. Sometimes you have to wait a long time. The signage on 'Avenue of
the Americas' in New York City has said that since the 1950's. The
Postal Service prefers that name on street addresses.  New Yorkers
call it Sixth Avenue, which confuses the tourists no end.  Likewise,
to a New Yorker, Bruckner Boulevard goes over the Triboro[ugh] Bridge
coming out of the Bronx. The signs say I-278 and Robert F. Kennedy
Bridge. The locals never do. When asked about them, the likely
response will be something like, 'oh, yeah, they renamed one of the
bridges for Bobby Kennedy, didn't they?"

> Sometimes, the name really is "Highway 66" or "Route 22." Admittedly, it can sometimes be hard to tell for sure without local knowledge. As long as people do their best and aren't dogmatic about it when someone who knows better comes along in the future it will all work out in the end.

^ This.  The name of a geographic feature is what the locals call it.
Why should 150th Street be a name, but County Road 34 have to be
relegated to noname=yes if it has no other name? (Then again, I come
from a part of the world that has settlements named Number Four,
Township 40, and Thirteenth Lake. Those things all started out as
reference numbers but are now established names.)