[Talk-us] Alt_names on counties

[Paul Johnson]

On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 1:07 PM Kevin Kenny <kevin.b.kenny at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 1:01 PM Paul Johnson <baloo at ursamundi.org> wrote:
> > Did you mean to use "old_name" instead of "alt_name"?
>
> When the locals keep using an old name for decades, without regard for
> official signage to the contrary, at what point does an old_name
> become promoted to an alt_name?
>

Good question.  There's still a lot of Portlanders who use "Union Avenue"
to refer to "Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard", for reasons obvious to
anyone familiar with Portland's least cheerful open secret, though it does
provide a useful lifecycle example for straightforward ones.

1989: MLK Jr. Blvd signs go up.  name=Northeast Martin Luther King, Junior
Boulevard, alt_name=Northeast Union Avenue
1994: Union Avenue signs start getting removed in select portions.
name=Northeast Martin Luther King, Junior Boulevard, old_name=Northeast
Union Avenue in selected portions.
200x: Last Union Avenue signs come down.  name=Northeast Martin Luther
King, Junior Boulevard, old_name=Northeast Union Avenue for entire segment.

Note this doesn't very well map cleanly to places that have a short memory
on names, like Oklahoma, where it's pretty routine to have, 6 to 8 times a
year, actual states of emergency declared to rename roads shotgun style,
randomly, with exceptionally long names on exceptionally short segments.
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