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(10-25-2017, 08:21 AM)jeffster Wrote: (10-25-2017, 06:50 AM)Elmiran Wrote: Went through this roundabout on the weekend. Driver missed the slip road and I was giving directions, I didn't even see it coming even after reading about it here. It was easy to miss looks like an off ramp for the highway or something for those not familiar with the area. Is there even a sign saying it goes to Ottawa St W?
The sign says Ottawa Street. Unsure if it says Ottawa St "W" as technically there is no Ottawas Street West, it's Ottawa Street South. I am pretty sure though that it has direction (Ottawa St S -- as well as 7/8)....
Not sure if this is irrelevant, but I’ve noticed that highway off ramps tend to be labelled [street] [direction], where the [direction] is which way you will be going. Normally this is fine, but if the street name itself has an important direction component, I’m not sure what happens. I can’t recall seeing a sign that said something like “King St. South North”, or even worse, “Ottawa St. South West”, where the first direction is the official direction in the street name and the second is the more informal direction of travel at that point.
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I have never, ever understood the reasoning between having "West" and "East" versions of the same road depending on where they are.
Just call it the road!!
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(10-25-2017, 10:08 AM)Canard Wrote: I have never, ever understood the reasoning between having "West" and "East" versions of the same road depending on where they are.
Just call it the road!!
Where do you start the numbering?
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Where do they start numbering on non east/west labeled roads?
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10-25-2017, 11:01 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-25-2017, 11:01 AM by panamaniac.)
(10-25-2017, 10:56 AM)Canard Wrote: Where do they start numbering on non east/west labeled roads?
In Kitchener, the relevant streets for all directions are King and Queen, no? So King St would be the "north/south" divide.
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(10-25-2017, 10:56 AM)Canard Wrote: Where do they start numbering on non east/west labeled roads?
If it's a small road that won't grow as the city is developed you can start at either end. If the road is likely to grow as the city grows then you're better off starting in the middle somewhere and move out from there (Hence N/S/E/W labels).
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Horrible. Should be 0 and then go +/- (pick one - West should be negative and East should be positive, as per math coordinates)
Would love to live at -324 Victoria!
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Yes me too, but people would lose their minds
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(10-25-2017, 11:04 AM)JoeKW Wrote: (10-25-2017, 10:56 AM)Canard Wrote: Where do they start numbering on non east/west labeled roads?
If it's a small road that won't grow as the city is developed you can start at either end. If the road is likely to grow as the city grows then you're better off starting in the middle somewhere and move out from there (Hence N/S/E/W labels).
In Kitchener, for those streets that do not have directional markers, do the street numbers start at the end of the street that is closest to King or Queen? I've never wondered about this before, but there would be a certain logic to it.
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And how do they do it in other cities? I always, always ignore the suffix because I figured it was stupid. I didn't realize it had to do with addressing. Is that really a "thing" everywhere in the world?
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10-25-2017, 11:28 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-25-2017, 11:33 AM by MidTowner.)
Yes, they do.
I can't think of a city that uses a Cartesian grid with negative numbers. Even streets with numbered grids use West and East. Think of Manhattan and its numbered streets.
I was going to use Calgary as example, but its system works differently, with the directional component of the street name indicating the quadrant of the city.
I used to live in Bogota, which has a very straightforward system. Except, they had a street numbering reorganization a few years back so, at least when I lived there, each building had two addresses- a 'new' in bigger numbers and 'old' in smaller.
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LOL, I was somewhat joking about the negative numbers. If I was starting from scratch, that's how I'd do it.
Sorry for getting so off-topic in the Roundabouts thread.
We went through this one yesterday and I made the same mistake coming North on Homer Watson, and wanting to go onto Ottawa. I was in the middle lane (not the right lane/sliproad) and decided I'd better not "cheat" and go right, so just went straight through. But I thought about this thread while doing it!
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10-25-2017, 12:07 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-25-2017, 12:26 PM by panamaniac.)
(10-25-2017, 11:26 AM)Canard Wrote: And how do they do it in other cities? I always, always ignore the suffix because I figured it was stupid. I didn't realize it had to do with addressing. Is that really a "thing" everywhere in the world?
Not everywhere. I lived three years in Panama without knowing for sure the name of my street (it did have one) or the street number (it didn't have one - in the absence of a postal delivery service, towers in Panama have names, not numbers). It is a running joke in San Jose, Costa Rica that street directions run along the lines of "its left at the Pollo Alegre and 100 metres beyond the big tree that they cut down last year". Many cities in South America have a system of numbered "avenues" that run in one direction and "streets" that run in another - every house address is sort of a trianglation of the two, with individual number for the houses, as in Canada. God help you if they also have diagonals!
Isn't Calgary divided into directional quadrants? In that system, you need to know the directional suffix to even get to the right part of town.
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In Montreal, streets go east/west from Boul. St. Laurent which is the traditional dividing line between French and English Montrealers (although this is no longer true).
Also, Montreal is tilted so when you're driving down a road labeled Ouest (West) you're actually going South West. Everyone goes along with the big lie and it works out well.
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(10-25-2017, 12:27 PM)JoeKW Wrote: In Montreal, streets go east/west from Boul. St. Laurent which is the traditional dividing line between French and English Montrealers (although this is no longer true).
Also, Montreal is tilted so when you're driving down a road labeled Ouest (West) you're actually going South West. Everyone goes along with the big lie and it works out well.
The difference is that in Kitchener many of the North-South roads largely run only a one or two dozen degrees away from East-West.
Worse, the region uses a different (more accurate) compass from Kitchener (not street names, but where Kitchener City will say "south on Victoria", the region might say "west on Victoria"). This makes communicating with an already complex government even more difficult.
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