Homer Watson and Ottawa Three Lane Roundabouts

[KevinL]

Another local grid: Toronto is split east/west by Yonge Street. As there's a natural southern barrier (the lake), you don't typically see north/south; there are some streets that got extended as the waterfront filled in, so segments south of the original start are 'lower' (Lower Jarvis, Lower Simcoe).

[ijmorlan]

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?

Some places with numbered streets have, at least in principle, 8 of each number: 4 each of Ave. and St. for the two dimensions; for each there are 2 actual roads on either side of the Ave./St. numbering axis, then each of those starts in the middle at the St./Ave. numbering access and counts out from there.

So for example in Calgary you have the intersection of 32 St. NE with 32 Ave. NE. In principle, there would be 3 other intersections of “32 St.” with “32 Ave.” although in practice as far as I can tell those particular ones don’t actually exist.

Edmonton has a similar grid, but the axes run as far as I can tell along the east and south side parts of the ring road so almost the entire city is NW with a bit SW and as far as I can tell none in the “E”. On the other hand, they have an insane fixation on using the numbered street grid even in suburbs that are built with culs-de-sac and bays rather than a grid. As a result, many street numbers are broken into, and I swear I am not exaggerating, literally 10 or more pieces, and a single bay or cul-de-sac may have several street or avenue numbers along it.

[Canard]

   

[Markster]

   

Just another day in Edmonton.

[tomh009]

Edmonton has a similar grid, but the axes run as far as I can tell along the east and south side parts of the ring road so almost the entire city is NW with a bit SW and as far as I can tell none in the “E”. On the other hand, they have an insane fixation on using the numbered street grid even in suburbs that are built with culs-de-sac and bays rather than a grid. As a result, many street numbers are broken into, and I swear I am not exaggerating, literally 10 or more pieces, and a single bay or cul-de-sac may have several street or avenue numbers along it.

This is the same as Seattle/Redmond.  Seems crazy to me.

[jamincan]

I don't know if Calgary's system is genius, or a nightmare.

Directions to my hypothetical house in the Woodlands neighbourhood might be: "heading south on 24 St SW, turn left on Woodview Dr SW. Then, make a right Woodhill Rd SW, followed by a left on Woodside Cir SW. Then, make a right on Woodside Rd SW followed finally by a right on Woodside Pl SW. You could also very well live at the intersection of your street with your street, for example, Woodpark Circle with Woodpark Circle (in three different spots, no less!).

[NotStan]

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!

The slip lane is not well marked on the large green slide ahead of the roundabout- it is a rather thin white diagonal line compared to the thicker lines used for the rest of the sign and it's not clear what it represents.  It should be marked as a right turn with the Street name

[Pheidippides]

Still off-topic, but I could not resist...

The company what3words has tried to solve the addressing problem by dividing the word in to 57 trillion 3mx3m squares and assigned each one a unique 3 word address.

So essentially you can find any location on the globe and share it with less ambiguity than any other system (at least in the X and Y, it doesn't work on the Z axis (e.g. a tall residential tower)), including places where addresses are non-existent in other more traditional systems.

For example the firefighters' monument is at: gadget.trucked.consumed.

I guess it is just a really fine UTM grid using words instead of numbers.
[/url]
[url=http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/06/27/what3words_divided_the_world_into_57_trillion_squares.html]Slate article.

[Canard]

LOVE THIS. +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1

[Smore]

Also, as a former home services technician, all street numbers go up as you go away from "centre of town". I'm not sure but as people above have mentioned, it's possibly queen for n/streaming and definitely King for e/wellington (project new btw)

[ijmorlan]

Still off-topic, but I could not resist...

The company what3words has tried to solve the addressing problem by dividing the word in to 57 trillion 3mx3m squares and assigned each one a unique 3 word address.

So essentially you can find any location on the globe and share it with less ambiguity than any other system (at least in the X and Y, it doesn't work on the Z axis (e.g. a tall residential tower)), including places where addresses are non-existent in other more traditional systems.

For example the firefighters' monument is at: gadget.trucked.consumed.

I guess it is just a really fine UTM grid using words instead of numbers.
[/url]
[url=http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/06/27/what3words_divided_the_world_into_57_trillion_squares.html]Slate article.

And proprietary as well — the conversion depends on having a copy of their database. Obviously this is completely unacceptable, unless they release the database into the public domain.

Also this is not an addressing scheme but instead a location scheme. As you point out, it’s like the UTM grid. To me an addressing scheme has to connect in some way to the structure and layout of the city. This is part of what is wrong with Edmonton’s use of a numeric grid in new subdivisions.

[darts]

what can it do that gps coordinates not do?

gadget.trucked.consumed. might be easy to remember if it is the only location you have to look up but trying to remember 2 or 3 becomes challenging. I tried using separate passwords for different websites using the 3 word method, and trying to remember them all is impossible.

If it is to tell people of one location at a time, it is easier with google maps to send the coordinates. You have to go to the website first to look up what any particular place is called already, so instead of doing that you can go to google maps.

[Canard]

I would find it easier to tell someone 3 words than it is to write down a whole bunch of decimal points.  Their video explains this - it's easier to type or say three words with less error.  And similar-sounding words are spaced far across the planet to opposite sides.

Different GPS systems accept coordinates in different ways and its super confusing if you have a number, entering it into a system that doesn't accept the number the same way (i.e., trying to put a Google coordinate into a tomtom is a frigin' nightmare)

[darts]

yeah but you have to look it up first, instead of doing that you can send them a link to google maps, the other person would have to look it up on their phone anyways.
The only scenario I can see that it could help is if the 2 people don't have each others contact information and couldn't share it.

[plam]

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.

Worked out in the pre-GPS-map era. It's a bit more confusing for newbies now I think, because they look at maps actually oriented north.

The other part is that north/south it goes from 1 at the St. Lawrence on the south end up to 10000s or so at the Rivière des Prairies.

Seattle's grid goes out really far from the centre. The grids are kind of wonky in the centre (because there are several) but more grid-like further out.