Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren fog obamb Here. Have you ever wondered why the
Speaker 1: road you live on may be called an avenue, a boulevard,
Speaker 1: or a court instead of a plain old street? Was
Speaker 1: it the whim of your neighborhood's developer or the town council?
Speaker 1: Actually there are rules regarding road classifications, and while they're
Speaker 1: not always followed, typically they are. The basic premise behind
Speaker 1: road naming conventions, which are fairly consistent around the English
Speaker 1: speaking world, is that the name bestowed upon a paved
Speaker 1: or unpaved passage depends upon its size and function. A road,
Speaker 1: for example, is a path that connects two points. Generally
Speaker 1: roads head out of town or away from the heart
Speaker 1: of a city. A street, in contrast, is a public
Speaker 1: road with buildings on both sides. This means that a
Speaker 1: street is also a road, but a road isn't necessarily
Speaker 1: a street. Avenues generally run perpendicular streets, but also have
Speaker 1: trees and buildings on both sides, and each municipality decides
Speaker 1: in which direction to place its streets and avenues. In Manhattan,
Speaker 1: for example, avenues run north and south, while streets run east,
Speaker 1: and west. In Denver it's the opposite, and in Tucson
Speaker 1: they got innovative calling the roads running diagonally to streets
Speaker 1: and avenues stravenues a postal abbreviation S t R A.
Speaker 1: So streets, avenues, and roads are the main names for
Speaker 1: our passages, but here are some other common definitions. A
Speaker 1: boulevard is a wide street with trees and other vegetation
Speaker 1: on one or both sides, and often a median to
Speaker 1: divide traffic. A court is a street ending in a
Speaker 1: looper circle a k a. A coul de sac, while
Speaker 1: a place is a rotor street with a dead end
Speaker 1: that's not a looper circle. A crescent is a winding
Speaker 1: and curved road that typically attaches to another road at
Speaker 1: each end. A drive is a long road that winds
Speaker 1: around a geographical feature, such as a river or mount.
Speaker 1: A lane is a narrow road that typically leads to
Speaker 1: a residential zone and are often found in rural areas.
Speaker 1: A terrace is a street following the upper portion of
Speaker 1: a slope, and away is a small street branching off
Speaker 1: of a road. These passages are usually short and often
Speaker 1: feature another dead end. Of course, as areas and especially
Speaker 1: bustling residential areas develop and change. New passes may be
Speaker 1: built connecting roads that previously ended in dead ends, or
Speaker 1: buildings or infrastructure may be built blocking what was formerly
Speaker 1: an intersection. In addition to most places in the United
Speaker 1: States following fairly standard street naming conventions, most major cities
Speaker 1: are laid out in a grid system where the streets
Speaker 1: run at right angles with each other. This makes it
Speaker 1: relatively easy to find your way around. Chicago took things
Speaker 1: a step further by selecting the intersection of State Street
Speaker 1: and Madison Avenue in the heart of the city as
Speaker 1: its zero coordinates, and this means that if your address
Speaker 1: is twenty North Lotus, for example, you of fifty four
Speaker 1: blocks north of State and Madison. When it comes to
Speaker 1: giving streets their first names, like Maine or Washington or Blueberry,
Speaker 1: this is generally the province of subdivision developers with the
Speaker 1: blessing of the municipality. The two groups that have the
Speaker 1: most veto power over proposed names are the police and
Speaker 1: fire departments, who want unique monikers that can easily be
Speaker 1: distinguished in an emergency. To May's episode was written by
Speaker 1: Melanie rad Zekie McManus and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain
Speaker 1: Stuff is production of I Heart Radios how stuff Works.
Speaker 1: For more on this and lots of other topics that
Speaker 1: lead down multiple paths, visit our home planet how stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com and for more podcasts. For my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the our Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows,