Quote:
Originally Posted by speedog
In Alberta, streets run N-S and avenues E-W in Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge, Airdrie, Grande Prairie.
Avenues run N-S and streets E-W in Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Okotoks, Cochrane, Lloydminster.
No rhyme or reason as to why things are done differently in these places.
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Yeah, my parents are from Edmonton and my dad always used to complain about the (lack of) street naming conventions here and how difficult it could be to navigate. Why can't things just be normal, like in Edmonton?
Someone had said that they disliked the street/avenue system out west because it didn't take into account the characteristics normally associated with streets vs. avenues. Since both are used pretty arbitrarily here I was wondering what would normally be considered the differences between streets and avenues (outside of the context of the Prairies).
Another road classification that seems pretty arbitrary is "drive". We also have boulevards that aren't actually boulevards (as well as "streets" and "avenues" that are actually boulevards). "Place", "row", and "lane" usually imply short and narrow streets here (not the same as laneways in Vancouver), and "road" is used both arbitrarily (as in "Spring Garden Road) and as a way of classifying the longer, winding "road to ____" (as in Herring Cove Road, St. Margaret's Bay Road).