Re: OT: Place name constituents

On Sat, 20 May 2006 12:24:42 -0400, Ph.D. <phil@...> wrote:

> Dana Nutter wrote:
>>
>> Back when I was working in Irvine, Ca.  I used always
>> confused people when they said they were location by
>> the intersection of Main and McArthur by asking "which
>> one?"  The two streets both curve and actually meet
>> twice so someone searching for that intersection could
>> end up at the wrong one.
>
>
> This is a problem in Detroit. Outer Drive snakes through
> the metropolitan Detroit area, but it basically is a giant
> horseshoe, starting from the Detroit River on the south
> and ending at the Detroit River on the north. So it cuts
> across many major roads twice, including two freeways.
Likewise Raleigh, NC. Interstate 440 is a ring road, and as such, a lot of
the major streets in town obviously cross it twice. If they decide to ever
finish building I-540 it'll be doubly bad, because that too was originally
envisioned as a ring, outside I-440. Terminologically, though, the two
directions (clockwise and widdershins) on I-440 are already known as the
"inner" and "outer" loop, so it might turn into a headache, especially for
people new in town, or just passing through, wanting to understand whether
you mean the inner lanes of the outer loop, the outer lanes of the inner
loop, or what exactly.

Oh, and I-40 merges with I-440 for part of the southern and south-western
circumference, so there are two 40/440 merges and splits in the same town,
too. At the western merge, heading east towards I-440, you need to get in
the right lanes to split left (north) and the left lanes to split right
(south).

The potential for lost people is great, and the traffic in that area is
never fun.

Oh, and Hwy 70 northbound joins I-440 from the south twice. I haven't
looked too hard at the map to try and figure that one out, but I suspect
it requires non-Euclidian geometry.




Paul