Stampeding Calgary

[cdl42]

Sun Valley Blvd
Sunmills Dr
Sunwood Way
Sunlake Manor
Suncastle Dr
Sunvale Dr
Sunvista Rd
Sunharbour Rd
Sunpark Plaza Dr
Sunbank Park
Sundance Park
Sundance Lake
Sunmills Park
Midpark Park
Stepford Park
etc
etc
etc

Ugh... I feel nauseous. I already knew, but I blocked it out. It's not nice to be reminded. Google Maps link for rubberneckers wanting to see the carnage for themselves.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Wow...Ben Jungle². I guess it's better than 238th Street, 239th Street, etc., though.

edit - and I bet the streets start numbering their houses at 6650 like Mississauga...

 

[ahrvojic]

Good God, in what universe is that practical? Can you imagine getting lost in there and having to ask someone for directions? Or, God forbid, living there and simply wanting to order a fricken pizza?

Absolutely nothing in the GTA even begins to compare to that. At least I hope not.

 

[spmarshall]

Calgary, where there's your choice of four nexus - 1st and 1st SW, 1st and 1st NW, 1st and 1st SE, 1st and 1st NE. And the names of some of their crescents - 153rd Place, near 153rd St, and is that NW, SW, NE, SE?

We should be laughing at those Calgarians.

 

[adma]

Actually, such numbered streets are traditionally par for the course in a lot of Western Canada, even in old-style gridiron railway towns. It's only in recent times that Calgary's opted for names instead of numbers in its new subdivisions (although yes, using common "themes" per neighbourhood a la Bendale).

Owen Sound and Hanover stand out among the rare Ontario towns that have opted for numbered over named streets.

 

[afransen TO]

West of St. Catharines (Jordan) has numbered roads. 1st St Louth starting in the East (on the western extremity of St. Catharines) marching west through at least 17th St. Louth. I'm sure there's lot of examples.

My hometown is set up so that your street address is unique in the town, so you don't even need to say what street you live on for mail. It's 5-digits... 1st is the concession, next two are the streets, and last two are the number of the street. As I recall, the addresses were set up this way on this insistance of emergency services from the neighbouring town because they frequently got lost.

 

[cdl42]

"West of St. Catharines (Jordan) has numbered roads. 1st St Louth starting in the East (on the western extremity of St. Catharines) marching west through at least 17th St. Louth. I'm sure there's lot of examples."

Those are lines and concessions, not really comprable to numbered streets. These numbers exist everywhere in the province that was surveyed, even if they have been replaced by names by this point.

 

[spmarshall]

Just like 14th Avenue and 16th Avenue in Markham - they were the 14th and 16th Side Roads in the Concession Road system (which I am a fan of, unique to Ontario, and I kind of lament the replacement of numbers with names all over). Even as I was growing up in Brampton, I knew Chinguacousy Road as Second Line West, Heritage as Fifth Line West.

 

[interchange42]

Just to underscore how Calgary's newest streets are being named these days, here's a chunk of the MapArt Calgary index:

Sierra Morena Blvd SW * * * * 1 G-H19 G-H20
Sierra Morena Cir SW * * * * 1 G-H20
Sierra Morena Cl SW * * * * 1 H20
Sierra Morena Ct 100 to 1100 SW * * * * 1 G-H20
Sierra Morena Gdns SW * * * * 1 G20
Sierra Morena Gn100 to 300 SW * * * * 1 G19
Sierra Morena Gr SW * * * * 1 G20
Sierra Morena Ldg SW * * * * 1 G20
Sierra Morena Mews SW * * * * 1 H20
Sierra Morena Pk SW * * * * 1 G20
Sierra Morena Pl 100 to 900 SW * * * * 1 G-H20
Sierra Morena Rd SW * * * * 1 G19
Sierra Morena Ter100 to 300 SW * * * * 1 H19-20
Sierra Morena Vill SW * * * * 1 H20
Sierra Morena Way SW * * * * 1 G19

Note the numbers such as "100 to 1100" appearing behind names. That indicates that there is a Sierra Morena Ct 100, a Sierra Morena Ct 200, a Sierra Morena Ct 300, etc.

How would you like to find your way around that neighbourhood?

42

 

[bizorky]

Wow, someone really likes the name "Sierra Morena" out there.

 

[spmarshall]

Makes the "Meadoways", "Forestways" and "Fernways" in North York look pretty tame. And 911 dispatch is okay with this?

 

[building babel]

All the streets to the north of the "Sierra" section begin with "Sienna". And the "Springbank" streets are immediately to the west of it. To the east is the "G" section ( Gleneagle, Glengrove, Glenbrook etc. ). To the southwest all the streets begin with "Discovery"

Clearly, a madman is central to the naming process.

 

[spmarshall]

I figure he man who dreamed up Bramalea's naming system (with the original sections by first letter) and North York townhouse complex names went bonkers, went mad and moved to Calgary, where he's now hard at work combining his two systems into one insane creation.

 

[Archivistower]

I actually find it endearing that Calgary's naming system is so byzantine. My sister and a very good friend from university both live amongst the Gs.

Maybe that's why the city doesn't seem to allow tall buildings away from the core - if there was a fire in the Sienna Morenas it could eat its way from the 4th to the 16th floor by the time the trucks figure out that its on Sienna Morena Crossing, not Sienna Morena Crescent.

 

[building babel]

My parents bought a house in the 'H' section of Bramalea in 1973 when it was brand new. I lived there until I escaped to freedom in the late summer of 1974 and moved downtown.

Until a few years ago I still had an unsettling recurring dream about life in the 'H' blocks.

In the dream, my parents still owned the house - but had moved back to England decades earlier. But I had to go back to Bramalea every weekend, and cut the grass in the summer and clear away the snow in the winter. Sometimes, in the dream, I'd walk around morosely inside the unfurnished Homer Square house and feel some unnamed, looming dread. Then I'd leave.

Children, learn by babel's mistake. Never go near the 'H' blocks.