Re: St. Anthony Main
Posted: March 30th, 2014, 4:31 pm
:-O
Architecture, Development, and Infrastructure of the Twin Cities
https://urbanmsp.com/
I've always sort of wondered why whoever was planning the city decided that "Southeast" was a street indicator for this area. I get why it has the name, but wouldn't it have been easier to just keep with the "Northeast" nomenclature and use "Southeast" for...um...the southeastern part of the city?I was going to say! Posting photos of SE in a NE thread is very risky.
Long-time lurker and this post finally pulled me in to posting.I've always sort of wondered why whoever was planning the city decided that "Southeast" was a street indicator for this area. I get why it has the name, but wouldn't it have been easier to just keep with the "Northeast" nomenclature and use "Southeast" for...um...the southeastern part of the city?I was going to say! Posting photos of SE in a NE thread is very risky.
At least today, it seems to throw a lot of people off. I'm asked where I live, and if they're familiar enough with the city, I'll say Marcy-Holmes. But more often than not, that turns into, "Oh, so you live in Dinkytown?" and I then have to explain that I'm west of the highway and pretty close to Hennepin/Central. To which I get, "Okay, so you live in Northeast." And we just go with that, because any time I say, "Technically it's Southeast Minneapolis, but yeah..." I know they've already stopped listening.
City directories form the 1800's used the designations 4th St N, E.D. and 4th St S, E.D. with the "E.D." standing for Eastern Division. Just a little bit O' trivia.The areas could more accurately be called East-North and East-South instead of NE or SE. NE/SE signifies that you are on the East bank of the Mississippi. The N or S before the E just signifies which side of Hennepin you are on. In the larger context of the city it doesn't make sense that SE 4th St is north of E 25th St but the West bank portions of Minneapolis only use N, E, W or S for street signs so once you know this it is easy to understand--especially for emergency vehicles and first responders.
Yes, I'm aware of how NE/SE are assigned (sorry if that sounds snarky...not intended to be!), but it's always struck me as odd that they couldn't have though of a less confusing system. It makes sense when thinking about Hennepin as the city-wide divider, but crossing the river really throws things off, and using a system like Duluth's might have made more sense for the east side of the river: N 1st Ave E or S 1st Ave E. Everything would be East Minneapolis (or whatever) with roads given N or S depending on their side of side of Hennepin.Long-time lurker and this post finally pulled me in to posting.I've always sort of wondered why whoever was planning the city decided that "Southeast" was a street indicator for this area. I get why it has the name, but wouldn't it have been easier to just keep with the "Northeast" nomenclature and use "Southeast" for...um...the southeastern part of the city?I was going to say! Posting photos of SE in a NE thread is very risky.
At least today, it seems to throw a lot of people off. I'm asked where I live, and if they're familiar enough with the city, I'll say Marcy-Holmes. But more often than not, that turns into, "Oh, so you live in Dinkytown?" and I then have to explain that I'm west of the highway and pretty close to Hennepin/Central. To which I get, "Okay, so you live in Northeast." And we just go with that, because any time I say, "Technically it's Southeast Minneapolis, but yeah..." I know they've already stopped listening.
The areas could more accurately be called East-North and East-South instead of NE or SE. NE/SE signifies that you are on the East bank of the Mississippi. The N or S before the E just signifies which side of Hennepin you are on. In the larger context of the city it doesn't make sense that SE 4th St is north of E 25th St but the West bank portions of Minneapolis only use N, E, W or S for street signs so once you know this it is easy to understand--especially for emergency vehicles and first responders.
Franklin would be a good example of an arterial that has a more symmetrical traffic pattern. It's probably true of other crosstown streets -- probably even of Lake Street, although my suspicion is that most of Lake Street between Hiawatha and Uptown has too much traffic too allow a 4-3. Broadway and Lowry might be good candidates.Not disputing what you're saying MNdible. But what major arterial in Minneapolis doesn't carry significantly asymmetrical traffic patterns (outside maybe University Ave.. maybe a couple others?). I'd be interested in looking into some of the 4-3 conversions on heavily commuter patterned streets and what the result was.