Yes, sometimes the street signs don't say North Academy Ave or South Academy Ave.

The reason for this is due to the way the road network grew years ago. The street addresses start at 0 or 100 and increment in one direction. Then there is a need to extend the road in the other direction but they don't want to re-number every home and business. So they start up a 'new' road heading the other direction and make it North Academy Ave one direction and South Academy Ave in the other direction. Generally where they meet the addressing starts at 0 or 100 and increments heading away from the intersection.

So yes, generally these street names are valid.

Chris_CA wrote:

gettingthere wrote:The reason for this is due to the way the road network grew years ago. The street addresses start at 0 or 100 and increment in one direction. Then there is a need to extend the road in the other direction but they don't want to re-number every home and business. So they start up a 'new' road heading the other direction and make it North Academy Ave one direction and South Academy Ave in the other direction. Generally where they meet the addressing starts at 0 or 100 and increments heading away from the intersection.

So you are suggesting at some point, the road was named "Academy Blvd" and it was changed to "North Academy Blvd" and they also created a new street named "South Academy Blvd"?

I am generalizing this. I have not looked at nor nor the history of your specific example.

I've found with the Colorado GIS maps that if the street has a direction as part of the street name, it never shows up on the GIS map.

N Academy Blvd most likely came from the TIGER basemap. I did a search for businesses along that strip and found the following:

Huhot, N Academy Blvd, http://www.huhot.com/Locations/Colorado ... ademy_Blvd
Mattress Firm, N Academy Blvd, http://www.mattressfirm.com/stores/colo ... rings.aspx
Sports Authority, N Academy Blvd, http://co.coloradosprings.sportsauthori ... s-131.html

That's apparently the official name of the street, even though it isn't signed. If the road signs don't have it, it's not really necessary to be on the map, however, if all the addresses on that street use N Academy Blvd, then it should probably be there to help people trying to find addresses without using navigation.

Same goes for Utah.

CBiz Accounting, South West Temple, http://www.cbiz.com/location.asp?locationID=126
Supersonic Car Wash, S West Temple, http://www.supersoniccarwash.com/locations/affiliates

It's odd that these aren't on the street signs since addresses usually start at 100 and run outwards from where the S and N streets meet. The only thing I can think of is that I didn't see a S Academy Drive, so maybe they decided that N wasn't necessary. And for West Temple, the only thing that seems to be on N West Temple, which is only a block long, is the LDS headquarters, which doesn't seem to have a street address at all.

Chris_CA wrote:And N/S in Academy is simply which side of 000 they are on. They are part of an address and not part of the actual street name.

Where are you getting this from? The N and S are part of the street name. Just because the municipality was too cheap to get properly made signs doesn't change the name of the street, or the necessity of that N or S to be part of the street name.

If you were mapping these roads from scratch, and all you had to go by was the GIS maps and the street signs, you wouldn't put a direction in. However, since these are from the basemap, there's no need to change them.

Chris_CA wrote:I was initially a bit confused when I was driving and Waze told me to turn left on north 300 west. I thought maybe Waze was incorrect and the previous/next street was north 300 W.

In this case, you wouldn't have much choice if you were mapping it from scratch, in the absence of a basemap. The Colorado GIS maps and the street signs would be your only legitimate source for the information.

gettingthere wrote:I am generalizing this. I have not looked at nor nor the history of your specific example.

In the case of Colorado Springs, there's a road that divides the north and south streets and it was probably organized like that from the very beginning, back in the stagecoach days. This actually prevents the scenario you described...as the town grows outward, the addresses go up in every direction.

It makes much more sense than towns that have the N and S streets parallel to each other on opposite sides of town.

Just read this whole thread. When changing street names you have to know you're area. For example in Chicago, the whole city uses N, S, W, E in their street naming and address system, so changing this would be a disaster. Bottom line: be careful.