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Jack Large
Karma: 38420
Chris Rock the black comic, commented on the fact that cities and towns all over the US have named some of their newest streets "Martin Luther King Boulevard" to honer that great man, yet today they are generally the most dangerous streets in town, how sad
17 Answers
I live on a boulevard which looks exactly like the streets surrounding me but not the avenues.
We also have roads and highways. The highways have several personalities and sometimes they get re-named into boulevards.
In a few cities where I have lived the avenues run one way and the streets run another. That is not applicable here. Not at all. I have lived here for fifteen years and still can not make heads or tales of which is what and what is where.... If I travel to another city the rules or lack there of, change again.
12 years ago. Rating: 14 | |
I live on a crescent, what could that be?
It has trees, roads,cul-de-sacs,short cuts,shops,speed bumps,school.
OK, I suppose I just explained that then.......
12 years ago. Rating: 11 | |
If you won't let me "google" then I can't answer that! LOL!
12 years ago. Rating: 10 | |
"As a type of road, a boulevard (often abbreviated Blvd) is usually a wide, multi-lane arterial thoroughfare, divided with a median down the center, and "roads" along each side designed as slow travel and parking lanes and for bicycle and pedestrian usage, often with an above-average quality of landscaping and scenery."
"A street is a public thoroughfare in the built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. ... The word "street" is still sometimes used colloquially as a synonym for "road", but city residents and urban planners draw a crucial modern distinction: a road's main function is transportation, while streets facilitate public interaction."
"Traditionally, an avenue is a straight road with a line of trees or large shrubs running along each side, which is used, as its French source venir ("to come") indicates, to emphasize the "coming to," or arrival at a landscape or architectural feature. ... In US and Canadian urban or suburban settings, "avenue" is often simply a street name used to differentiate some streets from others, along with "way", "road", etc. Thus a community might have a "Maple Avenue" and a "Maple Street" to avoid confusion between addresses. In some cities in the United States (most notably in Manhattan, New York City), there is a convention that "avenues" run in a north-south direction, while "streets" run in an east-west direction, or vice versa."
"The word lane has several meanings, including and especially:
1. a narrow road or street, usually lacking a shoulder or a median; this is typically applied to roads in the countryside, but can also be applied to urban streets or areas that used to be streets, such as Drury Lane in London, the Brighton Lanes, or the Cathedral Lanes in Coventry. 2. a portion of a paved road which is intended for a single line of vehicles and is marked by white or yellow lines.
In Northern America and Australia, the term also may refer to rear access roads which act as a secondary vehicular network in cities and towns. Large cities in the U.S. states of Nevada and Texas tend to apply the term to many arterial roads."
And NO, I never use google, they follow ones "tracks" ;-)
12 years ago. Rating: 9 | |
My teacher in Singapore taught pretty much the way you just described, with trees being one of the major reasons in determining what name to use. It seems to me that, in the U.S., the definition is not that critical.
My Singaporean teacher would have been proud of your answer since you didn't google it ( :) :) ).
I did not want to type all that stuff to expalin what I knew to be the case.
I never said I did not do a search, just that I never use Google ;-)
@ Ducky, you played it by the rules. thx!
Where I live (Cleveland,Ohio),the streets run North - South and the avenues run East - West.
12 years ago. Rating: 6 | |
I live on a drive,apparently the Queen was forced to use it in an all too familiar flood in the area,(quite some years ago) hence the name Queen Elizebeth drive, the town has no avenues (now I feel deprived) but we do have 1 cu-l de- sac, the other 5 are all streets and through traffic area's this place isn't even in the street directory and would you believe I still got lost when I first moved here!!!
12 years ago. Rating: 5 | |
Yes, a boulevard is a wide space, with grass or concrete seperating the lanes.
An avenue is also wide. Most of the "important" laneways in my city are called avenues.
Streets are in the neighbourhoods, with lots of trees.
Roads are mostly in the commercial districts.
Cul-de-sacs are nice...very low traffic.
So, I agree with everybody's assessment.
And I very much enjoyed reading this thread.
Thanks for starting it, Chiangmai and also for all the
humour and bantering between everyone.
This is what makes akaQA superb! :)
12 years ago. Rating: 4 | |