> > > Personally, I would have preferred it if they just stuck to straight lines and numbers. After all, with numbered streets, you never NEED to scan the map--the location is made plain simply by the street number, the quadrant, and the address. In older parts of town, I can find any place immediately. In newer parts, details directions are almost a necessity.
> > >
> > > Link: My old house in Ross Glen

That link is still a riot. I think Medicine Hat should be given an award for the Worst City Planning Evar.


> Washington, DC, is rather nicely planned and laid out. There are four quadrants (NW, NE, SW, SE). All of the north-south streets are numbers. The east-west ones start with the alphabet, and then move to two-syllable names alphabetically, and then three-syllable, and then trees and flowers.
>
> Ki"lives between 13th and 14th, near Colorado and Georgia"ki
>

Okay, I think I know why I didn't like coordinate-quadrant mapping in Vancouver. Vancouver is like Montreal -- it's a vertical city on a mountain side. Quadrant coordinate mapping only works properly for cities which are very FLAT.

I recall Vancouver's community of New Westminster has a main street called Marine Way and a parallel street immediately "above" it which is higher up on the mountain. There is a cross-street called 19th Street which intersects the two; but in order to preserve the numeric sequentiality of the streets branching off Marine Way, this "19th Street" magically turns into a "20th Street" when it reaches midway down the mountain.

Wolf "typically zones out, thinking about street design, whenever someone gets lost trying to park" spirit