(no subject)

[brigdh]

WHAT THE HELL, UK. WHAT IS SO GODDAMN FUCKING HARD ABOUT PUTTING UP STREET SIGNS AND PUTTING ADDRESSES ON BUILDINGS?

ALSO YOUR CROSSWALKS MAKE NO SENSE.

Comments

[lynndyre.livejournal.com]

A lot of the time the street signs are on the side of the building, at second-story height, rather than on a pole? Depending on where you are, I guess.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but even when they do put signs on a wall (because a lot of the time there really is just no sign at all), the varying architecture of buildings causes it to always be at a different height and different distance from the intersection, even when it's on the nearest building as opposed to three or four doors down. Also, there seems to be no consistency- at least that I can tell- as to whether the sign is on the right or left side of the road. All together, it causes one to wander around intersections aimlessly, staring wildly at buildings like a five-year-old who's lost their mommy. And then! Even if you find the street sign, it is sometimes a different name than on the map, even when it is the same street. And people who live nearby call it by yet a third name, so you cannot even ask for help, because they won't know what you mean.

I am just a little bit frustrated.

[miep.livejournal.com]

In Oxford, I lived on a street that had five different names, depending on where you were. Where I was, it was the Abingdon Road. It had also been St. Aldate's, the Cornmarket, St Giles, and the Woodstock Road at various points between my house and my tutor's.

[seaskystone.livejournal.com]

See, I think that's actually a difference in perception (between US and UK?). I live in Oxford and I don't consider those to be the same road at all. I know you can trace a through-line, but since Oxford (like most of our towns/cities) isn't based on a grid system, it's unusual to have one road go all the way through like that.

Personally I would think of the Abingdon Road as running up to Carfax, with St Aldate's being a specific description of the part of it that runs into Oxford proper. Then Cornmarket is a completely different road that meets the Abingdon road at the Carfax crossroads. Then at the far end of Cornmarket, you've got St Giles which is a big open area many lanes wide; at the far end of that AGAIN, you get two roads going off north, the Woodstock Road and Banbury Road, neither of which are the same road as St Giles - they just join onto it.

I'm not saying it's particularly efficient, but UK roads tend to be organic segments that meet and mingle and go their separate ways at junctions, not neat straight through lines. I think most people in Oxford would be utterly bewildered by the idea that Abingdon Road and the Woodstock Road were the same road. They happen to be opposite each other going into town, with some bits that sort of join up, but they're completely different entities.

[miep.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can totally see that. And I remember the opening of the Corn into Broad street, where it meets St. Giles, and the slight jog from one road to another, but here in the states, at least in the middle part, a road has one name until it turns. Sometimes, it has a name and a number, and sometimes, a road with a number will have various names in various towns along the road, but within one city, one street gets one name -- if I don't have to turn off of it, I must be on the same street.

But I still say the Corn becomes St Aldates at Carfax - my bicycle went in a straight line from where I turned into the Abingdon Road at White House Road, until I turned into Observatory....