Street vs Road

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Why are some roads called '[X] Road' and some called '[X] Street'? Is there any substantive difference that will stand up to actual examples of roads and streets?

And, given the choice, would you rather live in a road or a street?

― the pinefox, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Having a quiet day today, Mr. P?

Street. Road seems to emphasise cars and fumes.

― Will, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's to do with English having multiple linguistic origins; "street" is Germanic (cf Dutch "Straat", German "Strasse") whereas "road" is from the Romantic languages (cf French "rue"). "Road" has increased in usage as urban expansion has taken place, so in most British cities the oldest and most central thoroughfares tend to be called "street". As time as gone by, there has been more and more diversity, hence the use of Drive, Way, Crescent, Close and (on some modern estates) Mews, which I think was originally stables for horses. I have no preference about whether I live on a street or road or whatever, although I have never lived on a Street. For the record I've lived in a Close (1970-89), a road (1989-92), a Crescent (1993-5) and another Road (1995-date).

― MarkH, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'd like to live on a gate. There's some good ones in Chesterfield, Knifesmithgate is a particular favourite.

I have mostly lived on roads.

― chris, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think a mews is a place you keep your falcons and kestrels and stuff.

― Sam, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i live in a passage

― mark s, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There's a street in Cambridge called 'All Saint's Passage' . Make of that what you will.

Hurray! From sensible question to smut in less than ten posts. I'm sure that is not a record, but we're limbering up.

― Will, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

and (on some modern estates) Mews

And in Belgravia.

I live in a Court, like wot the King and Queen does.

― Madchen, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

We also have Wynds. I've only heard of Mews being for stables too.

― toraneko, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

stables in the mother country = so posh and upscale that poor ppl are happy to live in em

other words: shrewsbury is full of "shuts" (Cockshut is the only one I can remember), which means nippy little sidestreets which cut sharply down between houses and often (more or les) thru ppl's gardens. shrewsbury also has a street called "Grope Lane" which is komikal enuff in itself and more hliarious still when you discover as a skoolboy that in the middle ages it was called "Grope Cunt Lane"

― mark s, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Not just poor people. Real mews are dead expensive in London and if you add the the words 'Mews style' to a house description the price goes up by 50%.

― RickyT, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I live in a circle. Or near it.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i lived on a lane named for the lady who lived at the top of it, whose Sunday newspaper I carried up each week for a quarter and 3 hours worth of TV watching. i'd sit on the floor in front of the couch and try to pretend she wasn't there as she sorted through vast stacks of sweepstakes mailers and croaked every now and again.

i live on an avenue, which i'd say is a street by the pinefox's lights - it's got a curb and a sidewalk. at some point i am going to miss my roads though.

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I live on a street, 'cept it's called a road, but it is a street. It used to be a road in the Olden Days [of Yore], but it has become a street due to expansion of The City. But it is still called 'Road' though. Even though it's a street.

I live near a road called 'Happy Land'.

― DavidM, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I live in a 'Gardens', so having given that away and with the knowledge of wot town I live in I can now be traced. Yikes!

― DG, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I just live in a Village. Or a Unit.

― Graham, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I can only remember living in roads. The most boringly predictable names for roads, as well.

― Robin Carmody, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i do live on an avenue

― anthony, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It seems like it has to do w/ location in the U.S. You'll rarely see something called a "road" in an urban area, unless it's like a 5-lane thoroughfare that goes out of town. Avenues and streets are for city streets and residential areas. I live on a road in the middle of nowhere.

― Mark, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I live in a manor house. we have a mile long drive way. :)

― james, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"We're on a Street to Nowhere..."

― the pinefox, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I live at the junction of a Road and an Avenue, in Buildings.

― suzy, Friday, 19 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am on a loop!

― Ryan A White, Saturday, 20 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I live on a gate. The electricity company i signed up to was based in another city and they didn't believe my street existed because it didn't end in street or road so i got six months of free electricity.

― hamish, Saturday, 20 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Toronto wins for having the most redundant major street name ever and that would of course be Avenue Road. I live on a quay.

― Kim, Saturday, 20 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Isn't the difference that a Road's title is (maybe was) usually the place it leads to? cf Caledonian Road, Old Kent Road, etc. Roads imply travel, direction & destination.

Streets are either just residential or connecting within a centre of population.

Hang on a minute. What about Watling Street, Ermine Street, etc.?

Bugger.

― David, Saturday, 20 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

five years pass...

I'd like to live on a gate.

ah yes, forgot about 'gate'; think this is only found in towns and cities under the Danelaw, hence the Norse word for road being prevelant there. How it became the word for the entrance rather than the thoroughfare is anyone's guess.

An update: I lived in a Street during 2005-6 and now I live in a Park.

― Grandpont Genie, Wednesday, 20 June 2007 14:20 (eighteen years ago)

What about "drive". I seem to only ever live on drives.

― Ms Misery, Wednesday, 20 June 2007 14:22 (eighteen years ago)

My work address and my home address have the same thoroughfare name, but one is an Avenue and one is a Place. Kind of fun but confusing when giving mailing instructions.

― Laurel, Wednesday, 20 June 2007 14:25 (eighteen years ago)

Bristol boasts the following

Cotham Brow
Cotham Grove
Cotham Hill
Cotham Lawn Road
Cotham Park
Cotham Park North
Cotham Road
Cotham Road South
Cotham Side
Cotham Vale

― Grandpont Genie, Wednesday, 20 June 2007 14:32 (eighteen years ago)

It's like Queens!

― Laurel, Wednesday, 20 June 2007 14:33 (eighteen years ago)

i live at e.g. "Flat 6 (x) House, (x)house Road" which is super confusing, because there is also a "6 (x)house Road"

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 20 June 2007 14:43 (eighteen years ago)

Muswell Hill (the area) boasts roads called Muswell Hill Road AND just plain Muswell Hill (plus Muswell Hill Broadway etc). Plus there's a road called Fortis Green, and one called Fortis Green Road.

― Colonel Poo, Wednesday, 20 June 2007 15:58 (eighteen years ago)

I live on a full-on Avenue. It's three blocks long and becomes a one-lane if someone parks on the ~~street~~ avenue.

― Pleasant Plains, Wednesday, 20 June 2007 16:41 (eighteen years ago)

I live on a Road. Before that I lived on a Street, then a Lane, then a Crescent. I'm soon to move to a Wynd.

My parents nearly lived on a Mews, but a last minute change by the council led to it being renamed as a boring old Court prior to them moving in. Before they that they, and I, used to live on an Avenue.

― ailsa, Wednesday, 20 June 2007 18:17 (eighteen years ago)

Queens is ridiculous with the numbers, since it tends to go 63rd Street, 63rd Road, 63rd Lane, 64 Street, 64th Road, etc. --

-- but that's at least logical, and has nothing on that one spot in Atlanta where there's a horrifying non-gridded wandering tangle of Peachtree Street, Peachtree Lane, Peachtree Avenue, Peachtree Way, Peachtree Drive, Peachtree Road, Peachtree Circle, Peachtree Court, Peachtree Highway, Rural Route Peachtree ....

― nabisco, Wednesday, 20 June 2007 18:26 (eighteen years ago)

I live on a full-on Avenue. It's three blocks long and becomes a one-lane if someone parks on the street avenue.

-- Pleasant Plains

I'm on an Avenue too, and it's only one block long, but it's wide enough for one-side parking, with both-side parking on Sunday because the city won't pay the enforcement people overtime. Some cities (mine at least) have a naming scheme where "Avenue" is only used on North-South streets, and "Boulevard" is used on East-West streets.

― nickn, Wednesday, 20 June 2007 22:01 (eighteen years ago)

Heh, another chance for me to repost this:

http://img9.imagepile.net/img9/274stboulevard.jpg

― Pleasant Plains, Wednesday, 20 June 2007 22:06 (eighteen years ago)

Note the centre of the map here, where High Street becomes 'High Street Road'.

Best of both worlds.

― S-, Thursday, 21 June 2007 04:37 (eighteen years ago)

sigh.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1397/578736177_07a5335162_o.jpg

― S-, Thursday, 21 June 2007 04:38 (eighteen years ago)

http://m1.freeshare.us/152fs814365.jpg

― Pleasant Plains, Thursday, 21 June 2007 05:16 (eighteen years ago)

I live in a circle. Or near it.

http://www.mp3sugar.com/ishow.img/artist/artist_4242

― Not the real Village People, Thursday, 21 June 2007 22:25 (eighteen years ago)

I drove past Crescent Road in Glasgow today.

― ailsa, Thursday, 21 June 2007 22:56 (eighteen years ago)

there's a Crescent Road in Oxford too!

Unfortunately, if the streetmap site can be believed there isn't a Glenn Close anywhere in the uk, although I think there are a couple of Glen Closes.

― Grandpont Genie, Friday, 29 June 2007 15:22 (eighteen years ago)

fourteen years pass...

Damn, people can’t just walk down the street anymore. They have to be jogging, or on a bike, or riding some dumbass electric scooter or motorized skateboard shit

― calstars, Sunday, 24 October 2021 15:10 (four years ago)

Cursed spawn

What is a stroad?

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Sunday, 24 October 2021 15:17 (four years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.