According to Google Maps there are no Bodacious Boulevards, but there is a Bodacious Lane in a small town pretty close to where I live. EDIT: Nope, there's one in the UK, my bad, it didn't appear until I searched up Bodacious Boulevard (when I searched Bodacious there were only 2 results so I assumed that was it, I was wrong) EDIT: Okay, that also can't be it since there's a nearby street called "Dirty Lane" which is not a "really normal name." EDIT: There is also a Bodacious Court and a Bodacious Drive. These are all in completely different places, mind.
@@xiphactinusaudax1045 Yeah the UK one is in my village and Dirty Lane definitely well named. Driving my car down there after a car wash was genuinely the worst mistake of my life.
@Ben Shapiro : I am german . Perhaps 30 km north of my village was the borderline between Imperium Romanum and Germania Magna. Perhaps 60 km away is the town Aalen. In roman age there was the garrison of a large cavallry unit called , Ala', perhaps the reason for current town name.
Long story short, in English none of these words have any fixed definiton and are irrelevent to how a local municipality directs engineers to name their streets.
Where I live the streets/roads are often named by the previous owner of the land. When an estate is drawn up the owner, then buyer get to name the thoroughfares
I've heard that part of the reason for the name "boulevard" is that when the wall of a walled town was torn down, a wide space was left surrounding the town. This wide space was usually filled with a road. This tended to be an important road, since it was wide and had access to the whole town. So "bulwark" (for wall) leads to "boulevard".
Also; *Walk (lets go for a stroll/ride along the walk) probably short for walkway *Trail. *Track. *Rt. - Route. *FM - Farmer's Market(road)/Farm to Market(road) - important in U.S. rural South P.S. As I understand it: Avenue is closely connected with venue. As in, roads built along, or near, pleasant sites/scenery. To be enjoyed, and appreciated, as one goes. *see also; walk
@@barvdw A gade is a vej with buildings on it in a town. It will typically have a sidewalk and street lighting. A vej is a large pathway that leads from one place to another, whether worn into the terrain by vehicle traffic or purpose-built. From English, road translates to vej, and street translates to gade.
There is a road going across the desert in Egypt . That is wide as a Interstate with a wall on each side built by Alexander the great in about 320 BC. Which goes for many limes .
There are lots of other “Ways” Footway : footpath Pathway : or simply path Walkway : Bikeway : Skate way : Breezeway : Roadway : way the road goes Gangway : path off a ship Millway : path that goes . past the old mill. Passway : road to get around, by . or through something Highway: high speed roadway Expressway : high speed roadway, no stop signs Tollway : pay as you go Skyway : elevated Highway Subway : road to go under, . often for light rail Spillway : Road for water to runoff Marine way : two meanings Milky Way: Road of stars in the sky Way of the Dragon : 🥷🏼 But what is origin of Midway : there are several uses in Chicago ie Midway Plaisance, which is a roadway through a Park of the same name Then there is a Henway What’s a Henweigh you ask? About three lbs 🐓 Of course there is The Way : which is the only road . to heaven 🕊
5:27 I think there's something more to the wall-boulevard connection. When walls became ineffective against more modern military tactics, most european cities deconstructed their walls turning that new space into boulevards.
Yeah, they had wide footprints, were usually already closely bordered by buildings on each side (so not much room for new construction), created a quick and easy way to circulate around the city, and created a definite demarcation between types of neighborhoods (similar to living on the "right/wrong" side of the railroad tracks in later times)
I was just thinking of mentioning that some thoroughfares where I live, are titled "place". However where I live, streets north of the "0" street, are numbered, while streets which run north and south are named; and when an additional road is needed between two blocks that is when titles like lane or place or road get used. So for instance if there is a road between 10th avenue and 11th avenue, it would be called 10th place, and if there was another road between 10th place and 11th avenue it would be called 10th road. While the north and south running roads are called streets, but if there is a road between "C" street and "D" street, it would be called "C" lane, and if another road exists between "C" lane and "D" street, it's called "C" way. And of course this must have taken a lot of intermunicipal planning a long time ago, but between every "Z" street (or lane or way) and every "A" street is either a boulevard or a parkway.
@@Lawfair That’s similar to the Phoenix metropolitan area, otherwise known as the Valley of the Sun. All roads running north and south on the east side of Central Avenue are numbered streets while on the west side they are numbered avenues. The roads going east and west are the named streets. But in between the avenues on the west you have drives and lanes and in between the streets on the east you have places and ways. So first Avenue, 1st lane, 1st Drive, 2nd Avenue, 2nd Lane, 2nd Drive, etc.
Here in the Philippines, we have expressways - long stretch of roads that connect the capital city, Manila, with the north and south parts of the Luzon islands. These are the North Luzon and South Luzon Expressway (NLEX and SLEX, in short). Both expressways have northbound and southbound lanes.
In Calgary Alberta, where I live, avenues run east west, streets run north south, and our freeways are called "trails" to harken to our wild west history.
Esplanade also has a meaning of flat land around a fortress. For example, in Kyiv we have Esplanade street near old fortress and it isn't close to water)
@@crispybaconnz Crescent is used for semi-circular roads. Drive I believe is generally used for roads connecting to a housing cluster that is, or at least was, detached from a larger housing area, or ascending gradually up a large hill to an elevated housing area. Place is the most common name for a dead end road with a cul-de-sac. Grove is typically used for small residential roads that feature trees alongside.
While there might be history behind these names, in the US they are often used haphazardly. Streets are often used in American downtowns as numbered streets. Moline, Illinois uses this to an extreme, with steets running north-south and avenues running east-west (roughly parallel to the Mississippi there), with 1st steert anbd 1st avenue roughly at the north east corner and going to roughly 70th street and 75th avenue...
Frankly (hehe) as a colonialist-descended English speaker if the French insist on a particular interpretation that's exactly how I will never use the meanings of the word. Go back to Paris and choke on an academy.
On the topic at the beginning, there is something in between a street and road It's called a stroad and it's terrible at being a street, because it causes a lot of air and noise pollution, terrible at being a road, because traffic goes slowly and terrible at being both because it causes a ton of accidents
The meanings are revealed in the etymology; ROAD is ‘ride’... to get to another place (town); STREET is ‘paved’ so its within a town. Just to confuse matters, I used to live on Avenue Road!! (Bexleyheath... there’s also one in London city).
Just my thoughts: Boulevard is a thoroughfare with bidirectional traffic divided by a feature, generally vegetation. A Terrace is a geological term referring to the geological structure upon which the thoroughfare is built - sort of a plateau. See also Mesa. A Lane is a thoroughfare with no exit. A Way is a thoroughfare from a main thoroughfare to a lesser area. Alley is from the French “alleé” that means to go. Love, love, love your content.
It's interesting where these names come from and what kinds of roads they originally described, but how these days names don't coincide with that anymore. Some still do, but for instance, the main road through my small town is 76 Country Boulevard. But there's an apartment complex behind the main shops on a quiet road called Scott Boulevard. They're both very different kinds of roads. Sometimes, I think people just name them based on what sounds more pleasant.
In the Netherlands Napoleon had made roads between towns. The name of those are 'Rijksstraatweg' (Rijks = States/of the State, straat = street, weg = road (and not way in this case ;))). Most of them were indeed connecting roads, but over the years they have become streets within towns too. Another thing that goes around here is just no common name (road, street, etc.) at the end. Like names of colors of gemstones.
Cul-de-sacs are also known as circles. Also, there are Drives. I find these to be like lanes that have a dead end most of the time, without a circle at the end.
There are 4 major way used in Australia. Expressway = raised above ground Freeway = limited entry/exit major road. Motorway = tolled Freeway. Highway = major public road. Many roads original linked places but urbanization occurred.
In my city, a boulevard will usually have an island or center division somewhere along its length. An avenue is wide, usually with parking on both sides. A street is narrower, and has parking along one side. A drive would be similar to a street.
Where I live, the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, all the streets run east-west, and all the avenues run north-south. The major ones are named boulevard in any direction. Lane, terrace, place, circle, usually are short and narrow with dead ends. An alley is always unnamed, whether a car can fit or not.
You have a new patron! I'm at a very low level right now, though as I further my writing career and use you to be sure my characters have names that support them I will probably express my gratitude more.
Downtown Rochester, MN is a simple grid with Avenues running North/South and Streets East/West. On my first day of work at the Mayo Clinic, I jotted down that my car was parked at 6th & 5th. The town layout became very clear at the end of the day while searching from 5th Ave & 6th St NE, 6th Ave & 5th St NE, 6th Ave 5th St NW, 5th Ave 6th St NW, 5th Ave 6th St SW, 6th Ave 5th St SW, 6th Ave 5th St SE to my car at 6th Ave & 5th St SE.
You are a delight !!!!!!! I lived on an ave., walked 30 blocked down a street to go to school. We had a traffic circle to go around, and in an area close to home there was a cul-de-sac. Never really thought about them until now. Bless your beautiful heart. Lots and lots of hugs with smiles to boot. The Canadian
A couple I notice are missing because there are examples i my neighborhood. First is Mews. Second is Circle, distinct from traffic circle, which is short street leaving one street in one place, meandering a while, then joining up to the same street later on, frequently with no other access.
On the avenues going north/south and streets east/west, that actually varies by town. In my part of the world, avenues typically run parallel to the main rail line and streets are perpendicular to it. That obviously assumes the railroad was there before the town started naming things. Likely other places have other schemes.
In cities, it's pretty common to have these road names in rapid succession. For example, between 74th Ave. and 75th Ave., you will have a 74th Road, then 74th Drive, then 74th Terrace, then 74th Place, before you get to 75th Avenue. And being that they are all within a 30 second walk from on another, the terrain doesn't change. So, sometimes these names are just used out of necessity.
In industrialized cities, Alleys serve another function: utility access, This can be seen in Chicago-s street plan where every block has a bisecting 1-lane road that is not named that runs behind the buildings that face the 2 flanking named streets. This alley is for garbage pickup and for access to garages for buildings that face a street too busy to safely have cars backing onto like Avenues which in Chicago are typically north-south 1.5 lane 2-way residential and light commercial streets [the extra lane on each side is for parking, busses, bikes and turn lanes. Boulevards in Chicago are typically up-sized Avenues with a median, 2.5 lanes in each direction and are fronted with commercial and industrial zoning.
I always considered alleyway and Alley to be slightly different things. An alley is a private dead-end path next to a house, whereas an alleyway is a private path that leads to another street.
@@howardcitizen2471 you're assuming that it leads to a garage, which it doesn't. I'm also thinking of something only large enough for pedestrians. It's simply a path between two houses that terminates with an obstruction like a wall or building.
I think new roads are named by how it sounds. I don’t think cities put that much thought into it anymore. We have one road that has 4 names as you drive, starts as a road, then changes into a drive, then changes back to road, then ends in an avenue.
The way I see it a street tends to exist entirely within a city or town while a road either exists outside of town in a rural area or connects two or more cities or towns.
Great idea for a video. I always had a rough idea of what some of the road names mean. Like a street is a smaller side road, or something, and a boulevard is that bit of grass between the sidewalk and the road, but I'm not sure what that has to do with the actual name of the road. In any case, I obviously haven't watched this yet, but I already know it's going to be awesomely enlightening. Thanks for making these! Cheers.
Alleys in some towns are between the back of houses that have garages are usually no more than 1.5 cars wide. Often traffic is one way and are where garage cans and dumpsters are left for pickup. Many of these in the USA are remnants of neighborhoods that were built in the late 1800s and early 1900s where horses and carriage houses were parked. There is no vehicle access from the street in front of the houses to the garage in back and the houses are so close together and close to the street that a front facing garage would be impossible without removing and rebuilding the house or removing the neighbors.
From 1978 to 2007, I lived on a street called Saint John Lane. There were several streets on the hill where I lived called Saint John, but with different designations.
Don’t boulevards always have a median down the middle? The road I live on is called a “way,” which is indeed an offshoot of a major “boulevard” in the city, which has a large median, quite convenient for making U-turns. Not a lot of trees though.
Where I come from streets run north/south and avenues east/west. Also common road types include Cove, crescent, place, drive, bay, view, green, heights, and rise.
The best definition of the difference between a road and a street is a road is a thoroughfare that goes THROUGH the local area and at least one end of it is a good distance away while street is a local thoroughfare that has both ends in the the very local area. A classic example being the road is what goes from village A to village B while the streets are what comes off the road for the locals to use to get to their houses in the village.
I think thoroughfares and can even apply to railroads, or waterways, if they are regularly used for transportation and especially in the event that the waterway was such as canals that were already being used as a route of major transport. Any type of feature of the environment regularly, used for Transportation that can be followed to reach additional routes or ways of continuing travel. If it is the only way to reach all destinations beyond that point, it is not a thoroughfare. Most cul de sacs are not thoroughfares but if there is a bicycle or foot path beginning in the cul de sac, which leads to a main drag, it potentially is a thoroughfare, (unless the only other way to reach the cul de sac requires taking that same main drag. So even if there is a road, that leads to a lane, which has two lanes that you can turn onto and then each leads to a trail or two, if none of those trails reconnects to a another bit of the infrastructure, none of that network constitutes a thoroughfare.
@@Euroflounder You're confusing "die Bahn", which can mean "lane", "tram" or "train" with "der Bann" (the ban). Or did you try to reference something specific?
In my hometown we have roads called circuits (circular roads), crescents (half-circular roads), quadrants (quarter-circular roads), rows (can't figure that out), rises (slopes), closes (dead-end slopes), bazaars (per se), strands and praya (esplanades). Took me some time to figure those out. And yes my hometown is in the Anglosphere.
In my hometown we have 3 types: avenues are North-South, streets are East-West, and boulevards are used as names for the major axis, they are also avenues or streets at the same time. IE "6th Avenue Boulevard Lacroix" is one road.
In the Phoenix metropolitan area Avenues and Streets are parallel. They both run north and south but Central is in the middle and is “zero”- everything on the west are numbered avenues increasing the further you go west, and on the east of Central are numbered streets that also increase the further you go east. The entire Valley of the Sun is a giant grid. All the roads going east and west are named instead of numbered.
There are at least two names of roads that you missed: Drive (which is what I live on) and Trace (where I used to live). We have Streets and Avenues that parallel each other, but are otherwise indistinguishable from each other in width or character. Some areas have streets with the same name, and are distinguished only by their type name, e.g., Adams Street and Adams Place. A friend of mine had his street renamed to avoid confusion with a disconnected street of the same name in the same village.
"Way" comes from Indo-European "wega" meaning simply "the traverse" or "the method by which one goes from A to B", related to Latin "via" and Dutch and German "weg" which in both languages has different meanings such as "road", "method", but also "gone". In Italian you have the word "viastrada" which quite literally means "paved road" and in Dutch you'll find something similar in the old (pre-highway) roads between cities being called "straatweg".
Yep. I was going to comment that the French may have evolved it into boulevard, but the English pretty much kept the definition and pronunciation with bulwark
In Brussels, there's the Avenue du Boulevard, or Bolwerklaan in Dutch ;) There's also a Bolwerksquare, or Square du Bastion in French, translated street names are often a mess. Squares in Brussels are just fancy (or formerly fancy) plazas, they don't have to be square. Ambiorixsquare is an oval or a rectangle with rounded edges, for instance.
6:36 Fan Tan Alley in Victoria! Chinatown in Victoria is awesome, and a must-see if you're looking to take in some local culture & history. It took me a second, but I had a feeling when I saw that picture. I went there with my mom when I was younger, and that place is burned into my memory because we spent over an hour in that little alley looking at the shops haha. Also, great video. Your simple format and dedication to sourcing has really helped me with my little project. Thank you!
"Thrufare" is commonly used in NYC. In Queens, avenues are usually east to west. You should do one about Queens street names because it's really weird. In Indianapolis, there is a north-south street called Boulevard Place. In the Bronx, there is an Esplanade Avenue.
3:18 The New York State Thruway (not Through-way!) Not mentioned: Pike (heavily used in PA and NJ- examples include Sumneytown Pike-PA73, Black Horse Pike-US322, White Horse Pike-US30, Philadelphia Pike, Baltimore Pike), Trail (Military Trail, Tamiami Trail, both in Fla)
I feel Court, Crescent and Circuit are all similar types of roads that circle around on themselves, but in different ways, eg a Court would be more squarish/rectangular, Crescent would be curved like the crescent moon, and often intersects with another road twice to form a capital D, and a Circuit would be a full loop, but not necessarily circular
Where I grew up, the word 'alley' referred to the unnamed roads between two residential streets giving access to garages. My godmother used to live in 'King's Close'...which was actually a through road and not a cul-de-sac. Did you know that [not that long ago] the road name and the road _type_ were joined to each other with a hyphen? So 'Oxford-street' or Alexandra-road'. I frequently see these in genealogical source documents.
Where I live now: Avenues: north to south Streets: east to west Boulevards: major east to west routes Roads: major north to road routes In some places, there will be a certain-numbered "avenue" followed by a "place" or "way" or "terrace" with the same number before the next-numbered "avenue". This isn't a strict rule though.
2:32 Hmmm, curious... In Portuguese, "street" translates as "rua", which seems to come from the Proto-Indo-European root, "reigh-", that originated the English "road". Conversely, "road" translates as "estrada", which undoubtedly derives from Latin "strata". which is the origin of English "street". So, basically, English and Portuguese went opposite ways in this regard.
An esplanade in English often refers to a route next to a body of water, but in French it's simply a flat area next to a prominent feature. For example in Paris, l'Esplanade des Invalides is a large open space by the Invalides hospital. These open spaces are often conceived to offer clear lines of sight on the feature in question. They are sometimes roads but also public squares and parks.
I think the names chosen vary regionally. In California, "street" can be any city road not a highway. Well, not quite. Some streets are also California State highway routes. Whereas boulevard and avenue are almost always busy streets. However, Berkeley, CA has a McGee Ave. which is not a busy street but a residential one. Road can also be used for a busy street and in San Diego two roads which would likely be called boulevards elsewhere are Friars Road and Mission Gorge Road. Then you have the "ways". There's Broadway which most large cities have that's all one word. Then there's Berkeley again which has ways that are two-word names; Dwight Way, Allston Way, Channing Way, etc. Then there are streets with no extra name after them at all. Berkeley has "The Alameda", that's it's name. San Diego has "Caminito Ruiz".
I always find the State routes the most confusing. Locals refer to the "road" by it's name, but others by it's state route. so while I may call it SOM Center Road, someone outside of the county might call it Route 91. I had to make the adjustment once I started driving around the state and using maps, because it doesn't show as the local name, but the State Rt.
@@SomethingBeautifulHandcrafts That's true too. Using another Bay Area example is CA state route 13. In Oakland, it is known as the Warren Freeway. The freeway ends in Berkeley and it becomes Ashby Ave. The whole thing, both freeway, and street are still CA 13 but an avenue in Berkeley and a freeway in Oakland.
My home street is an avenue. Doesn't have many trees on it, but there is a huge fir and an ivy covered hawthorn about halfway up - which is where I live!
I wouldn't claim this is the origin, but in German towns, "Hochstrasse" (High Street) is typically the main commercial road, what we would think of as Main Street in America.
I would have expected it to be the road that lead to the high street. Certainly in New Zealand it's very common for older roads to be named after the destination . Though it's usually named for the Opposite end from the main hub, where applicable. Simply because more people would have reason to refer to it as such before the naming was formalized.
I’ve seen the word “Parade” used a lot in seaside towns - usually “Marine Parade”. Again this suggests this type of road is next to water, specifically the sea - is this the case?
No, it refers to large groups of people walking. Like military marching to show their numbers (strength). Or people enjoying to walk in early evening in a busy urban setting, this can be along a lake or beach, just to meet each other.
I'm not sure if the definition is actually correct, but I remember my teacher in grammar school explaining that an Avenue was a wide, typically tree-lined roadway that led to a specific landmark or important building within a city.
The picture you chose to illustrate the term "Boulevard" at 5:01 shows the Parisian "AVENUE der la Grande Armee" and its Western extension, the "AVENUE Charles der Gaulle", as seen from the Arc die Triomphe. I understand that in France, an Avenue is a big radial axis leading from outside to the current or previous city centre whereas a boulevard is usually built on a former city wall or similar defence and is therefore peripheral to the former city centre. And according to this logic, all the big tlroads leading to the Arc die Triomphe are Avenues, while some of the big axes crossing those Avenues are Boulevards.
I briefly lived on a street in Brighton, England, called Harrington Villas. PRIVATE EYE magazine published a photograph of a street sign saying "Thatcher Road: No Exit"!
Then there is Avenue Road here in Toronto. Try figuring that one out. Although one joke I've heard about it was that back in the early 1800's, two land surveyors were leaving a country pub near the corner of Bathurst St. and St. Clair Avenue - at the time *WAY* to the northwest of the small city that was then known as York. As they were trudging along the long way towards Yonge Street in order to get back down to the small city, one of them turns to the other and says, "You know wha' we need 'ere? We need to 'ave a new road." (It would make more sense if I drew a map, but I can't here.)
I lived in Doncaster once and some of the builders were a little economical with the truth when they chose the names for the streets that they built. There is a Lister Avenue (the famous location of Open All Hours) that does not contain a single tree and never has done, and there is a Riviera Parade, which does sound as though it would be quite a pleasant place to live. The river Don is not far away but the houses do not face it, and far from being a parade, which implies a grand and rather broad highway it is a short and narrow street of terraced houses. The desirability of the location is shown by the house prices, an average house in the street can be yours for less than £40,000. I now live in Somerset which is full of names which range from the whimsical to others which must make it very difficult for an estate agent to interest a potential buyer in a property he is trying to market. On the whimsical side there is Apple Dumpling Corner, Puppy Lane, Teapot Lane and There-and-Back-Again Lane. On the difficult side there is Black Monkey Lane, Bughole Lane, Cabbage Lane, Tomtit's Lane, Pig Lane, and two Dumpers Lanes. I once lived on one of the Dumpers Lanes!
If your interested in some French grammar/vocab, alley is introduced to English and German (my native tongue) via allée (go/gone/went) which indeed comes from ambulare, where you also get ambulate/ambulant/ambulance. The plural of cul-de-sac is culs-de-sac, just like mothers-in-law and points-of-view.
It does probably come from French allée, which is a form of the verb "aller", but "aller" probably ultimately comes from Latin "ambulāre", though there is some argument about this.
In my town we have two Avenues and they both run East to West. But they were probably called Avenues because they're the two major streets that run through the town.
