Naming Of The Driving Paths

I had a hankering for a good hot dog today, so Hubby Tony and I ended up at Steve's Hot Dogs in the South Grand neighborhood. Ironically, I ended up ordering a Al Hrabratsky bratwurst, a play on the name of Al Hrabosky who is a former Cardinal baseball player and now color commentator for the team. His playing days nickname was the Mad Hungarian, and the sausage was topped with brown mustard, sauerkraut, celery salt and Hungarian paprika. Hubby Tony ordered a St. Louis Dog and we split both, along with a basket of fries.

Coming home on the highway we got in a discussion about the naming conventions for roads.  Tony thought that it made a difference if the road ran east/west or north/south, and that things changed when a road passed through the border from St. Louis City to St. Louis County, but the highway exits we passed didn't prove his points. When we got home we I did some research and found out (thanks to Vox) the differences between streets, boulevards, avenues, and many other types of roads.

The major ones: 

• Roads are the most general category, and a way to connect two points. 

• Streets are public roads with buildings on both sides. They often run perpendicular to avenues. 

• Avenues are public roads, often in a city, usually with trees or buildings on the side. They frequently run perpendicular to a street. 

• Boulevards are wide streets with trees on both sides. They often have a median.

The article goes on to list many other types of roads. Many of them are represented in my area, although when you get out into the suburbs it seems like developers are less inclined to follow the conventions:

• Lanes are narrow roads, often in a rural area. 

• Drives often take their contours from the natural environment like a mountain or lake.

• Ways are small streets off of a road. 

• Courts are roads that end in a circle or loop.

• Terraces usually describe streets following the tops of slopes. 

• Places are roads or streets that usually have no throughway. 

• Alleys are small pathways between buildings. They may or may not be wide enough to drive on.

The next category of roads wasn't part of our driving home discussion, but I found the definitions helpful:

• Frontage Roads are also known as access or service roads. They run parallel to larger roads and provide local access. 

• Highways are major public roads that usually connects multiple cities. 

• Interstates are large, typically federally funded networks of roads that are part of a highway system. They may go between states, but don't have to. 

• Turnpikes are part of a highway, but are usually a toll road. 

• Freeways are part of a highway system. They are large roads with two or more lanes on each side. 

• Parkways are large, decorated public roads. They are named for the parkland that often appears on the side of the road. 

• Causeways are raised roads that pass across low or swampy ground or water. 

• Beltways are highways surrounding a city. 

• Crescents are winding roads that resemble a crescent. They may attach to a road at both ends.