Our island recently changed the house numbering system. Previously it
was based on a very 'logical' system devised by an engineer no doubt
(ducking) It was based on an x-y axis with an arbitrary starting point
at the center of the only town. Number was based on the distance N-S or
E-W from town depending upon the direction of the road, then add the
road name. All seemed very logical from the ivory tower. Unfortunately
this engineer must have been from Nebraska where the roads only run N-S
or E-W. (By the way, this N-S/E-W thing is an artifact of the original
US method of dividing up the perceived Wild West. Good for another OT
thread by itself.)
Only problem with this method is that roads tend to wind around. My old
number was 870 on a N-S road indicating .870mi south of town. However
my neighbor only 1/4 mile away on the same road but just around the
corner was 44xx being 4.4xx miles west of town. Now for a long time this
didn't matter since when your house was burning down they knew to go
past Ed's place, even though Ed had died a few years ago, and turn at
the red barn. And I knew the UPS driver
Things change. There are lots of people moving in. They didn't know Ed.
The new enhanced 911 GPS mapping system doesn't know Ed, it uses
Lat/Lon. So we got a new system. This one is based on the distance along
the road to your driveway. We're 470 now, .470mi down the road, our
neighbors are 6 something. Makes way more sense and the county crew can
just drive around with their GPS and laptop and hand out numbers without
getting out of the car. I still know the UPS driver.
Mike
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