[wyliepoon]

Toronto already has a road numbering system... for bike routes. How many bikers in Toronto actually use these numbers?

 

[adma]

I'd argue that numbering streets could make the city less tourist friendly, or at least less brandable. Look at New York, Calgary and Edmonton, three cities where most of the streets are numbered. What are the most well known streets in those cities? Wall St, Broadway, Stephen Ave, Jasper Ave - not numbered streets.

Numbered streets and numbered highways/roads are a different kettle of fish.

 

[Archivist]

"The names don't mean much for a tourist or visitor." Who cares?

In terms of tourists, Toronto is pretty easy. Montreal is certainly harder - it's street names change more frequently than here. London is near-impossible, as someone has pointed out, I remember trying to find a bar that had an address of something like "1 Under the Kingswater Bridge" and I wandered completely lost for some time till some guy dressed like me went by and I followed him.

And Tokyo has no street addresses at all, pretty much impossible for anyone to find anything ever including the locals.

But surely that's part of the charm. Numbering streets for the tourists seems a lot like building an expressway right to the historic core of some city so that it's easier to get in and out.

 

[jn_12]

Plus I think WK LIS wants the streets to have both a name and number. So I guess on Queens Quay signs we'd see {QUEENS QUAY [1]} and so on rather than Queens Quay becoming 1st Ave

 

[Earlscourt_Lad]

So we'd have one set of names that people who live here use, and one set of numbers that only tourists try to use and nobody else really understands or cares about.

Great idea.

 

[MisterF]

So we'd have one set of names that people who live here use, and one set of numbers that only tourists try to use and nobody else really understands or cares about.

Great idea.

Exactly. You could have taken it further - a set of names for residents and tourists, and a set of numbers that nobody uses or cares about, including tourists. Tourists in cities don't care about what number a street happens to have. How many tourists in front of Parliament in Ottawa know that they're on Regional Road 34? (That's Wellington St, btw)

 

[jn_12]

"The names don't mean much for a tourist or visitor." Who cares?

In terms of tourists, Toronto is pretty easy. Montreal is certainly harder - it's street names change more frequently than here. London is near-impossible, as someone has pointed out, I remember trying to find a bar that had an address of something like "1 Under the Kingswater Bridge" and I wandered completely lost for some time till some guy dressed like me went by and I followed him.

And Tokyo has no street addresses at all, pretty much impossible for anyone to find anything ever including the locals.

But surely that's part of the charm. Numbering streets for the tourists seems a lot like building an expressway right to the historic core of some city so that it's easier to get in and out.

Brussels is the same. Roads are in French and Dutch and rarely do the street names in either language look the same when translated.

Our street signs are just fine. If anything, we could do with a bit better pedestrian wayfinding signs. The best examples I've seen are in London and Paris.

 

[unimaginative2]

French signs are indeed confusing, but much of that is due to the confusing nature of the French road system in general. Their ancient roads don't follow the grid system that we're used to here. There's no question that their signage is far better than what we have here, by virtue of its mere presence. We have virtually no wayfinding aids that would be suitable for guiding a tourist or even someone from outside the neighbourhood.

 

[RedRocket191]

Why don't we do what they've done in Pyongyang

They streets don't have names (apparently to slow down invading american imperialists).

Crazy country...

 

[Archivist]

There's no question that their signage is far better than what we have here, by virtue of its mere presence. I question this. Are you trying to say there are no signs in rural Ontario? I have seen their signage and it is a horror. You may disagree, but it is not correct to say "There's no question ..."

 

[Hipster Duck]

Here is another example of what I consider to be bad Ontario road signage:

This sign doesn't tell you anything apart from the bloody obvious: you're crossing Airport road. On one side, we are informed that it's Rte. 18 and, on the other, Rte. 7. No mention is made of where this leads, what direction this leads to, or any other useful information such as, for example, which direction Canada's largest airport is. At the very least, they could have mentioned that Route 18 is for Dufferin, and Route 7 for Peel, although that would have no relevance to wayfinding.

 

[ShonTron]

That's MTO signage - Highway 9 (which was not downloaded between Orangeville and Highway 400). In rural areas, the county/regional numbers have more significance, but change when crossing county lines. Most people know it as Airport Road, and it crosses through three counties (Peel, Dufferin, Simcoe). Shows the difference between some rural MTO signage versus 400-series signs. However, on long-distance routes, there's usually signs with the names of towns and cities in tabs below, with small font to give names of small villages. Approaching a highway, there are fingerboards indicating the direction and distance of towns in both directions. But it's inconstant and now with downloadings, often missing.

I wish that the MTO not only not downloaded the highways, but should have established a system of county-level through routes with 200 and 300 number series with a separate shield that would distinguish it from MTO roads. Important County Roads that are not highways would be appropriate. Airport Road, Elora Road, Lakeridge Road are examples. The MTO could have thrown the counties and separated cities a small subsidy in the way of capital funds (which they often do) and erected signs with a "maintained by" tab.

They could have done this when downloading the roads (at least kept numbers and shields with "maintained by" tabs" in the late 1990s, but no, the boneheads at most counties renumbered their roads with no rhyme or reason, which was done very badly in some counties.

 

[Hipster Duck]

This would be what you would find in Germany, as an equivalent:

This simple wayfinder is used in urban areas or at junctions in small villages and gets the point across without being too overbearing on the landscape.

Note that the sign manages to incorporate the highway number (432), destinations and distances all in one neat format.

EDIT: Sean, you're right, I remember examples like this German sign in Ontario, but they are rare and disappearing quickly.

 

[adma]

That's MTO signage - Highway 9 (which was not downloaded between Orangeville and Highway 400).

But at least the shields are of more or less proper size--I've seen other "green" signage where the shields are weirdly shrunken, or whatever else...

Personally, given MTO's downloading insanity, I find it a wonder that they didn't just go the extra step and ditch the King's Highway system altogether (at least in Southern Ontario)--or at least the "anachronistic" King's Highway label, perhaps replacing the crown'n'shield signage with 407-style SAT-test bubbles. At this point, they're better off demolishing it all and starting over (I think Quebec did some similar total-renumbering thing back in the 70s or so)

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

Highway 50, 1936-1998, now named Peel Road 50, York Road 24 & Simcoe Road 50, ends at Highway 27. It could be numbered Toronto Road 50, and continued on Albion Road, Wilson Avenue, York Mills Road, Parkwoods Village Drive, and Ellesmere Road, where it ends near Meadowvale Road. The names of the roads could remain as is, but the roads would be numbered as well.


http://www.thekingshighway.ca/Highway50.htm