In NW Portland the streets go by numbers N-S and go by names E-W, but the advantage is the names are in alphabetical order.

(The creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening, is from Portland, and many characters in the show are named after the street names in this area, like Lovejoy, Quimby, Kearney, etc.)

On the other hand, where I live in SW Portland, streets are arranged around green areas, so there are no rectangular blocks. It makes it really hard for friends to find my house the first couple times. I have a friend whose house I visit a couple times a year, and I have to print out a map every time. It's just that hard to find.


It sounds like you are trying to bait a fight, GoNative.

Like chiuchimu said, southern CA is ridiculous... I think that it is probably one of the easiest places to navigate. Streets are usually E/W or N/S. With that in mind, pretty much no matter how arbitrary street names seem to be you can still head in the general direction.

Here, I guess for geographical reasons as much as any other, roads don't really follow those N/S E/W rules. So I think intersections lose their meaning, in the California sense that is. I did have the epiphany a while back that simply giving streets names in Japan wouldn't really help much (it might help a bit for local people... ) because of how winding they are. What would improve is the ability to give and receive directions. When someone tells you to go down "hana" street (or whatever the hell they'd call their street) and make a right on "sakura blvd" you'd have the confidence of knowing you are still on "hana street" every time you pass an intersection because it would be written on a nice lit up street sign. That ability simply doesn't exist... and to implement it would be extremely costly (first you'd have to name all the streets, then you'd have to make all the signs for them, then they'd have to change all their maps, etc). Like Nyororin said, streets change a lot in certain areas, so it probably wouldn't help much anyways. I have to agree that what Japan has going is probably a very decent system considering the conditions. I'm sure it could be bettered, but is it worth it?

And chiuchimu, you're right... everything is gonna have some kind of navigation eventually so that will take care of the problem. It's gonna come out of peoples' pockest one way or another anyways... they'd have to use tax money to make all those signs anyways, so I guess spending money on navigation systems is just an alternative to that. I remember when I bit the bullet and bought my navigation... I thought it was some kind of scam that the companies who made navigation systems were running... like they were proponants for confusing streets so they could sell their goods. At any rate, I've undoubtedly at least broken even on the thing because I haven't had to spend as much money on gas (or toll road fees) while getting lost. Navigation systems aren't perfect though--- EPSECIALLY in the inaka (in cities they are great... around here, chances are they'll mess up).

Having street names is fun though-- Japan is missing out. I remember a neighborhood near where I used to live in CA and they had a nice little theme going-- every street ended in the word "wood". I bet you can imagine all the fantastic combinations the California taxpayer payed for. We also had a street called "hazard", which at one point had one of the most dangerous intersections in the US. Streets like "Gothard" are always fun to see, too.

By the way MMM, I never knew that about the Simpsons and Seattle. That's pretty interesting.

I think you`re having trouble distinguishing between a system and practice. Read the part of my message directed specifically to you. (I merged two so you might have missed it the first time around.)
Japanese roads have issues. Japanese house numbering has issues. The address system itself isn`t a problem, and I think it`s a far more efficient system. The thing is, the roads and house numbering is so incredibly messy that there is no system that could make it easy to navigate. With the way the Japanese roads and traditional numbering schemes go, the Japanese address system is the best at getting you to where you need to go.
I think it would be much harder to find a location in Japan using a street name based mapping system... Unless you bulldozed pretty much everything and started from scratch.

I live in Japan, 99% of my travel is in Japan. Naturally I am going to prefer the system that works best with what I have to deal with. I don`t recall ever telling anyone they should have their country switch over to this system - only that I prefer it. To quote myself "If you have a map, I`m pretty sure that any system will work. But wandering around without a map, and on foot (Public transportation FTW), and it`s much much easier to figure out where you are and how close you are to where you need to be with the Asian system."

You are probably right, but there is a reason for this that isn`t what you`re thinking.
A) I don`t bother to reply to support anything I just agree with unless there is something really big I have to contribute to it.
B) I don`t bother to reply to overly positive stuff as it tends to be by people who know nothing about Japan and who are just randomly spouting praise of a country they`ve never been to.

This narrows it down to mostly replying to questions about things, and to replying when something negative is posted that I don`t really agree with. I don`t post randomly, so chances are you only see posts disagreeing with negative things posted by disgruntled foreigners or reposted from somewhere else that was posted by the same.

It's not like there are NO street names in Japan. I noticed Kobe had quite a few street names, and Midosuji goes right down the middle of Osaka N-S. My apartment in Amagasaki, Hyogo was on "Community-dori".

Portland, not Seattle. But yeah, it is interesting. Mr. Burns is named after Burnside Ave.

I seem to recall a street in Kyoto named ライトホウス when I was there. It really stood out against all the other streets.

In the ski village I work at we have actually introduced street names, mostly to make it easier for tourists but they are not officially recognised or on maps.

Hahaha, what an embarassing mistake. For some reason when I read Portland I thought "Seattle".

But yea, as for street names, I was being a little sarcastic in saying that because there are streets that have... kind of dumb names, if you will.

Since we seem to be on the subject of roads, I'd like to point out a pet peeve of mine. In Japan, apparently stop signs aren't first come first go... if you want to turn, you usually wait for someone who is going straight (even if they've come after you). I absolutely hate dealing with this! I'm not even sure if that is the official rule, but that seems to be how people roll here and that is what people have told me. I can deal with not being able to turn on red lights (especially considering how intersections/streets are deisgned here...) but dealing with stop signs the Japanese way just doesn't seem fair in certain situations. Considering that a lot of roads are too narrow for two cars (or too narrow to have a car turning next to a stopped car), I find myself in many situations where this "rule" gets broken on a daily basis. Does this bug anyone else? Is this an actual rule? Am I just going crazy over nothing?

People actually stop at stop signs? I have never seen that in Kansai.

The thing I found very confusing at first was the shape of the stop signs here. In Aus signs that shape are what we refer to as 'give way' signs. Meaning you do not have to come to a full stop at an intersection. You slow down and if there are no cars to give way to you just drive on through. Stop signs in Aus are a totally different shape. As we Aussies can change over from our car license to a Japanese one without sitting any tests it took me awhile to realise I was meant to actually stop at those signs.

^ Good that you live in a rural area. I can see the dangerous similarity between the signs.:eek:




In the U.S. the Yield sign is also a triangle, but its yellow with black trim. The U.S. stop sign is a red w/ white octagon.