[GIS] Which rule to follow for defining an intersection as an ordered pair of streets

Explanation

Sometimes, for the sake of simplicity or speed, I need to list a location as a pair of intersecting streets. Let's use Luckie Street Grocery Store in Atlanta, Georgia as the example for now. I might list it as being at Luckie St NW & Mills St NW.

Often, I wonder which street should be listed first and why. There are some heuristics I could use to answer this question, such as:

Cartesian coodinates — Luckie St NW & Mills St NW

Using this, I would list the vertical street first, followed by the horizontal street.

Geographic coordinates — Mills St NW & Luckie St NW

Using this, I would list the horizontal street first, followed by the vertical street. (There is considerable debate in the scientific community about this standard, but that is off-topic.)

"Better known" steet first — Luckie St NW & Mills St NW

It would depend on how well one understands the locale to successfully utilize this method. I don't live in Atlanta or know that area well, but I took a stab at it anyway using zoomed out Google Maps as my reference.

Other ideas

I could use alphabetical order (by street name or by type of street), but I could encounter conflict by following this rule (two streets with the same name, two streets of the same type).

Additionally, there are plenty of intersections which are not closely aligned to North-South (longitude) and East-West (latitude) lines (i.e. they are more in the shape of an X on a map). An example of this in the same city is Poplar St NW & Broad St NW. This presents a problem for the first two methods I mentioned.

Question

Including a link to one or more authoritative sources, what is the preferred method of determining the order of streets when listing an intersection (and, most importantly, why)?

Best Answer

Most cities seem to follow the Cartesian coordinate plane you mentioned in your question. Something Wikipedia agrees with, in its section on Street or road name Grid-Based Naming Systems section.

In many cities laid out on a grid plan, the streets are named to indicate their location > on a Cartesian coordinate plane. For example, the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 for Manhattan provided for numbered streets running parallel to the minor axis of the island and numbered and lettered avenues running parallel to the long axis of the island, although many of the avenues have since been assigned names for at least part of their courses. In the city plan for Washington, D.C., north-south streets were numbered away from the United States Capitol in both directions, while east-west streets were lettered away from the Capitol in both directions and diagonal streets were named after various States of the Union. As the city grew, east-west streets past W Street were given two-syllable names in alphabetical order, then three-syllable names in alphabetical order, and finally names relating to flowers and shrubs in alphabetical order. Even in communities not laid out on a grid, such as Arlington County, Virginia, a grid-based naming system is still sometimes used to give a semblance of order.

Often, the numbered streets run east-west and the numbered avenues north-south, following the style adopted in Manhattan, although this is not always observed. In some cases, streets in "half-blocks" in between two consecutive numbered streets have a different designator, such as Court or Terrace, often in an organized system where courts are always between streets and terraces between avenues. Sometimes yet another designator (such as "Way", "Place", or "Circle") is used for streets which go at a diagonal or curve around, and hence do not fit easily in the grid.

In many cases, the block numbers correspond to the numbered cross streets; for instance, an address of 1600 may be near 16th Street or 16th Avenue. In a city with both lettered and numbered streets, such as Washington, D.C., the 400 block may be between 4th and 5th streets or between D and E streets, depending on the direction in which the street in question runs. However, addresses in Manhattan have no obvious relationship to cross streets or avenues, although various tables and formulas are often found on maps and travel guides to assist in finding addresses.

However, like any naming convention, it is simply a convention, and is not necessarily applied everywhere. There is a long discussion here on MetaFilter on this topic that contains many examples where the opposite is the case e.g. Large Road and Small Road or East-West and North-South like in Chicago.

Numbered streets then named streets seems to be the most common. If your town has those, then that should be your answer. If not, then it's a matter of stylistic preference.