street vs avenue

[tulipflower]

Is there any difference between 'street' and 'avenue'?

 

[Tarheel]

I think "street" is the more generic term. I think people use "avenue" to denote a street that is wider than most. Having said that, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. (That's funny because it's 3:54am here. )

I don't think I've heard the word "avenue" in a long time. It seems to be becoming an old-fashioned word. (There used to be a candy bar named 5th Avenue.)

 

[tedmc]

An avenue suggests a wider street which is lined with trees on both sides, but the terms have been used interchangeably.

 

[Amigos4]

A street is a basic paved traffic link within an urban area; an avenue was originally grander, wider and often lined with trees or other flora. But the distinction has eroded over time, as when, for example, real estate developers indiscriminately call new roads “avenues” to make a more grandiose impression.
Smithsonian Magazine (December 2014)

 

[SoothingDave]

Some places, like Manhattan, have numbered streets that intersect with numbered avenues as their city grid. Avenues run north-south, while streets are east-west.

 

[Skrej]

Some places, like Manhattan, have numbered streets that intersect with numbered avenues as their city grid. Avenues run north-south, while streets are east-west.

That's fairly common in a lot of US cities, although the orientation may be reversed. My house sits on the corner of two equally sized transit routes. One is a 'street', while the other is an 'avenue'. ( Fun fact - the 'street' is still an actual brick-paved road.) Incidentally, my town utilizes the same avenue/street orientation Dave mentions.

A number of years ago, as part of a "modernization and standardization effort", my home county went through and renamed all country and rural roads as part of some national GIS/GPS mapping system. As a result, my childhood address of 'Route 1 Box 5 ' suddenly officially became 2*** Boulevard X.

Boulevard. For a single lane, unpaved gravel road you can't access when you get more than a 1/2" of rain.

However, that was only the east-west routes. North-south county roads were simply designed "roads".

For a further sense of ridiculousness: The population of the entire county is only 2, 692 people. 1,814 of them live in the biggest town, another 380 in the second largest city, and 28 in the third and final "city". Yes, it's officially a city of 28 people - note a similar inconsistency between the usage of 'town' and 'city' compared to relative size.

That leaves only 470 people living in a rural area of 730 square miles, but by god some of them reside on boulevards (albeit mostly unpaved).

 

[SoothingDave]

Pittsburgh's downtown tries to impose two rectangular grids onto a triangular piece of land.

So you end up with 5th and 6th avenues actually intersecting!

 

[Tarheel]

In Charlotte they apparently ran out of names at some point. For example, there is the intersection of Providence and Providence and a few other such oddities.