![[Map: S. St. Paul, MN, USA]](images/s_st_paul_mn.jpg)
( Image: S.
St. Paul, Minnesota, USA . House numbering system in red.)Latest projects:
See also Wikipedia: House_numbering.
Thought: North America could study a bit of the Chinese road/lane/alley addressing system. Chinese could study a little of the North American grid coordinate addressing systems.
The road/lane/alley system is indeed quite good, especially in mountain areas, as long as one keeps the distance/number ratio stable.
Goal: I'm hoping Taiwan addressing will gradually get better planned. That is, when it is decided that a road will be renumbered, or initially numbered, thorough planning is applied. However, on roads where the numbers aren't too jumbled, then it's not worth the trouble to residents to renumber.
"I live at number 422. Why isn't the house across the street number 421 or close? How is it that other countries can do it?"
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St. Paul, Minnesota, USA . House numbering system in red.)
They do a pretty god job of house number planning in the U.S. and Canada. I'd like to apply their experience to new city planning projects in Taiwan. I don't have the heart to mess with the numbers of houses with people already living inside them though. We might wait for a "new town" project, or one of Taiwan's endless local house renumberings, to see if we can do something more permanent.
Why has house number planning never been taught in city planning courses?
In Taiwan there are many people, trailing along behind Household Offices, picking up the poor quality house numbers they establish, then using these numbers in fancy geographic information systems (GIS) digital address validation etc. research, never thinking for a moment that if those in front creating the addresses did a better job, one wouldn't need to rely on such complicated systems to make sense of the mess in the first place.
Even though reserving numbers for later construction is in most local Taiwan law,
they don't go further to require the right and left sides of a street to grow at an even pace and not lose track of each other;
no recommendation that parallel streets' house numbers' advance in parallel;
for parallel roads that are dividend into sections, these sections number and division points develop on their own and are fixed independently.
In Taiwan house numbers often are like clothes, as the city grows they end up being reassigned several times as they are grown out of. Oddly Household bureaus are responsible, when it is clearly a city planning / land department question.
I recommend we take the opportunity next time there are new planned communities, to do it right, before road building begins.
The net savings of all the trouble of all the people later searching for addresses is worth the little trouble spent planning addresses.
In the gridded USA cities, even little kids can tell you how to get to an address. Businesses need not waste advertising space with maps of how to get to the store.
With good addressing, ambulances won't need to ask their way, or depend on fancy GIS or GPS. When looking for an address, even better guesses about when to get off the bus can be made.
Minimal goals:
A permanent system that doesn't need to be revised if more houses are added.
Emergency vehicles can use the address even without a computer or maps. The average person can understand the system too. I often listen to ambulances and the police department on my scanner radio. Plenty of time is wasted figuring out where addresses are.
Some bad phenomena:
I recall an address I was trying to reach was on a certain Taiwan road, house number 372. I noticed the bus has already reached number 370, so I quickly got off the bus, only to find 370-1, 370-2... It seemed I had to walk an entire two kilometers before I reached 372. How dumb of me to get off the bus so early.
I'm riding a bus but the road is too wide. I can't see the house numbers on the other side of the road. The best I can do is rely on the numbers on this side of the road to determine where to get off the bus. I get off, cross the street, and darn, the numbers are way off. 121 vs. 454 or worse.
"Sec.": It seems to me that one of the reasons for Taiwan's roads being divided into numbered sections is to make up for the increasing lack of coordination between the house numbers on right and left sides of the road as one walks along. When we reach a new section, the numbers are reborn and given a new chance at staying somewhat coordinated.
However, these sections can also trick us. Who has not at least once searched for an address with the wrong section number and thus been mislead several kilometers?
Parallel numbers for parallel roads: for example examine addresses on roads as they cross Taibei's Fuxing Rd. Not only are the numbers not coordinated, the section numbers aren't either. (Too late to straighten things out now though.)
Gaoxiong City calls XX Rd. Sec. Y "XXY Rd.", however it has the same problem nonetheless. XX3 Rd. is parallel to YY2 Rd. is parallel to ZZ4 Rd.
And house numbers increase as section numbers decrease as we go down (up?) a road! Where did they come up with that? At least that seals the fate (length) of a section from its day 1.
Edmonton, Canada streets and avenues all use numbers, centered at 101st St. and 101st Ave. I'd use 250th St. 750th Ave. for the center. Bayfield Co. WI USA rural addressing uses non-overlapping addresses, 1000 per mile. Advantages
Very far until hit negative numbers.
Street numbers still fit into three digits, house numbers into five.
No worry about confusion between St. and Ave. until very far. But why not a system that can be extended forever...?
What if they used even vs. odd for north-south vs. east-west?
The many individually named twisty North American suburban streets would be better served by a Taiwan numbered lane and alley system, however real estate agents might think trading fairyland names in for systematic numbers would hurt sales, even if it would speed deliveries and maybe even save a life one day.
Taiwan English postal addresses. Actually, Taiwan's "XX Road # Lane # Alley #" system, in irregular street patterns, like the mountains, often surpasses the usefulness of North American style grid based systems.
Taibei street nicknumbering is a unnecessary project to supposedly ease foreigners confusion due to the pinyin conflict. They give each big street an additional number aside from its name. Locals don't use the numbers, so don't expect it to be any bridge of communication -- it just adds one more obstacle. Numbering streets is good, but if you do it, do it for everybody.
One country, three writing systems
Mountain area address planning
The same Chongde Rd., in Taizhong City is Sec. 1, 2, and 3. In Tanzi Town is Sec, 4, 5. Good.
In Taiwan, new ID cards and house numbers are not to end with the number 4. Otherwise they will rhyme with "death" in Chinese, is the excuse given. I bet however this is a plot by the nation's leaders to reserve room for their Martian buddies. One Martian Army brain wave monitoring station planned for every 10 houses!
Fortunately our address planning has enough flexibility to absorb this.
Much easier to do in the planning stage before houses are built!
2005.10.25, Taiwan High Speed Rail Bureau acknowledged my suggestions for communities planned around stations.
2006.4.28, Taiwan Ministry of Interior Urban and Rural Planning Bureau acknowledged my suggestions.
One day we should think about room number planning, for various buildings.
Parts of China use similar numbered lanes etc. See Chinese version. Not sure where else in the world it is used.
Current extreme examples
In Gaoxiong City Qianzhen District's Export Processing Zone all the streets are on the motif West 7th becomes East 8th. Is this the revenge of a disgruntled city employee?
Perhaps the whole country's addressing is purposely disorganized, for National Defense purposes?
A very long stretch of e.g., "2-" numbers.
In North America, URISA even has "Street Smart and Address Savvy" conferences. (However the papers require payment to read!)
South Dakota USA Rural Addressing Procedural Handbook uses 100 numbers per mile grids.
Rural Australia and New Zealand addressing use 100 numbers per km., counted from beginning of the road.
Clallam Co. Washington USA addressing uses 1000 numbers per mile, with the last digit indicating distance from road.
How could there be a "T junction" with all three roads having the same name? Well, it might actually be a "P junction", where a road meets itself back at the middle... Maybe there are even letter "4" shaped junctions...
Last modified: 2008-02-16 01:13:22 +0800