Where do street names come from?

Street names have many origins. If a street is an extension of an existing road or is in general alignment with a road, it inherits the existing name. For example, even though it is impossible to drive continuously on Cody Dr, if you are on a segment of Cody Dr, you know that you are south of Ashworth and north of EP True.

Developers also get to suggest three possible street names for each road. It is City policy not to duplicate street names within the Westcom dispatch area (there are almost 1000 street names already in Westcom!) Fun fact: there are over 50 variations of streets using the word “wood.” After the addressing administrator views the developer's list, she cross references it to the Westcom database and eliminates any duplicate or similar sounding names.

Where is the North South Line? The N/S is an imaginary line that divides the City. It starts at 1st and Railroad but because our streets are in the grid pattern, the line shifts over several landmarks throughout the City. Jordan Creek Town Center actually serves as the N/S line! The line is the point at which the 100 block of the grid meets. At the line, the addresses get bigger going north and bigger going south. South of the line, all streets running north/south have an “S” prefix to distinguish them from the north/south roads located north of the line. Basically, it serves as a line to directionally split the city so you only have half as much land to cover when you know the address. At 105th Street, the North/South Line will be moved to I-80 to follow that indefinitely. Fairly soon, all new North/South streets in WDM will have a “S” prefix because our line is located in the north portion of our planning boundaries.

Where do the address numbers come from? All numbers mean something and they are not difficult to decode! The entire City is overlaid with a grid that serves as a guide to the number part of the address. The grid flexes and adjusts constantly. Addresses on East/West roads are assigned based on where they proportionately fit in between numbered streets. For example, you know the fictional address of 8826 Mills Civic Pkwy is west of 88th Street and east of 92nd St (addresses get bigger as they move west). Because it is an EVEN number, you also know it's on the SOUTH side of the road (this is true all over the City).

Even utilities get addresses! The electric company needs service addresses for certain utility boxes—most commonly, traffic signal boxes. We have reserved the first and last two digits in the block for utilities (because traffic signal box = intersection = the change of a block) xx00, xx01, xx98, xx99 are reserved utilities so technically there will be no more 4200 Mills Civic Parkways (the City Hall address) unless we can guarantee there will never be an intersection at that location.

So what can you tell about a location by its address? Take 5101 Mills Civic Pkwy. You know this is a utility address because the last two digits are 01; you know it is on the west side of 51st street because it is a bigger number than 5100; you know it is on the north side of Mills Civic because it's an odd number. So those four numbers pinpoint an exact location at the intersection where the address for this utility box is.

This is one example of how something we take for granted is actually a product of a well thought-out, planned, and carefully carried out process. Our Addressing team in the City does a a great job of ensuring that everything runs smoothly, and handles any "bumps in the road" that may come up along the way!