The #1 thing I hate about Roland

For the past 2.5 years I have been Roland's Mayor. I have used this blog to pass along info on city stuff, and throw in some occasional commentary as to what is going on in town. I've tried to keep it positive, or at least fact based if the news isn't the greatest.

For the first time, I am going to bitch about something.

I HATE OUR STREET NAMES!

I curse our founding fathers and their Norwegian logic. Unfortunately I am just the mayor, and not benevolent dictator. If I were, we would rename most of the streets in town.

Here is what gets my goat. Maybe it is because I am a dunce, but I have lived here 15 years, and I still don't know half of the street names. And the big reason is, we have "tree" streets going north/south. We have "tree" streets going east/west. We have a "tree" street, then a "non-tree" street, then a "tree" street.

We have Walnut, Ash, Poplar, Maple, Elm, Birch, Locust,and Oak going one way, and Cottonwood, Linn, Vine(not really a tree) going the other way. At a minimum, I wish they were alphabetized.

Quick, where is Locust? Unless you live right next to it, I'm guessing most folks in Roland can't place it. I don't either. When I look at the map, do you know what I know it as? "The street with the first stop sign as you come up R77 from the south."

My ranting is coming forth because of the water main break the other day. I got a report that there was a water main break on Locust. My next question was--where the heck is Locust? I initially thought that was the north most east/west street. But no, that is Walnut.

This reminds me of when I was in high school, and had an "internship" with the local cable company. The cable guy was new to town, and he had some similar thoughts. "Nobody in this town uses addresses. It is all, "the house right next to Mr. Douma.' But I have no idea who Mr. Douma is."

Maybe that is one of the deals with living in a small town. Back to Roland, Linn Street to me is "that street on the east side of the school." For some reason, I have our circles down. Ryan, Britson, Duea, I'm good. And Samson, I have that one too, though there is still some question as to whether is is Samson or Sampson. And Norsemen Drive, that is just plain cool, so it can stay. Otherwise, you crazy Norwegians of yore, I curse you for your naming convention. Oh, and I forgot. Main is not the centering of the street numbering system. Cottonwood is. Which I'm sure we are the only town in Iowa with that. Main is actually the 100th block East in numbering. Duh.

But not one to just bitch, I come with solutions. Main and Maple you can stay. Everything west of the creek can stay because there are no blinkin' tree streets out there, and is not really in the grid of the rest of town.

Because I think of growth, we are not going to start on an end of town and work in. We will start at Maple. The first parallel street north, Poplar, becomes First Street. Depending if you are east or west of Main Street, you will be on NE or NW 1st Street. As an aside, typically streets run east/west and avenues go north/south.

Likewise, the first parallel street to Maple on the south is Elm. It will now become SW or SE 1st Street. Then we will climb to 2nd, 3rd and so on as we go south.

Now we could number the N/S streets going through town, but having 1st Street and 1st Avenue is worse than having a bunch of non-alphabetized tree names. So all N/S roads will become Avenues named for Steeler Hall of Famers from the great 70s teams. (Hey I'm playing king here)

As mentioned, Norsemen Ave can stay, just because that is cool. I'm going to break my alphabetization rule for one guy, to limit disruption to those residents. Green Street is the first to change. It becomes Greene Ave, just adding an "e" for Mean Joe. Cottonwood becomes Blount Ave, Linn becomes Bradshaw Ave, Vine becomes Ham Ave, Erickson becomes Harris Ave, Martha becomes Lambert Ave, Park is now Stallworth Ave, and Ryan Circle is now Swann Circle.

So let it be written.
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