Clark Asks: What do different street identifiers — avenue, court, street, circle — mean?

The first street to run north was Main Street, and roads parallel to it were designated as east or west. It was the same thing with the river bank, which marks north and south. Because of the way the river runs, that means there are no southwest addresses in Clark County, only southeast, northeast and northwest.

Of course, Main Street runs north-south for barely a mile before it begins to meander to the northeast. That’s where a quiet little residential street, Division, takes over and forms the east-west line. Division peters out not far north of the city limits, and after that, the boundary is a line on a map more often than an actual street. (Vancouver Municipal Code Chapter 11.04.040 states that the imaginary line is parallel to the eastern boundary of Range 1 East, Township 2 North, Willamette Meridian. For more on what that all means and why it is important in your life, read our 2022 story about the Willamette Stone.)

But back to Ronald’s question. Vancouver code states “all streets within the city will be assigned a suffix conforming to the following definitions,” and then names 24 possibilities including Street and Avenue, plus rarely used names such as Common, Path, Point, Trail and View, all of which are defined as some flavor of “minor street.”

In Vancouver, Avenues run north and south, while Streets are east-west. Circles are cul-de-sacs running east-west; their opposite is Court. Places are “non-extendable” streets running north-south between streets, and Ways are non-extendable east-west streets.

There seem to be some exceptions. Thurston Way, which runs from Northeast Fourth Plain Boulevard to the west side of Vancouver Mall, mostly travels north-south with a couple of bends. Perhaps, it would better to be labeled as Thurston Lane, which according to city code is “a meandering irregular street.”

By the way, in both Vancouver and Clark County, addresses on north or west sides of streets have even numbers; those on the east and south sides have odd numbers.

So what about unincorporated Clark County’s rules? They are spelled out in Chapter 14.16.010 of the Clark County Code. Thankfully, the county uses the same north-south-east-west grid system with the same starting point down by the I-5 Bridge. Like Vancouver, through roads north-south are Avenues and east-west are Streets. Small east-west roads running between streets are Ways, and if they end in cul-de-sacs are called Circles. Small east-west roads running between avenues are either Places or Courts, depending on whether they connect.

In the county, roads that are diagonal or irregular can be called Drives or Roads, and roads that form loops are — wait for it — Loops.

Some roads (streets? avenues?) have actual names instead of numbers, but that is a question, and chapter of the applicable codes, for another day.

With all of these rules, it’s no wonder that Ronald had some questions, and presumably you did, too, because you just read this entire story. But now that you’re armed with this information, you should feel completely qualified to take a side job delivering pizza!