the "grid" system

people have a tendency to stick to what they are accustomed to. but sometimes they just go too far in defending their status quo. that's right, i'm talking about the utah 'grid' system and people who call you on the phone just to defend it.

there is a grid system in lots of towns and states. it makes sense for cities and suburbia. if you've ever tried to drive in boston, you've wished that the founding fathers or whoever built bean town would have tried a grid. its a nightmare. i'm used to third street or fifth ave. i don't have a problem with those. but the utah numbering system is just impossible.

utah has decided that each town would be built on a grid system. in salt lake the center of the grid is the temple. so it works even better if you are a mormon because you can just drive till the numbers all go down and you are there. but they just take it too far. addresses end up sounding like coordinates in space, not just right down the street. people have addresses like 1050 s 1200 w. does that make any sense to you? probably not, unless you live in utah. but it doesn't take too much work to figure it out. heres a website on it.

so obviously if you are heading west you'll cross 11oo w then 1200 w. yeah, the streets aren't named after the direction they are going but the position they are in relative to coordinates 0,0. so you can be on 100s but you are travelling east. also if the street changes direction the street name changes. also if you go to the next town the numbers start over.

o yeah, and 100 s can be called 1st. so don't confuse 100th s with 100 s. (100th s = 10000 s).

this all breaks down if you live in a town that doesn't have a grid (like dear old epping, my hometown) but thats beside the point because that wasn't in utah.

the problem with the "grid" system isn't the grid. it makes sense, it just takes getting used to and you have to learn the terminology. the problem is that you can never remember where anything is. you have to know where you are going to get there. if you know the address you are golden. you can navigate very easily.

but who can remember all those numbers?!

i don't know the address of anything. i've worked in the same place for two years, written the address down a million times, but i just can't remember the numbers. ask anyone where anything is and they will always resort to how the rest of the world works. "i live on custer between 21st and 2nd street." they don't use the address. no one remembers the address. you don't say that the pie pizzeria is at 1050 s 1200 e. (it has a real address but no one knows it becuase they've renamed the streets that go north south). they say its on harrison and 42nd, just like they would anywhere else. utahns themselves don't even use it.

so utahns, don't try to defend the system you don't even use. it may be helpful when you know the exact address, but we seldom do. numbers are too hard to remember so we use words like harrison, washington, custer, orchard park, rancho vista, riverdale and the list goes on.