page_title: Transportation in Edmonton
section_title: Street layout
hierarchical_section_title: Transportation in Edmonton / Roads and streets / Street layout
caption_attribution_description: English: Taken at 1 PM on January 7, 2006.
context_page_description: The city of Edmonton, Alberta, has a transportation network fairly typical for a Canadian city of its size, involving most modes of transport including, but certainly not limited to, air, rail, road and public transit.
  With very few natural barriers to growth and largely flat to gently rolling terrain bisected by a deep river valley, the city of Edmonton has expanded to cover an area of nearly 684 km², of which only two-thirds is built-up. The metropolitan area covers over 9,418 km². This has resulted in a heavily private transportation-oriented transportation network typical of any other city of its size in North America. However, Edmonton does not have the extensive limited access freeway system typical of what one would find in a US metro area, and the road network is somewhat unusual in regard to access to downtown.
context_section_description: Edmonton's roads were originally all named (as opposed to numbered) and arranged so that roads titled "avenues" ran north-south and "streets" ran east-west. The first move to a grid-style system began as the city expanded west - the streets west of Queens Avenue were switched to run on a north-south orientation with 1st Street (now 101 Street) being west of Queens Avenue, and the street numbers increasing further west (i.e. 10 Street was one block west of 9 Street). West of Queens Avenue, the avenues also switched (running in an east-west direction); although, unlike the streets, the avenues were never numbered. This led to a confusing situation with avenues becoming streets despite no change in direction. For example, MacKenzie Avenue (now 104 Ave) became Boyle Street west of Queens Avenue, and Athabasca Avenue (now 102 Ave) became Elizabeth Street west of Queens Avenue.
  The city of Strathcona had adopted a grid and quadrant system before its amalgamation with Edmonton, with the city being centred on Main Street (now 104 Street) and Whyte Avenue (also named 82 Avenue). This street system was similar to that of present-day Calgary's system, having NW, NE, SW and SE quadrants. Strathcona's grid/quadrant system was abandoned in 1914.
  In 1914, following amalgamation with Strathcona, Edmonton adopted a new street numbering system, which with a few small modifications is still in use. The centre of the city, Jasper Avenue and 101 Street, was set as the starting point. Jasper Avenue was one of the few streets that was not assigned a number. The other avenues were numbered as if Jasper Avenue (between 124 Street and 97 Street) had been 101 Avenue. Several other streets have maintained their names despite of having been reassigned as numbers — these include but are not limited to Whyte (82) Avenue, Norwood Boulevard (111 Avenue), and Alberta (118) Avenue, while others were given new names over time, such as Rue Hull (99) Street - which is a segment of what used to be Queens Avenue.
  Avenues run east and west; streets run north and south. Avenue numbers increase to the north; street numbers increase to the west. When a street lies between two numbered streets, letters are appended as suffixes. For example, 107A Avenue lies between 107 Avenue and 108 Avenue. Occasionally the letter B will be used and more rarely C, to denote multiple streets between 2 different street numbers. For example, 17A, 17B and 17C Avenues all lie between 17 Avenue and 18 Avenue.
  Houses with odd numbers are on the east side of a street or the south side of an avenue. Dropping the last two digits of a house number tells what two streets or avenues the house lies between, for example 8023 135A Avenue is between 80 Street and 81 Street, and 13602 100 Street is between 136 Avenue and 137 Avenue.
  As the city grew in the 1980s, it began to run out of street numbers in the east, and avenue numbers in the south. Therefore, in 1982 a quadrant system was adopted. Quadrant Avenue (1 Avenue; only constructed west of the river) and Meridian Street (1 Street) divide the city into three quadrants: northwest (NW), southwest (SW), and northeast (NE). The vast majority of the city falls within the northwest quadrant.
  All Edmonton streets now officially have their quadrant included at the end of their names, but it is usual — even on official signage — to omit the "NW" especially when there is no possibility of confusion with a street in another quadrant. The city's emergency services, however, have begun to encourage residents to get into the habit of using quadrants in all addresses.
caption: Connors Road facing north as it goes towards downtown.
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