<p>I use MapQuest a lot, and I’ve noticed this a lot. </p>
<p>I saw that Google is located in Mountain View, CA, so I went to MapQuest to map it, since I didn’t know what part of the state that is. Turns out there are two Mountain Views in California – one (I believe the correct Google location) near the Bay area, and the other in San Bernadino County, near LA. MapQuest makes you select the one you want before it maps it for you.</p>
<p>Similarly, just as an example, Pennsylvania has two Bethlehams – one in Clearfield County, near Punxsutawney, and one near Allentown.</p>
<p>Does this make sense to anybody?? Or, does this make sense to everybody but me?</p>
<p>This is a notorious problem in New Jersey, i.e. Princeton township, Princeton borough, Princeton Junction. Clinton township, Clinton village. Union City, Union County, etc. etc.</p>
<p>This is problematic in Michigan as well. You have townships, villages, and/or cities with the same name (City of Northville/Northville Twp; the Grosse Pointes; City of Royal Oak; Royal Oak Twp; City of Ann Arbor/Ann Arbor Twp, etc.). It’s important to mention the type of municipality whenever you’re traveling.</p>
<p>I would also like to see some consistency in street names. Please, no streets with the same or almost identical names in the same area. And, please, no streets with multiple names that change as the same street goes through different areas.</p>
<p>^^^ Like, Greenlea Lane and Greenlea Place? We almost went to a party at the wrong house once . . . Some friends had a ton of white gravel delivered to their driveway that was really meant for someone else.</p>
<p>That’s common in my area, but it isn’t as confusing as you might suppose because many of the roads that go through several towns are named after the town. For example, when you are in Anytown, a road is called Anytown Rd. and then as you get to the next town that road becomes Nexttown Rd. KWIM?</p>
<p>Actually, we have in our town two streets with the exact same name. The plan was that the streets would eventually be connected – they point to each other – but that hasn’t happened. So you have to tell people, “It’s the Huntington Drive off of Roseville Road, not the Huntington Drive off of Weston Road.” Is that the dumbest thing or what?</p>
<p>Our emergency responders in this area did a BIG push to change duplicate named streets and streets that changed names mid way. This happened about 10 years ago and ruffled a LOT of feathers. BUT it was a good idea. In our little “berg” there are no duplicate street names any more…and no streets that start with one name and change names in the middle (unless the intersection is a main cross street).</p>
<p>Now…if Mapquest would just figure out that OUR street is a DRIVE not a ROAD. It’s so confusing to give folks our address and have them tell us that our street really is a ROAD. It’s not…tell mapquest.</p>
<p>well, you can see mountains from many places, so it would make sense to have more than one town with that name. the funny thing is you can’t see any mountains from the Northern Cal. Mt. View. (where google is located)</p>
<p>There’s a neighborhood of Los Angeles in the SF Valley area that wanted to distinguish itself from the Van Nuys neighborhood. So, they searched for the right sounding name. They ended up with West Hills, and while it is west, hills it is not (I am told.)</p>
<p>It’s an interesting task trying to find place names that are Native American in origin, since tribal languages and then the transliteration into English was a chore. Growing up in WA I am used to the spelling and pronounciations there. Then, I moved to upstate NY for a few years and had to reorient myself. Try that town in the Finger Lakes region that is pronounced “Skinny-atlas.” The one that’s often the challenge in WA is the city outside of Tacoma called Puyallup (pronounced PEW-al-up.)</p>
<p>I suppose a lot of the duplicate-name towns (the ones with the exact same name–like two Mountain Views in CA) were named when communication/transportation was slow and there was no way of easily finding out if that name was already taken.</p>
<p>For years I lived in a rural area. In the late 90’s, they wanted to get a 911 system. First they had to NAME the streets (no more of "2nd dirt road on the left after you pass the blue house. . .) Many people named their own streets (a Lutheran family living in a largely Catholic area named their street “Reformation Way”) My street already had a name, but I had to change my address–I was happy to go from #2 to #1!</p>
<p>Also in NJ, until recently there were 6 Washington Townships, but one changed its name in the last year or two. Also two Dover Townships, but the Ocean County one became Toms River.</p>
<p>Yes, I remember reading about the ‘Washington Township’ problem in New Jersey. Argh!! As for Peachtree Street in Atlanta, double argh!!! I hope the guy who convinced the nitwit Atlanta City Council to rename half a dozen streets Peachtree paid them well for their time. And don’t get me started on 'Peachtree Corners." Only after 30 minutes of conversation on one ocassion did the person I was talking to realized we were talking about places over 20 miles apart.</p>
<p>Oh come on…the most FAMOUS double name street is Wacker Drive. There is an intersection in Chicago of Wacker and Wacker. That used to crack me up.</p>