A Road by any Name

The difference between names like street and avenue are the size of the path, what surrounds it, and how it intersects with other roads. Road is a general term for any throughway that connects two points. Streets and avenues are types of roads.

Streets are public roads that have buildings on both sides. They are often perpendicular to avenues, which historically were grander and wider. These days, the difference tends to be directional.

Denver, Colorado dictates that Streets run north-south and avenues run east-west.

In Manhattan, New York avenues run north-south and streets run east-west. In Washington, D.C., avenues run diagonal to the street grid.

Tucson, Arizona named some roads as stravenues, which run diagonal to the normal north-south/east-west grid.

Boulevards are grander than avenues and designed to funnel high-speed traffic away from residential and commercial streets. Boulevards have trees on either side and a sizable median.

Smaller roads are named way and they are a smaller side street that splits off from a road. A place has a dead end, as does a court (UK close), which usually ends in a cul-de-sac. A lane or byway is narrow and lacks a median, usually found in rural areas. A drive tends to wind around a natural landmark, like a mountain or a lake. A circle usually circles around an area and is an open road intersected by multiple roads.