There must be a story behind this redundant street name.
The main road of a small housing development called Lumpkins Forest (no apostrophe), its sign reads, “FORESTRD DR.” Maps label it, “Forestroad Drive.”
I didn’t really pay attention to the name until we moved into our current house and now drive past the street to and from the city almost every day. When I noticed it, I thought it must be a typo. Or something. It aggravated me.
A little while later, my mom, who worked as a rural mail carrier until her retirement just over a year ago, told me that her coworkers at the post office used to joke about the street name.
Signs plus maps plus mail equals not a typo. Weird.
The neighborhood isn’t run-down and boarded-up like the house on the other side of the highway that’s shown here. It’s full of really nice houses that are well taken care of, from what I can see.
I wonder if I could live on a redundant street. I wonder if I would roll my eyes or sigh every time I had to type or write my address if I did. I wonder if I could resist the urge to complain and organize a protest.
I know for sure I’d at least get to the bottom of the backstory.
Interesting! I wonder if its backstory included being just called “Forest Road”, like an RR, until it was renovated as a neighbourhood into a “Drive” and the city didn’t want to/couldn’t take up the valuable sign space with the three words fully spelt.
Good guess, Tyson, but when that street was made, the county only used street numbers. I know this because my dad posted on Facebook that he was delivering mail out there when the street was cut, and it wasn’t until maybe the mid-’90s or after when they decided to add the street names. They called them “9-1-1 addresses” because they were changed to help the emergency-services people find houses more efficiently. Everyone was expected to put up a sign with their “9-1-1 address.”
Maybe, like Kevin just said, it was being called “Forest Road” by the people who used it, but since it’s a short road, it didn’t meet the qualifications for a “road.”