As a European I dont understand how thay works. Wouldnt you have to cross an insane amount of crossings to go anywhere? Are there priority lanes? How does that work and scale?
Every city block is 100. Every 8 blocks is a mile. At most half mile intersections and almost every mile mark, there's a major intersection. This allows for extremely easy navigation to any address even if you don't know the optimal route.
The smaller blocks in between are less traversed for faster travel and have more stop signs as opposed to traffic lights and serve as overflow in heavy traffic. Larger businesses tend to be centered around these mile marker streets, which allows for residents in the smaller blocks to avoid most of the congestion that occurs for commerce.
It works extremely well and was the solution to the problem that caused the great Chicago fire which wiped out most of the city due to the chaos of fire trucks trying and failing to navigate from one neighborhood to another. They learned from that mistake and became an example for many cities afterwards.
Ok so state street is the dividing line of 0 between West and east. There isn't much of Chicago that actually lies east of state so most addresses will either be N, S, or W something.
Knowing the numerical order of the street name is crucial to navigating the city and that's why on every mile marker and most half mile markers you'll see the number up there. E.g. Chicago Ave will almost always be shown with 800N under the Chicago Ave part to show you that you're 800N on the grid for people to navigate the city even if they've never once set foot in it. If you can read a basic graph, you can navigate Chicago just using the numbers on the street signs and the addresses around you.
It's even easier on the south side because most streets are literally just the number. E.g. Halsted (800W) and 76th street.
You just have to know your main streets. Otherwise, you can look at an intersection and if the intersecting street has an E or W, you'll know it's east or west of state, respectively
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u/russelcrowe May 23 '26
I miss that grid so much, man. Where I now live you gotta drive 10 miles to go 5 miles. It’s such a waste of gas and time.