What are the Different Types of Streets? | Edmonton Real Estate Definition

Street types (also known as street suffixes) are identifiers of street names and serve to describe the street. Some examples of street types are: street, road, avenue, boulevard, junction, crescent, etc.

Edmonton is a city based on a grid (for the most part). Streets run north to south and avenues run east to west. We know when we see these suffixes, that these roads are running a certain way. This makes it easy to find addresses because they are just mostly simple coordinates. However, there are some exceptions – and when you’ve gotten used to the grid, you can have problems finding houses if there is no grid system in place. Roads that aren’t on the grid are not called streets or avenues, because those types are reserved for straight roadways.  So we have many other ways to describe a street or road and each of those has an abbreviation.

Often when you see real estate listings, these abbreviations have no explanation. In certain neighbourhoods, this can be confusing. There are two ways to abbreviate a street type in Edmonton; you could do it according to the authority on Canadian mailing addresses (Canada Post), which uses up to six characters, or use the shorter codes like the Edmonton real estate agents do. My thinking is that these short, two-letter abbreviations are probably left over from the old MLS® system that had limited character space, but they are still used today, even though MLS® now has a lot more space for a listing’s address entry.

Here is a chart laying out the different abbreviations you can have for different kinds of street types:

The original reason for different kinds of streets or designations is to describe a street. It’s helpful to know whether a certain street is a crescent, because then we know it’s going to have a curve. If it’s a maze, then we know it will be a total zig-zag, if it’s a wynd, it probably curves this way and that. If you live on an avenue in Edmonton, it’s going to be a straight roadway that runs east to west. If you live on a stroll, it’s likely a narrow pathway, perhaps one that doesn’t even allow cars. If you live on a close, it’s likely a road with no outlet, perhaps a cul-de-sac. These designations serve to help you picture a roadway before you even get there. Also, developers certainly choose a street type to advertise an area. For example, if you see the name Elk Meadows, you probably are thinking this location will be in a park-like setting. It might just be a townhouse complex in the middle of the city, but the name serves to give the area a natural, outdoorsy feeling. This can help sell someone on the location when they are looking to buy a property.

To illustrate how important these street types can be, let’s look at Wedgewood Heights in Edmonton. In one corner of Wedgewood Heights, there are four different streets with the same name (and different street types). They are: Weber Way, Weber Place, Weber Close and Weber Gate. You can see how it could get a little confusing if you didn’t have the street type and the street name was the same for two nearby roads. This isn’t really a big deal if they’re close together because you can just drive to the next road, which is sometimes connected. However, if they’re separated at all, you could end up looking on the wrong street completely.

In another corner, there are three different streets with the same name and different types: Welbourn Cove, Welbourn Lane and Welbourn Drive. Again, it’s a confusing situation when searching for a house.

Other issues include mistakes with the abbreviations themselves. In Edmonton, some common street types that get mixed up are Court (CO) and Crest (CT), and also Villa (VI) and Village (VG) can have the wrong abbreviations associated with their real estate listing address.

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