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1/17/12

Central Corridor

Metro living on the grid plan...

Phoenix is like many western cities and streets are built on a square mile grid plan with a planned number design. The entire state as a matter of fact was laid out by the General Land Office under the Public Land Survey System with a system originally proposed by Thomas Jefferson. The system in integral to American history and lore including railroad line grants, use of the metric system, land grant schools and the phrase "forty acres and a mule." The grid street plan makes for easy traversing across and around the city. The Phoenix Light Rail System works its way around the plan primarily the Central and Camelback Corridors, Washington-Jefferson Street Corridor and Apache Boulevard as well as 19th Avenue until it is expanded.


The Phoenix metropolitan area is laid out based on an arterial grid with section lines using a meridian and baseline (hence Baseline Road) and is divided north and south by Washington Street and east and west by Central Avenue, known as the Central Corridor. The street numbering plan to a newcomer can be confusing at first until it's fixed in the mind that numbered streets (such as 24th Street) are east of Central Avenue and primary streets are even numbered while numbered avenues (for examples 19th Avenue) are on the west side of Central Avenue and the main avenues are odd numbered.


There are variations on the theme due to irregularities in terrain, surveying, historical and practical matters such as freeways and the canal system that provides water within the central portion of the original Phoenix metro and nearby outlying communities. Many of the east to west primary roads have become miles long corridors in their own right. Most of my life has been spent in the Camelback Corridor intersecting with either 32nd Street or the Central Corridor. The Valley of the Sun would be snarled like some east coast city if it wasn't for simple navigation with the application of grid blocks in the urban landscape.