Deciphering Cape Coral Street Names

Everyone was new to Cape Coral at some point and I'd be willing to bet that all those people had a helluva (yes, that's a real word now!) time trying to figure out how the streets work, or more specifically, how the street names work! If you're familiar with Atlanta, they have 71 roads with the word "Peachtree" in the name which is obviously quite confusing. While Cape Coral is substantially smaller that the ATL, they decided to play an even more confusing game when it comes to haming their streets.

You see, if you tell someone to that you "live on 19th" that could mean one of these:

NE 19th Street

NW 19th Street

SE 19th Street

SW 19th Street

NE 19th Place

NW 19th Place

SE 19th Place

SW 19th Place

NE 19th Terrace

NW 19th Terrace

SE 19th Terrace

SW 19th Terrace

NE 19th Lane

NW 19th Lane

SE 19th Lane

SW 19th Lane

NE 19th Avenue

NW 19th Avenue

SE 19th Avenue

SW 19th Avenue

And of course none of these streets seem to line up with each other! Here's a quick breakdown of how the street naming in the Cape works:

Avenues, Boulevards, Courts, and Places run north & south. Boulevards are the main north/south roads.

Lanes, Parkways, Roads, Streets and Terraces run east & west. Parkways are the main east/west roads. But then you have Pine Island Road, which is a main road but isn't a Parkway.

The city is split into four quadrants: Northeast, Northwest, Southeast & Southwest. The east/west dividing line is Santa Barbara Parkway, which is easy enough. However, the north/south dividing line is either Embers Parkway, Pine Island Road, or Hancock Bridge Parkway. I guess using one main road that cuts across the entire city, like Pine Island Road, would be far too easy!

And finally, when you cross over a boulevard, the streets should go in the order of Avenue, Place, Court, Avenue, Place, Court, etc. So 1st Ave, 1st Pl, 1st, Ct, 2nd Ave, 2nd Pl, 2nd Ct, 3rd Ave, etc, etc, etc. And then when you cross over a parkway, the order is Street, Terrace, Lane, repeat! But just to keep things interesting, not all roads are complete so you could have sections or blocks where, for example, the terrace option doesn't exist so you just go street, lane, street, lane, etc.

At this point, I'm convinced that the reason Cape Coral has so many canals is that it's just easier to drive straight into one and forget all of this! I'm kidding, of course, but you have to agree that the street names in Cape Coral, Florida, are nothign short of a nightmare!

For more details, check out this article from the Fort Myers News-Press.