A stravenue (
portmanteau
In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together. of
street
A street is a public thoroughfare in a city, town or village, typically lined with Building, buildings on one or both sides. Streets often include pavements (sidewalks), pedestrian crossings, and sometimes amenities like Street light, streetligh ...
and
avenue) is a type of road particular to
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...
, United States. A stravenue runs "diagonally between and intersects a Street and an Avenue." By convention in Tucson, streets run east–west while avenues run north–south. However, in a few areas of Tucson, primarily around the central part of the city, which is divided by railroad tracks running diagonally from southeast to northwest, builders created small subdivisions of roads and houses that also are laid out on a diagonal basis rather than the normal east–west or north–south. Most of these subdivisions are located near either Benson Highway or Aviation Highway, which also run southeast to northwest.
Abbreviations
The
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the executive branch of the federal governmen ...
officially designates STRA as the standard suffix abbreviation for stravenues, and acknowledges the common use of the following additional abbreviations:
* STRAV
* STRAVEN
* STRAVN
* STRVN
* STRVNUE
Street signs may feature the "STRAV" abbreviation.
Origin
Historian and preservationist
Demion Clinco identified the earliest recorded appearance of stravenues on a February 1948 plat map of the Country Club Park neighborhood between Aviation Road, Country Club, and 29th Street. The map features six stravenues, and was produced by Tony A. Blanton, a land surveyor at Tucson architectural firm Blanton and Cole. Subsequent plat maps produced by Blanton in May and December 1948 also featured stravenues, and it is likely that he either coined the term or was the first to promote it.
See also
*
Stroad
A stroad is a thoroughfare that combines the features of streets and roads. Common in the United States and Canada, stroads are wide arterials (roads for through traffic) that also provide access to strip malls, drive-throughs, and other aut ...
References
{{Road types
Streets in Arizona
Types of roads
Transportation in Tucson, Arizona