The primary purpose of street names is to help identify locations of homes, businesses and other specific locations. That hasn’t always been the case, however.
For example, a London street directory in 1853 included 25 Albert and 25 Victoria streets, 35 King and 27 Queen streets, 22 Princess and 17 Dukes streets.
No imagine how confusing it would be to have two different sets of street names – and signs – for a single road.
That potential issue emerged during Tuesday’s meeting of the Columbus City Council. Over the years, streets or sections of streets have been honorarily named through a process approved by the city council. Many of these roads have two signs: a sign for the official name and another for the honorary name.
When citizens call 911 to report a problem, this becomes a problem when they refer to the honorary street name instead of the official street name. In many cases, the new street names are not updated in the official mapping used by emergency personnel.
Even a long-term Columbus citizen may not realize that Henry Armstrong Way is actually officially Third Street North, for example.
We approve of efforts to honor those who have contributed so much to the city’s history, but we believe there are better ways to honor these people that don’t create the kind of confusion that leads to a tragic outcome.
While there have been numerous honorary street name changes, there have also been other means of recognizing notable people. Esther Harrison, a longtime state representative from Columbus, was recognized by a highway marker on a section of Highway 182. Representative Esther A. Harrison Memorial Highway is confined to a single marker, rather than a street sign designation in 2018. Similarly, MUW honored the six Black women who integrated the school with a marker on campus last year rather than changing the name of campus streets.
State historic markers recognize Disney animator Josh Meador and baseball announcer Red Barber.
Markers are, in fact, superior to street names because they are able to tell the honoree’s story, something street signs obviously cannot do.
We believe it would be good policy for the city to end the practice of renaming streets in favor of a procedure that honors our prominent citizens with other types of markers and memorials.
In the meantime, every effort should be made to make sure that those streets that have alternate names are properly recorded in emergency mapping.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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