Street Layout of Seattle - Addressing

Addressing

Street addresses in Seattle (and throughout King County) follow a uniform numbering plan. On streets that run north and south, odd numbered addresses are on the west side of the street and even addresses are on the east side. On streets that run east and west, odd numbered addresses are on the south side of the street, with even numbered addresses on the north side. The address is based on its location relative to the grid (not relative to the location of the beginning of each separate road) with the last two digits consecutively incrementing with the grid and the leading digits designating the location on the grid.

For example, the name 32nd Avenue NE applies to several physically discontinuous street segments running along approximately the same line of the grid. One of these segments runs from NE 75th Street to NE 80th Street, crossed only by NE 77th Street; its two blocks are the 7500 block and the 7700 block. Buildings on that street between 75th and 77th would have four-digit addresses beginning with 75; buildings above 77th would have four-digit addresses beginning with 77. If there is such an address as 7764 32nd Avenue NE, then it is on the east side of the street rather far up the 7700 block, and if there is a 7765 it will be approximately across the street from 7764.

The names of the twelve streets in the heart of the central business district are paired by their first letters. From south to north, they are: Jefferson, James, Cherry, Columbia, Marion, Madison, Spring, Seneca, University, Union, Pike, Pine. One way to remember the order of the street pairs is with the mnemonic "Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest", (JCMSUP).

Only one street, Madison Street, runs uninterrupted from the salt water of Puget Sound in the west to the fresh water of Lake Washington in the east. The unusual orientation and contiguous nature of this street dates back to a time when it was a direct route to a cross-lake ferry between Madison Park and Houghton on the east side of Lake Washington. A cable car once operated on Madison Street from downtown Seattle to the ferry terminal at Madison Park, and the ferry route constituted an almost linear continuation of the street across the lake. Other historical cable cars ran along Yesler Way, Jackson Street, Queen Anne Avenue—"The Counterbalance", and 1st Avenue-2nd Avenue). No street, excluding Interstate 5 and State Route 99—both freeways in whole or in part—runs without interruption from the northern to the southern city limits. This is largely the result of Seattle's topography. Split by the Duwamish River and the Lake Washington Ship Canal, containing four lakes within the city limits, and boasting deep ravines and at least seven hills there are few more-or-less straight routes where such a road could reasonably be built, even allowing for the short bridge or two.