Street Layout of Seattle - Directionals

Directionals

Seattle and King County make systematic use of directionals (such as N for north or NE for northeast) in street names, although residents often omit the directionals when describing addresses in their own neighborhoods. To a lesser degree, street types such as avenue and street are also used systematically. As a rule, "streets" run east-west (or, in and near downtown, northeast-southwest), and "avenues" run north-south (or, in and near downtown, northwest-southeast). A road, boulevard, way, or thoroughfare with any other type designation may run in any direction. The land boundaries of the district laid out according to the Denny and Boren plats that follow the shoreline are all "Ways" (Denny Way, Yesler Way, Broadway).

Furthermore:

• "Streets" and other east-west thoroughfares prefix the directional; for example NE 45th Street.
• "Avenues" and other north-south thoroughfares suffix the directional; for example 15th Avenue NE, University Way NE.
• A mnemonic for directionals is that the general direction of a thoroughfare is the direction nearer its name or number; for example NE 45th Street runs generally east (and west), while University Way NE runs generally north (and south).
• "Places" are usually cul-de-sacs or dead-ends and run in any direction.
• In most sections of the city, the same directional is used for both of these purposes; the exceptions are immediately east and north of the downtown area, and the lack of any directionals in the downtown area itself.

Seattle is divided into ten sections, each with a different combination of directionals.

North of the Lake Washington Ship Canal are the following sections: west of 1st Avenue NW, the NW section; between 1st Avenue NW and 1st Avenue NE, the N section; east of 1st Avenue NE, the NE section.

South of the canal but north of Denny Way are the following sections: west of Queen Anne Avenue N, the W section; between Queen Anne Avenue N and a border defined by Eastlake Avenue E (south of E Nelson Place) and Lake Union (north of E Nelson Place), the Avenue N section, in which avenues are suffixed N and in which streets have no prefix; east of the Eastlake Avenue E–Lake Union border, the E section.

South of Denny Way but north of Yesler Way are two sections: east of Broadway from Yesler Way north to Union Street, east of Minor Avenue from Union Street north to Pike Street, and east of Melrose Avenue from Pike Street north to Denny Way, the E Street section, streets are prefixed E and avenues have no suffix; to the west of this border, the downtown section, no directionals are used.

South of Yesler Way are two sections: east of the waterfront and (south of the Duwamish Waterway) east of 1st Avenue S, the S section; and west of 1st Avenue S, the SW section. Within the Seattle city limits there is no SE section; however, a SE section contains all of the southeastern suburbs and the rest of southern of King County, including Mercer Island, parts of Renton, and Bellevue south of Main Street, Sammamish south of E Main Street, and other locations within the county.