112: Towards Monogamist Cartographic Nomenclature

And I wish even cars had truck beds
And every road was named Copperhead
-Riley Green “I Wish Grandpa’s Never Died

I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote lately. At first glance it might seem that naming every road Copperhead could be inconvenient, but the pros do outweigh the cons. Wouldn’t it be amazing to live in a world where you didn’t have to think about what road the pizza parlor was on? Children would never get lost if they could tell the cops they lived on Copperhead Road.

Pull up google maps and you’ll see a a hodge-podge of randomly named roads criss-crossing the globe.

It’s freaking confusing.

If you’re driving from Sidney to Evening Shade Arkansas you might drive north on Sidney Road. Driving from Mindoro to Galesville Wisconsin?  You’ll probably take County T.  In a larger sense these roads are connected. Why should they be named to entirely different names? Name both roads Copperhead and it eliminates so much confusion.

Drivers from Sidney Arkansas or Mindoro Wisconsin could drive on either road with a sense of familiarity. Introducing someone to a new road is a big enough undertaking. Why put them through the headache of learning a new name too? Use one name for all roads and you increase the comfort level for all drivers.

A monogamist cartographic nomenclature could give locals worldwide an added cultural pride. The road between Herat and Mazari Sharif in northern Afghanistan is listed on google as AH76. Does this give the people of Afghanistan anything to be proud of? Renaming this road Copperhead would be a cultural rallying point for all Afghanis. Unlike AH76 , Copperhead carries deep local and cultural meaning for all cultures.

Clearly one of the biggest problems facing the world today is the proliferation of road names. This is a problem we can fix.

The next step forward is not humanitarian but cartographic.

Every road should be named Copperhead.

 

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