Hampton Road Streets: The First and Maybe Biggest

Rachel and I moved to the Hampton Roads metro area of southeast Virginia last year. Anytime one moves to a new place, there are quirks one picks up on as a new arrival. One of the things I quickly noticed here was that the streets, particularly in Virginia Beach, are not in a grid. Definitely not in a grid.

I’ve had it in mind to start this project for a little while; and now I finally have. I want to show you continuous streets — they change names, even highway designations, but the basic rule is that I follow the route that happens if you drive “straight” through intersections. There can be judgement calls. In some cases, you might have to merge or split or make some sort of other decision, but in my judgement, it doesn’t count as turning off the road, it would be something where the average driver (in my subjective opinion) would count it as staying on the same road. So I present to you the first Hampton Road Street: Ocean View → Shore → Atlantic → Pacific → General Booth → Pricess Anne → Landing → Mt Pleasant → Johnstown → Benefit.

Here’s a map with Google’s directions from the start to end point:

And here’s the map of the continuous-street:

Welcome to the first in an entire series of weird roads around Hampton Roads, Virginia! Let me know in the comments what you think. If you’re local, what roads would you like me to cover next?