Burkle addressing system
The Burkle addressing system is a system of assigning road names and addresses over a large, rural geographical area. It is used in the State of North Dakota for rural addresses to be used for the 911 as well as mail delivery to rural properties. Because of its use in the 911 system, it is enshrined in North Dakota state law and is used across the state.[1]
History
The system was created by the Stark County emergency coordinator Komard Burkle as a way of assigning addresses to houses for use in the then soon to be implemented enhanced 911 services in Stark County.[2] A key problem for the system was that since most of the county was rural farmland a significant number of farms in the county either lacked a proper address, or the address they had was not in any uniform system. After a meeting on the proposed E911 implementation, Burkle went home and devised what would become the Burkle addressing system to address the challenges faced by the county.[2] Because other counties implementing the E911 system in North Dakota faced the same problem and to add a measure of consistency across the state, it was decided that the Burkle system would be used state wide for addressing rural properties.[3] At the time it was proposed, no state had adopted a statewide addressing system[2] but since then other states have adopted similar systems.[4]
Design of the system
The basic idea of the system was inspired by the existing address system used in many towns where streets and avenues are numbered outwards from a starting "main street" near the center of town. To number rural section line roads in the state the rough geographical centerlines of the state were designated as "Main Street" (running east-west) and "Main Avenue" (running north-south). Roads are numbered in increasing number moving out from these centerlines with the number of the road corresponding to the number of miles it is from the corresponding centerline.
References
- ^ Emergency Services Communications Systems (PDF) (North Dakota Century Code 57-40.6-10 part d.). date unknown. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
{{cite report}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b c Bailey, Ann (1988), "Promising new addressing system for rural areas", Farm Show, 12 (3): 20
- ^ "Questions and Answers About the Stark County Emergency E-9-1-1 Telephone System" (PDF). Retrieved 2017-06-07.
- ^ "South Dakota Rural Addressing Procedural Handbook" (PDF). South Dakota 9-1-1 Task Force. September 1992. Retrieved 2017-06-07.