From: charlesellson@btinternet.com   
      
   On Sun, 31 Aug 2025 19:20:36 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver"   
    wrote:   
      
   >(AUE/AEU removed from followups as this is OT for them.)   
   >   
   >On 2025/8/31 15:54:10, HVS wrote:   
   >> On 30 Aug 2025, Peter Moylan wrote   
   >>   
   >> -snip-   
   >>>   
   >>> The "big town" in the area is Rushworth, population a little over   
   >>> 1,000. ( went to school there for a short while. A single room,   
   >>> six grades and one teacher. We didn't have books, only slates and   
   >>> slate pencils.) It has the widest main street I've ever seen. You   
   >>> need a packed lunch to cross it. The town was founded in the gold   
   >>> rush era, and they allowed for growth. These days there's a centre   
   >>> divider with trees, separating two wide one-way streets, but I   
   >>> remember when it was just a huge expanse of road, big enough to   
   >>> contain a football oval.   
   >>>   
   >> Many prairie towns in Canada have unnaturally wide streets, which we   
   >> were told were surveyed to allow a standard farm wagon hauled by four   
   >> horses to make a U-turn in the street.   
   >>   
   >> I don't know whether that's true or a popular myth, but it seemed a   
   >> reasonable metric for laying out rural towns in the 19th and early   
   >> 20th centuries.   
   >>   
   >My grandmother's town (was really a large village not too long ago),   
   >Bedlington, has a very wide street:   
   >https://maps.app.goo.gl/Y4fsnrbHWDizKaNT7 - so wide they used to hold   
   >the annual miners' gala there (may still do if it exists). I often   
   >wondered why such a small place has such a wide main street, though I've   
   >never actually tried to find out.   
   >   
   Maybe an elongated version of village green/ town square ? See also   
   Grantown - https://maps.app.goo.gl/negQmGjReJ9nh8rd9   
      
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