Bad Designs - Street names

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Street names

This picture shows the street sign at the intersection of Hillrise and Hillrise in Las Cruces, New Mexico. One Hillrise is Hillrise "Circle" and the other is Hillrise "Drive". I don't know why they do this. When I moved here, I found it confusing.

On my way home, I turn onto Hillrise Drive. At first, when I got to this intersection, I found myself wanting to turn onto Hillrise Circle. One time at night, I actually did turn onto Hillrise Circle and had to turn around and go back.

I think I made this mistake because after just turning onto Hillrise Drive I have the goal "turn onto Hillrise" still fresh in my mind. Then when I see the sign for "Hillrise", I get the urge to turn, to satisfy my goal, especially at night when other landmarks are not visible.

Design suggestion

Things that are different shouldn't be given names that are too similar or people will confuse them.

More thoughts

I don't make this mistake anymore. I guess one lesson is that people will learn to overcome problems. But this problem never had to happen in the first place and wouldn't have happened if the streets had been given different names.

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