Take McExit 12
I wonder how well this scheme would work:
Provincial and municipal governments are always looking for additional money, but taxes are unpopular and have unpleasant economic side effects. Municipal governments and school boards also need to assign names to roads and schools.
Why don’t cities simply sell the naming rights to roads, as they do to stadiums?
There would have to be some limitations, of course:
[T]he roads have to be named after people, not corporations, as I could see a segment of society not wanting to live on Pepsi Lane. There may be worries that the person the road named after may later fall into disfavour (Alan Eagelson Road?), but it should be relatively straight forward to put a morals clause in the contract that allows the road name to be changed if the person “engages in acts of moral turpitude.”
I suspect that checks to property owners might make Pepsi Lane a bit more acceptable.
Still, I don’t see much likelihood of this coming to pass Stateside. Philanthropists and such have their names plastered on buildings already; politicians, with the possible exception of Robert C. “Kudzu” Byrd, generally lack staying power; businessmen will object to being on streets named for their competitors.
That leaves, well, me, and I am not worthy.
ak4mc »
25 May 2010 · 9:16 am
If I get a road named after me, I’m gonna do it the old-fashioned way — by building it on my own property and then signing it over to the county.
A quick glance at a map of Coweta County would show lots of examples of such. Like, for example, the one and only road linking my neighborhood (and at least three others) to the rest of the world.
Dan B »
27 May 2010 · 11:32 pm
I’d chip in to have northbound Broadway Extension from I-44 into Edmond renamed the “Highway to Hell”. At least it’s not corporate.