Where the streets have new names
Summerside will only name streets for those who have died
A task force has come up with a new list of 67 pre-approved street names after Summerside, P.E.I.,'s running list of available street names began to run short.
When a new road or development springs up in the city there had been a list of names to choose from, but earlier this year only about 20 names remained. The task force formed in April.
"We agreed on several themes — themes being sport heroes or veterans that lost their life," said Coun. Brian McFeely, who chaired the street names committee. "Seafaring kinds of themes, landscaping kinds of themes, mercantile — names after longstanding businesspeople in the city."
The Summerside and Area Historical Society, the heritage planning board, a youth representative and a developer met six times to review criteria for street naming.
After agreeing on themes the committee came up with more than 100 suggested names, that were then pared down to 67 after eliminating those that were too similar to existing names in neighbouring municipalities.
Only the dead
New criteria include that people must be deceased to have a street named after them, McFeely said.
"Most municipalities now reserve naming of streets for people that are deceased," he explained. "There's been instances where streets have been named after people and something has happened in their life and they've had to change the name.
"They wanted to stay away from those kinds of situations," McFeely said, adding there were ample opportunities to recognize living heroes without naming streets for them.
Developers of new subdivisions can choose from the city's list and if they don't like any of them, are permitted to propose their own choices to council, McFeely said.
The list includes Key, Ellis, Cahill, Seaview, Sunrise, Loggie, Olympia, Paupit, Shipwright, Stanley, Tuplin and many more.
The task force submitted the street names report to council last week and council plans to vote on it at its August meeting, McFeely said.
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With files from Malcolm Campbell