Valley 101

Live in the Valley long enough and you’re bound to have a conversation about the Phoenix grid system.  You might hear how convenient and logical it is. Avenues on the west, streets on the east. Central in the middle. You might think the only flaw is that there's no pattern to the east-west extending named streets. That's true.  But that's not the only problem. Midtown Phoenix resident Scott Wilken spotted major inconsistencies between the number of blocks between each major named street when a driver is traveling north and south. He also discovered the blocks when traveling north and south are not equivalent to the blocks plotted going east and west.  So, why is that? Plus, who created Phoenix's grid system? What's its history? This week's episode of Valley 101, a podcast from The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, answers Wilken's question.