[MajorSauce]

I live near Montreal, while the street orientations are in a grid pattern, since there is a 45 degree orientation for most of them, "North" is by convention in fact NW.

It gets even more confusing on the NE part of the city, where Montreal's "East" is closer to true North and Montreal's North is closer to true West.

[gregsadetsky]

Yes! It’s sometimes even more than that, going up to 55 degrees (measured at the St-Laurent/René-Lévesque crossing), which makes North more West than North..!

Street name suffixes follow the “Montreal convention” too, using East/West (when it should be N/S). My impression is that this is because the city is easier to look at horizontally (it’s closer to a 16:9 movie resolution) than a very vertical portrait.

—

MajorSauce, could you please contact me? (email in profile). I’m working in Montréal on a project related to emergency services (which you seem to be doing as well, from your profile). Thanks!