Located in the city of Dunedin, in southern New Zealand, the Baldwin Street has earned the distinction of being the steepest street in the world. This 350 meters long street begins with a moderate slope and then climbs steeply to reach a maximum slope of 1:2.86 or 19 degrees! The street is so steep that it's surface had to be laid with concrete instead of asphalt otherwise on a warm day the tar would flow down the slope!
A view of the street with the street level
A sign at the bottom of the street
Do -not- forget to put the handbrake on.
ReplyDeleteActually, put the car into gear if you want to be sure.
Where I once lived, there was a street that looked steeper then this (Blossom St, Hudson MA, it didn't have sidewalks.
ReplyDeleteDude I would give anything to bomb that on my longboard! What a rush that would be!
ReplyDeleteJT
www.FireMe.To/udi
where's the worlds longest slip n' slide when you need it? :P
ReplyDeleteI've seen steeper streets...
ReplyDeleteI know of severel streets steeper than this!
ReplyDeleteYeah, this cannot be accurate. I went to college in a town that had a street noticably steeper than those photos.
ReplyDeleteProbably they mean straight and long residential street, a proper street. It is very steep, I've been on it a few times, and you feel as if you are standing up driving.
DeleteNAME THEM!
ReplyDeletePhotos have a habit of being deceiving, I bet that's steeper then it looks.
ReplyDeletesome streets in san francisco are as steep as 31 degrees!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.magazineusa.com/us/cityguide/show.aspx?state=ca&unit=sanfrancisco&doc=18&dsc=San_Francisco_Hills
hyde street in san francisco has a 21 degree grade...
ReplyDeleteI have seen it, it is steep and is regarded as the steepest. It came about because the planning was done in scotland and then overlaid onto the area making this street go up a steep incline, and there it is.
ReplyDeleteCanon Street in Pittsburgh, PA has a 37 degree slope.
ReplyDeleteSteep Hill - aptly named - in Lincoln, UK, is much steeper than this. As other readers have pointed out, many streets in San Francisco are also steeper.
ReplyDeleteSarah, 31.5% grade is not equal to 31 degrees. It is equal to 17.5 degrees.
ReplyDeleteSteep Hill - aptly named - in Lincoln, UK, is much steeper than this. As other readers have pointed out, many streets in San Francisco are also steeper.
ReplyDeletePittsburgh has 37%...
ReplyDeleteBaldwin Street in New Zealand has an officially recorded grade of 35%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canton_Ave
Canton Avenue in Pittsburg is 37% or 20.3 degrees.
ReplyDeleteWe have streets this steep, if not STEEPER in Iowa. One of the ones downtown here has stairs instead of a sidewalk due to this. We get a lot of snow and ice in the winter, imagine driving on that when it's covered in ice and snow!
ReplyDeleteYeah I was gonna say...I'm pretty sure there's a few roads in Pittsburgh that put that one to shame. E. Sycamore St. is notably nasty.
ReplyDeleteAre you kidding? Here in Mexico we can reach up to 34.9° in a regular street.
ReplyDeleteA couple of streets in Echo Park, a suburb of Los Angeles, are definitely steeper.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the steepest street in america probabbly, not in the world
ReplyDeleteIDIOT
Cedar Rapids, Iowa has two streets with sections that are much steeper than the street in New Zealand.
ReplyDeleteEvery street I've ever been on is steeper than this.
ReplyDelete@25 - New Zealand is its own country
ReplyDeleteIsland Drive, Airlie Beach, Queensland, Australia (right behind my apartment) is 21 degrees
ReplyDeleteRabble rabble rabble.
ReplyDeleteFFS people, read the Wikipedia article:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_Street
"...the Guinness Book officially recognizes Baldwin Street as the world's steepest street at a 35% grade. Canton Avenue, in the Pittsburgh neighbourhood of Beechview, may be steeper; it is officially measured to be a 37% grade."
How competitive are people with the steepness of streets? wow!
ReplyDeleteI am an American and I want you to know that we have the steepest and longest streets in the world. The street I live on is actually so steep that everything is upside down!
ReplyDeleteYea for us Americans, we can never be outdone!
Ha! You captured the lunacy of this thread perfectly.
DeleteI am remarkably impressed by this street however Pittsburgh, pa defiantly has some streets that boarder the steepness of sane logic.
ReplyDeletei lived on 22nd street (cross street Church) in san francisco and i think that was steeper
ReplyDeletehttp://maps.google.com/maps?q=22nd+street+94114&ie=UTF8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ll=37.755293,-122.428124&spn=0.000862,0.001589&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=37.754861,-122.428185&panoid=Dg-M59zS9tHTp4OU68piyw&cbp=2,329.68868503826747,,0,5
ReplyDeletechoose street view
@28 I think you are mistaken. Zealand is its own country, but New Zealand is an American state, much like New Mexico, New York, or New England.
ReplyDeleteNew Zealand is where I live and we are not and never were American, its named after the Dutch Province Zeeland. We are located in Oceania, or Asia Pacific region, no where near the USA.
DeleteI got this list on Google.
ReplyDeleteThe Steepest Streets in San Francisco:
1. Filbert between Leavenworth and Hyde (31.5% grade)
2. 22nd Street between Church and Vicksburg (31.5% grade)
3. Jones between Union and Filbert (29% grade)
4. Duboce between Buena Vista and Alpine (27.9% grade)
5. Jones between Green and Union (26% grade)
6. Webster between Vallejo and Broadway 26% grade)
7. Duboce between Alpine and Divisadero (25% grade)
8. Jones between Pine and California (24.8 grade)
9. Fillmore between Vallejo and Broadway (24% grade)
may not be the steepest of the steep ...
ReplyDeletestill ... pretty impressive ...
@37 You're kidding, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand
ReplyDeleteAlso, New England's not a state. Two swings; two misses.
lol, as a New Zealander this is very funny.
ReplyDelete@41 You mean American*
ReplyDelete(kidding) :P
I visited New Zealand once. Absolutely fantastic trip. One of those People to People student programs.
And yes, I needed a passport. *facepalm*
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=22nd+street+94114&ie=UTF8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ll=37.755293,-122.428124&spn=0.000862,0.001589&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=37.754861,-122.428185&panoid=Dg-M59zS9tHTp4OU68piyw&cbp=2,329.68868503826747,,0,5
ReplyDeletethere is the google street view of the infamous canton ave. in pittsburgh
these kids went down baldwin street in a wheelie bin. they hit a car and died. it was on the news here.
ReplyDeleteI think the real test of steepness is not grade, but the willingness of people driving high-center-of-gravity vehicles to park at right angles on the street.
ReplyDeleteOn the aforementioned block of 22nd Street in San Francisco (btw Church and Vicksburg), there are always vans parked at 90 degrees. (They look as if you could topple them with with a nudge, but they're there, and you never hear about any of them tumbling downward.) So that block must not really be "steep."
(It does scare the crap out of visitors when I drive them down it though...)
I wouldn't wanna live in the house at the bottom of that hill. It seems well-positioned to "catch" whatever might come down it brakeless.
ReplyDelete@44: That's why the Darwin Awards were invented.
ReplyDeleteI love Pittsburgh...can't wait to go home. A famous photographer (can't remember name) once said he loved taking photos of the women of Pittsburgh because they had the most beautiful legs from walking all those hills. Obviously this was from a long time ago, before everyone became couch potatoes....In Pittsburgh you learn to turn the front wheels of vehicles into the sidewalk when parking just in case the brakes fail so it doesn't roll down the street!
ReplyDeleteIf you think this is steep, you have to visit Greece.
ReplyDeleteI can take you to a dozen such streets within Athens
alone.
Cheers
sakisbou@uahoo.com
a few years ago these guys went down it in rubbish bins, they died lul
ReplyDeleteobviously drunk >.>
They should build a futuristic tram on this thing seen it in one of my dreams now i know where its located i think could be wrong who knows
ReplyDeleteIt's a 10 minute walk from where I live!
ReplyDeleteLast week they rolled 30,000 Jaffas (chocolates) down as part of the Cadbury Chocolate Carnival. Quite a sight.
http://www.chocolatecarnival.co.nz/Home/CadburyJaffaRace/tabid/815/language/en-US/Default.aspx
Hey, leave the poor kiwi's alone. Don't know why it is such a badge of honour that you have councils that design a suburb that has roads like that.
ReplyDeletePS New Zealand isn't a country, it's the 7th and 8th state of Australia but we don't talk about it.
If you want to see several streets that are scary steep try Bluefield, WV .
ReplyDeleteIn Afghanistan they have a vertical street that everyone climbs to get to their caves.
ReplyDeleteMy street can beat up your street.
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not,there's a Baldwin St in Baltimore,Md 21211 that may be steeper,although it's a bit shorter than this one
ReplyDelete@ 57
ReplyDeleteI don't believe it.
gañanes se ve que no habeis ido a mi pueblo..
ReplyDeletea la paz de Dios
Hi
ReplyDeleteYeah well my street is 90 degree so you can all STFU.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a case for Encyclopedia Brown...
ReplyDeleteoohh!! my god!!
ReplyDeletewho cares about america anyways?
ReplyDeleteEn Fuencaliente y en la Venta de Azuel (Ciudad Real, España) las he visto yo peores...
ReplyDeleteNOOOOOOOOO, you must visit TOLEDO (Spain). A lot of streets are steeper than this one.
ReplyDeleteEn Toledo hay calles en el casco histórico más empinadas que ésta. Una concretamente que va desde la plaza de San Justo hasta el Corralillo de San Miguel creo que es el tramo mas empinado que he visto en mi vida, es literalmente un muro, incluso hay agarraderas a los lados para que la gente pueda "escalar" por ella.
Un saludo!!!
I'm from Dunedin!
ReplyDeleteThe reason the street doesn't look that steep in the pictures is because there are several sections of differing gradient. The steepest section is right near the top.
Also, to number 25 - NZ is in America?! That's some nice ignorance you got there pal
en barcelona tenemos otra que no hay que
ReplyDeleteenvidiar
@25 You are thinking of New ENGLAND which is what they call the North Eastern states. New ZEALAND is way the hell away from here. It closer to Austrailia than America
ReplyDeletetranslated in dutch : zee=sea land=coutry, point: a lot of places possible on the world grtz
ReplyDeleteNew Zealand gets it name from the explorer Able Tasman who was born in the province of Zeeland in Netherlands. Although he was the first European to see NZ he thought it was part of Australia, and it wasn't until Captain James Cook charted the pacific the the region on Tasman's charts was identified as separate islands.
Deletesiz bunlara yokuşmu diyonuz beee
ReplyDeletesadıç sen hiç gölpazarına geldinmi aq gel bide ordaki bayırları gör
ReplyDeleteIt's too steep. Please be very very careful while driving there.
ReplyDeletedid i hear someone say "get your skateboard" haha.
ReplyDeletethere is a street MUCH steeper than this in Trinidad and Tobago-Sk8tt
ReplyDeleteMy street has a steepness of 180 degrees. Due to this we're forced to build our houses upside down.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, you Americans are freakishly competitive. Good luck believing you're the best at everything.
ReplyDeleteLets check -
Geography: BupBOW. New Zealand it it's own country, not one of your "states".
Weirdo's.
Oh another US bashing - did you know Australia has cattle stations bigger than Texas?
ReplyDeleteThere is a whole world out there outside of USA. It's pretty damn good, too.
People often think of San Francisco for its steep streets, but not many people realize that the steepest streets in Los Angeles are steeper than any in San Francisco. Edlred Street has a 33 degree grade. There is a street in San Pedro that's even slightly steeper. The steepest street in San Francisco is 31 degrees. Of course Pittsburgh's steepest beats them all. I wonder what the grade of this street in New Zealand is?
ReplyDeletevery entertaining topic here - LOL
ReplyDeleteGathering the facts presented and independantly researched, there are two streets that stand out as the "steepest":
- Baldwin Street (in New Zealand mentioned in the article) and
- Canton Avenue (in Pittsburgh mentioned in this blog).
Canton Avenue is indeed steeper at a gradient of 37 percent HOWEVER is hardly 50 meters in length.
Baldwin Avenue has a 31 percent gradient and is 350 METERS IN LENGTH!!!
Wow this is crazy.
ReplyDeletewow! i haven't ever seen. awesome.
ReplyDeleteYOU'RE ALL WRONG MY STREET HAS A 45 DEGREE ANGLE
ReplyDeleteI canot imagine if you leave thekids pram unattended!!!
ReplyDeleteThe streets in China are upside down from where I am in the USA. Now, that is steeep.
ReplyDeleteThere are streets all over the World that are as steep as Baldwin and that lame excuse Canton (at 50 meters in length it's more like a driveway than a road !).
ReplyDeleteHas anyone heard of the Tour De France ? Well stage 16 of the 2008 TDF (col-du-grand-saint-bernard) is a 40km hell ride reaching a peak of 2400 meters (twice)
See link:
http://www.cycling-challenge.com/col-du-grand-saint-bernard/
ya'all dont kno da meanin of the word steep...
ReplyDeleteThe Steepest Streets In San Francisco
ReplyDelete1. Bradford above Tompkins (41% grade)
2. Romolo between Vallejo and Fresno (37.5% grade)
3. Prentiss between Chapman and Powhattan (37% grade)
4. Nevada above Chapman (35% grade)
5. Baden above Mangels (34% grade) *
6. Ripley between Peralta and Alabama (31.5% grade)
7. 24th between De Haro and Rhode Island (31.5% grade)
8. Filbert between Hyde and Leavenworth (31.5% grade)
9. 22nd between Vicksburg and Church (31.5% grade)
10. Broadway above Taylor (31% grade)
11. 23rd above Carolina (31% grade)
Source: Stephen Von Worley and the Weather Sealed blog.
Notes: Ranked by maximum grade, as of February 2010.
Ties are broken by the length of maximum slope.
* Crude, single lane pseudo-street
Holy crap that is steep!
ReplyDeletewhich is this city? Man...
ReplyDeleteDang... I forgot my bike
ReplyDeleteimagine having to ride a bike up that
ReplyDelete