Bill, That's good info; nice to have some local examples. There are numerous examples like, "South East Lake Drive" where directionals could be confused with names. A couple more that come to me off the top of my head...
1) Charlotte, NC has a road called, "The Plaza". 2) Richmond, VA has a road called simply, "Boulevard". No, you wouldn't want those names broken up either, but you'd want the ability to unambiguously specify whatever local convention happens to be. Thanks for weighing in, -- SEJ -- twitter: @geomantic -- skype: sejohnson8 "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." -- Einstein On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 3:55 PM, Bill R. WASHBURN <dygitulju...@gmail.com>wrote: > We have to be careful that the availability of this granularity doesn't > insecure the road names, specifically in cases where part of the road name > could be confused as a prefix or suffix. Let me throw a few usage cases for > the metro Atlanta area out to illustrate. > > Cobb county uses the quadrant suffix system where everything in the part > of the county closest to the city of Atlanta gets a SW suffix. Most of the > time, locals ignore the suffix. Separating the suffix makes sense in this > context since it is treated as secondary information by locals. > > One place where I can see a non-invasive goofing up our local roads is > North Decatur Road. That road is named after the North Decatur area through > which it runs, as best I can tell from my local knowledge, therefore making > "North" part of the name of the road and not a prefix. Locals, when giving > directions, treat the name as North Decatur, always including, North as > part of the name. You'll never hear a local send someone to Decatur Road. > Breaking North away from Decatur does not make sense in this context (and > the local transit agency confuses locals, me included, by making this > mistake on the time table charts on their website). > > Similarly, The By Way is a road for which separating the prefix, "The," > the name, "By," and the road type, "Way," doesn't make grammatical sense > and the road is not mentioned without the while name. As a local mapper, I > would not want this name broken up since, in our hyper-local context, it > does not make sense to do so. > > (Compare the second and third cases to East Ponce de Leon Avenue, locally > shortened to Ponce or Ponce de Leon. The directional prefix and road type > are treated as secondary, discardable information in local speech.) > On Nov 18, 2012 3:09 PM, "Steven Johnson" <sejohns...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Richard & Serge, >> >> Thanks for the comments. Let me see if I can clarify... >> >> The problem: Unlike other (mostly European) countries, there are at least >> 4 street naming schemes, and 2 property numbering schemes in the US. This >> makes a set of one-size-fits-all tags for addresses both unwieldy, >> imprecise, and ambiguous. It forces local mappers to overload the >> addr:street tag with directional prefixes, suffixes, and street types. It >> perpetuates ambiguity and lessens the value of the data, as well as >> constraining mappers from adequately describing local conditions. >> >> The solution: splitting out the tags has several advantages: >> 1) Increase the descriptive power of the tags. Specific tags make the >> parts of the address absolutely clear, and make it easier to distinguish >> places with similar addresses. >> >> 2) Provide local mappers with greater specificity and ability to >> accurately tag local conditions. Lumping directionals and street types into >> addr:street obscures local characteristics of addresses. Since local >> conditions vary so widely across the US, having more tags gives mappers >> more flexibility to tag what they see. >> >> 3) Remove ambiguity. Look closely at these streets in Hickory, NC and >> you'll see what I mean by ambiguous names and types: >> http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=35.75139&lon=-81.35898&zoom=17&layers=M >> >> >> 4) Facilitates supervised imports of address data. I know imports are >> fraught with difficulty (and I'm not explicitly advocating address >> imports), but it is important to note that agencies that manage address >> data almost certainly will have prefix, name, type, suffix broken out. >> >> Thanks again for the comments. Hopes these comments help make the case >> for expanded tagging. >> >> -- SEJ >> -- twitter: @geomantic >> -- skype: sejohnson8 >> >> "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." >> -- Einstein >> >> >> >> On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Richard Welty >> <rwe...@averillpark.net>wrote: >> >>> i'm sort of on the fence here. perhaps Steven could outline the use >>> cases for this expanded format; >>> what becomes possible with it that is not possible or is more difficult >>> with the current schema? >>> >>> richard >>> >>> >>> ______________________________**_________________ >>> Talk-us mailing list >>> Talk-us@openstreetmap.org >>> http://lists.openstreetmap.**org/listinfo/talk-us<http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us> >>> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Talk-us mailing list >> Talk-us@openstreetmap.org >> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us >> >>
_______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
