[Talk-us-massachusetts] Why Barnstable is such a mess, and other MADness

[Wayne Emerson, Jr.]

Greetings,

The following quotes from
https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2018/12/03/Municipal_Address_Standard.pdf
(Page 11) explains why Barnstable is such a mess, but also alerts us to 
other problem areas:

???In some cases, however, a community is a neighborhood or village within 
a municipality; these sub-areas are used because of duplicate street 
names and address numbers within a municipality that would otherwise 
create confusion. For example, there are multiple addresses on Captain 
Jacs Road within the town of Barnstable that repeat in the communities 
of West Barnstable and Centerville. Ironically, these communities 
historically were separate villages until they got absorbed into the 
larger city or town, which is why there are duplicate street names.

???The current 9-1-1 system is being replaced by one based on geographic 
locations, but the same community names (in this document, address 
community or simply community) are referenced in this standard and in 
building the statewide address listing.

???Eleven Municipalities in Massachusetts (listed in Table 1) are 
sub-divided into address communities. One MSAG community, Devens, is a 
special case, in that it covers areas in three municipalities. The 
boundaries of all address communities have been mapped by MassGIS, 
following the official external boundaries of municipalities and adding 
the internal boundaries to match the Master Street Address Guide. The 
list of community names and the GIS file of community boundaries can be 
downloaded (http://tinyurl.com/zwu6rax) from MassGIS.???
[The map download link is not on that page but can be found here: 
https://docs.digital.mass.gov/dataset/massgis-data-msag-communities ]

Table 1: Cities and Towns with multiple MSAG Communities
1. AYER
2. BARNSTABLE
3. BOSTON
4. DEERFIELD
5. DENNIS
6. HARVARD
7. NANTUCKET
8. NORTHAMPTON
9. PALMER
10. SHIRLEY
11. SPRINGFIELD

Quote from 
https://docs.digital.mass.gov/dataset/massgis-data-msag-communities:
???The spelling of MSAG communities does not always agree with the 
official spelling of the town name. For example the town of North 
Attleborough is associated with the MSAG community of North Attleboro. 
Where towns are subdivided into multiple MSAG communities they are not a 
representation of villages or ZIP Code areas. Although MSAG community 
values are often the same as village names they do not represent a 
comprehensive listing of the villages for that town nor are they the 
limits of villages where the names agree. The MSAG was based on keeping 
the combination of street names unique and only where there was 
ambiguity was a MSAG community created. The MSAG community layer also 
includes communities in surrounding states that border Massachusetts.???

1. Should we incorporate these MSAG boundaries into OSM as admin level 9 
or 10 boundaries?

2. While checking the ???Street Name Mismatches??? is there anything we 
should do on the google spreadsheet if it seems like the MAD name is wrong?

Many mismatches are just a matter of punctuation

https://docs.digital.mass.gov/dataset/massgis-data-master-address-data-statewide-address-points-geocoding 
:
???Address assignment is a responsibility of municipal government. MassGIS 
cannot update the MAD unless the update comes from an appropriate 
municipal source. If users have address information that is not included 
in this product or they see errors in the data, they should contact the 
department in the relevant municipality responsible for tracking 
official addresses and for distributing address updates. Refer to a List 
of Address Authority Departments 
(https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2016/07/qq/listofaddressauthorities.pdf 
) in each city and town and visit 
https://www.mass.gov/lists/cities-and-towns for how to contact 
individual municipalities.???

3. Is anyone going to organize notifying each town of address mismatches?

4. Were the street names in MAD originally in all caps or should we 
notify the local assessor???s office if the capitalization is wrong in the 
google spreadsheet? i.e.: "J a McDermott Circle" or "Oconnor Drive"

5. I have also noticed other weirdness such as where the Humarock 
section of Scituate uses Marshfield???s Zip code. Do Zip codes matter for 
the MAD import?

6. While checking the ???Street Name Mismatches??? I kept finding streets 
that were missing from OSM but were not in the spreadsheet. When the 
addresses were checked was it looking for missing streets?

7. When we are done checking the ???Street Name Mismatches??? will the 
Street Name check be run again to check for other changes that may have 
occurred in the meantime?

Thanks,

-Wayne


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