[Talk-us] OSM Inspector and streets with E/N/S/W in their name

[David K]

In my part of Ohio it's very common to have something like the following:
250 South Elm Street and 250 North Elm Street are two distinct addresses on
the same Elm Street (but on opposite sides of the city's east-west axis).
Often (but not always) the direction prefix appears on street signs, but to
me the name is just Elm Street.  The prefix is only important as part of an
address; it can be (and in practice usually is) dropped from the street
name without ambiguity.

If a street has name=Elm Street but a house has addr:street=S Elm St, I
consider this perfectly valid (in a city that in fact has only one Elm
Street).  (Sidebar: I use USPS abbreviations in addr:street values because
that's how USPS prefers mail to be addressed.)  To have a program present
this as an "error" will could editors to change the presentation of good
data against established local conventions.

The opposite situation from the start of the thread sounds much more
unusual to me.  But it might also be valid.  If a city has both a East Elm
Street and a West Elm Street, the range of housenumbers is not garanteed to
be the same for both, regardless of whether they are really one and the
same Elm Street.  If the housenumbers on East Elm Street only go up to
2400, the housenumbers on a hypothetically longer West Elm Street might go
up to 2999 before continuing with 3000 Elm Street and up.  If that's how
mail to those locations is addressed, then it's valid.
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