[Openstreetmap] Re: road names

[Lars Aronsson]

Alex Mauer wrote:

> Right...but either way, left and right are not very useful.  And which
> side's left and which is right?
> 
> If I'm on Foo Street, I don't much care which side #1542 is on, and
> which side #1565 is on.  Getting to the correct block of the street is
> sufficient.
> 
> Which end is the start, which is the end?


This will be very different in different countries.  In the U.S., 
house No. 1565 is house 65 within block #15, and ten blocks away 
from #515.  In fact, 1565 is an unlikely number because that would 
mean block 15 has at least 65 buildings/entrances.

In Sweden, numbers start at 1 near the city center and increase as 
you get farther out, without respect to the blocks.  Odd numbers 
are on one side, and even numbers on the other, sometimes very 
much out of synch: No. 17 might be opposite to No. 68, if No. 
12-58 were opposite to a large park or a railroad.  If house 56 
was replaced by two new ones, they become 56A and 56B.  If a new 
building has five entrances, they are most typically 13A thru 13E. 
Furthermore, blocks have names of their own in Sweden, and the 
property lot is named by the block name and some number that 
doesn't have anything to do with the street address.

The only sure thing is that every unique street address maps to a 
physical place, i.e. one geographic coordinate.



-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se