I found a sign that reads “S Yale E Ave”. It again did not take me long to locate this example. So it does appear that we can find suffixes on a road with a name pretty easily. I’m not sure whether this has the naming/suffix order you like, or the one that you don’t like.
In summary, what it seems that you are telling us, is that there are multiple ways upon which the road signs in Tulsa display the name of streets. And, your objection is that @Baloo_Uriza has broken the tie, so to speak, by deferring to a government source because the on-the-ground signage is inconsistent? Have I got this right?
Regarding the placement of the directional, some cities will consistently use a different format on signs depending on context. Way over in downtown Cincinnati, directionals always appear at the beginning of a street name in an address, but “blade” signs put them at the beginning or end, depending on the sign’s layout, which varies from block to block. Meanwhile, the overhead wayfinding signs always put the directional last:
For the overhead signs, the city’s rationale might be that each word goes on a separate line, so the first line needs to be the most important word. In other words, the directional is listed as a separate piece of information wherever the sign layout has a slot for it. Nevertheless, the way in OSM is spelled like none of these signs: “East 8th Street”. I have no idea what the standards are in your neck of the woods or how they came to be, but a single unstructured name=* key isn’t sufficient for the degree of rigor (?) that seems to be desired here.
There are plenty of localities where the USPS, tax authorities, and common usage systematically differ on street naming. One approach is to consistently follow the USPS on address tags and some other source on street names, but it isn’t without downsides. From a pragmatic standpoint, at least the common and official forms should be tagged somehow so that geocoders can find them. Then follow a reasonably predictable format for name=* across the neighborhood or city, as the case may be, possibly departing from the signs to some extent.
If this approach is unsatisfying, maybe map the signs? I’ll often map traffic_sign=US:D3-1 nodes if I’ve chosen a name=* that departs from official sources for some reason. This is more transparent to others who look at the map, and it also avoids dataloss if someone later overwrites the names with the official ones.
You’re either misunderstanding me or purposefully mis-construing my argument.
My objection is that if you look at all the street signs there is a pattern to the way the vast majority of the signs are done. Some may be different or even wrong, but for the most part, they follow what I have been calling the “customary names.” Not only the signs, but maps (the ones that include directionals at all) follow the same custom, and the post office has also decided to use it for all addresses in the Tulsa city limits (much more consistently than the signs). So these customary names, even though not the official_name, are actually quasi-official and have become the names that are used in business correspondence, written ads, and street addresses. That’s why I think they should be the name of the roads.
Please be very specific. Do you mean “abbreviations” when you say customary names? Or do you mean “omitted suffixes”? Or something else? I am struggling to see how this case is different from every other city in which abbreviations are fully expanded, regardless of which form factor is present on one or another specific sign.
Also note that street names are not postal addresses. That’s separate tagging, that goes in the e.g. addr:street and addr:* family of tags.
Double Whammy! East 9th Street is missing its South, and Yale has the suffixes reversed. And yeah, the inconsistent signage is universal here. It really does seem like there’s about 5 people who make them, none of whom talk to each other, and two of 'em haven’t opened the MUTCD to even figure out the correct font and size.
I have explained this multiple times and I believe you’re both being purposefully obtuse in refusing to understand it, but here it is very specifically:
The vast majority of the street signs within Tulsa (and other nearby suburban and rural jurisdictions which continue the Tulsa road names, or like Broken Arrow, have a similar system) follow a very specific naming convention which, upon expanding to un-abbreviated names, I’m calling the customary names. I would like to see these names used as name in OpenStreetMap.
These customary names differ from official names found in government databases as follows:
The directional suffix is always removed from roads with a name (non-numeric).
On north-south roads, the directional suffix is moved in front of the road type suffix. Example: South 102nd Avenue East is the official name but South 102nd East Avenue is the customary name used in the Tulsa area.
This one is less important and a rule more often broken than the other two, but for numbered east-west roads on the south side of Tulsa, the directional suffix is removed. From what I’ve been able to tell, once you get out of Tulsa into other jurisdictions, particularly out of Tulsa County, the directional suffix is not removed on whatever of these roads still follow the Tulsa numbering system. Except I think Jenks still removes it.
That’s all. I’m particularly disappointed in @Baloo_Uriza for misunderstanding this because he’s from the local area and should know this is how roads are named around here, but instead he’s using a small minority of signs that are inconsistent to argue that the road signs are very inconsistent, and commenting on that picture of the signs at 9th and Yale as if he doesn’t know that those signs perfectly follow rules 2 and 3 that I’ve outlined above (even though that particular sign breaks rule 1).
You realize that you contradict yourself, right? If your argument is that we should be using name= to be what people casually call it, then there’d be no prefix or “Street/Avenue” suffix, right? Just “Lewis”, “Sheridan,” “Harvard,” “Yale,” etc bare by themselves.
I did say that once, but I was wrong. In casual conversation, we say “9th & Yale,” but I want the names to be according to the formal format that >95% of the street signs in City of Tulsa use, according to the 3 rules I posited in post #27 here. “East 9th Street & South Yale Avenue.”
It’s a regional thing, not just Tulsa itself that does this with the street signs. In Broken Arrow there are similar rules for dropping the suffixes; I can outline them for you if you want, or you can easily intuit them by observing the signs. Broken Arrow has a higher level of consistency with their signs than Tulsa does, except for the fact that some of their roads have multiple names, mainly because of being in a location that was not a part of Broken Arrow proper when the name was established.
I get that signs don’t always say exactly what the name of the street is, and that in everyday conversation people tend to shorten names, but it seems weird that different government agencies would not agree on the name. Street names and addresses are so important for many different government functions, such as E911, tax assessment, mail delivery, etc. Perhaps if there were some sort of explanation, such as the government is in the process of switching from one set of street names to another, it would bolster your case.
I have lived here for a total of 40 years (with a 4-year break away for college) and this is just the way it has always been. Street signs almost always match the street addresses, but they are different from the “official” names in government databases, in the ways explained in post #27 for Tulsa itself, or in very similar ways for other local jurisdictions. The directional suffix is often dropped, or for north-south roads conforming to the Tulsa system (whether or not they’re actually in Tulsa itself), the order of suffixes is switched. Perhaps there is an official document explaining the reason for the changes somewhere, but it would have to be a pretty old document since this system predates computers. Maybe the reason is because this system predates computers, and nobody wanted to be the bad guy and change every street name even though in the computerized systems they’re different. It is standard for counties, towns, and cities in the Tulsa area to do this.
Maybe call the City or County GIS department, or other authority, and ask them? Government folks around here (Colorado) are generally pretty willing to talk with citizens, especially if it means that third-party maps will more accurately depict their city/county. Without some sort of explanation, it is just your word and the street signs against @Baloo_Uriza 's word and the official database. Again, without picking sides, this all seems rather strange to me. I know that government folks around here work really hard to make sure street names are accurate and consistent.
I sent a message to someone I know who works for City of Tulsa Information Technology, who can pass it on to someone who works in GIS. Since it is 4:30 on a Friday, I don’t expect a response this week.
This still isn’t describing any situation that’s different from anywhere else in Oklahoma in terms of bad signage. Heck, you’re not describing anything unusual for Portland, Oregon and they still include the prefix and suffix.
Way ahead of you. I contacted INCOG (the regional government here) and got the canonical database. This is what upset @ArgleZombie in the first place, and even he’s not disputing that the name isn’t correct.
Right, I get that. What I am interested in is why that canonical database differs so dramatically and consistently from the signage as described by @ArgyleZombie. I get that mistakes are made, and that generally signs abbreviate things, put things in all caps, etc., but consistently dropping directionals seems weird. If we had a reason from the relevant government officials, such as “the database contains the new official names, we just haven’t gotten around to updating the signs”, then the answer as to how to tag these streets would be more clear to more people. Again, I am not taking sides at this time, and I am not in Tulsa, so I don’t have a say, but I am super curious.
