A residential road near me has two different street names for the two opposite sides of the road. How do I show this on the map using Potlatch? 
Jurisdictional boundary down the middle?
I’m not sure. I’d say to use alt_name, but neither one’s really the “alternate” name.
See “name:left” and “name:right” and this wiki:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/right_left
I never liked the :left and :right stuff. It seems too prone to breaking. Consider that you’re redrawing a way for greater precision. The way I typically do this is by either drawing a whole new way and hitting R to apply the tags of the old, or by deleting all but one end node and redrawing it from that end. Either way, there’s a 1/2 chance of breaking anything that depends on the direction of the way, and a decent chance of not realizing it.
But I can’t think of a better way to do it, so yeah.
Essentially the physical road itself is known by 2 names, so alt_name is probably OK. The only issue is which to give rendering preference.
The houses are the features which are addressed differently on opposing sides of the road. Therefore a reasonable solution would be to survey it and record the house-numbering making sure to record the proper street name on the addressing ways/nodes.
‘alt_name’ is an rough approximation. It does not say which name applies to which side. That’s why “:left” and “:right” have been created. Think also for navigation systems or address relations.
Navigation systems are not an issue because street signs should have both names (unless it’s a dual carriageway, in which case there’s no problem). Street signs on minor streets may only have the name on that side, but half the time they don’t even post the major street name at an intersection, only the minor one.
I’m not sure how address relations work, but it seems they should include the street name themselves rather than relying on the way.
No. In the very rare cases I have seen in my country, they are two street signs, one on each side of the single road.
Each house has one address with a single street name, not one of two alternative names.
Here’s an example (street view photo of the street sign) at a major intersection of two state roads: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=25.971703,-80.246705&spn=0.008555,0.020556&t=k&z=17&layer=c&cbll=25.971845,-80.246916&panoid=QOeR_HC9RKL96HAQrHbOFQ&cbp=12,167.67,0,-34.55
Of course in this area they are used to dual- and even triple-signing roads like this, where countywide grids (NW 42nd) meet local city grids (E 8th) and preexisting street names (LeJeune): http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=25.823438,-80.260384&spn=0.016649,0.041113&t=k&z=16&layer=c&cbll=25.823172,-80.265162&panoid=Z967y330t9QafOahT8Va6w&cbp=12,266.42,0,-3.36
This street has all three names in both directions.
Okay, in that case, alt_name applies. But remember the original post which was about different names in different directions.