Streetnames (in Brussels) ...

I just did a search on OSM map → ‘Kraainemse laan’ , and the search did not show anything … so, i looked in https://urbisonline.brussels/ , and found, that it exist there on that map … then i looked back at OSM, and found that it also exists with a ‘different’ name ; ‘Kraainemlaan’ … so i made in OSM for that street an ‘alt_name’ , and now, it can be found also in OSM .
Same thing happend with ‘Wezembeeklaan’ … made an alt_name Wezembeekse Laan … seems like people at Urbis made even 2 ‘different’ (flemish)names for Wezembeeklaan … makes things rather ‘confusing’ in my opinion :roll_eyes:https://urbisonline.brussels/

I think, that there are some (french talking)people in Brussels with ‘good willingness’ , but lack a bit of ‘language translating’ to flemish(dutch) … see i.e. this →
a street with ‘poor translating’ (goevernement ‘actually’ does not exist(yet) in flemish or dutch :stuck_out_tongue: ) → https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/23642308#map=16/50.8286/4.4708

off-topic P.S. : though, i better like the word ‘goevernement’ than ‘gouvernement’ , because ‘goevernement’ resembles more the flemish(dutch) pronunciation :wink:

I must reconsider my thinking of above , when there are streetnames involved with the word ‘Laan’ (in french ‘Avenue’) , then the people of Urbis just name that street ‘in 1 breath’ … for example ; **Avenue Paul Heger Laan , instead of 2 separate streetnames (french and flemish) ; avenue Paul Heger / Paul Heger laan … smart :wink: … **
As a matter of fact, it could also be used with 'street(straat of weg) … isn’t it ? for example ; rue Simonau straat , instead of now ; Rue Simonau / Simonaustraat
Just asking , … can the search on OSM ‘handle’ such ‘1 breath-name’ ? :roll_eyes:

I’d think not. Regardless of the convention Urbis uses, there’s a set convention to follow for OSM, and it’s not that.
OSM as a ‘database’ has the option to cater to specific languages if they are set in the data, so it can generate both a map with the dutch OR the french names, whereas Urbis may strive to have a ‘bilingual’ version.

I’ve pointed our resident adress expert to your question though.

since OSM is only a database the answer is no.
a better question would be : Does anyone know of software that deals with those Brussels-specific names as encoded in OSM ?

Nominatim (the geocoder on osm.org) cannot cope with them.
My favorite Android app MagicEarth shows the street in the list of suggestions as soon as I type “avenue Paul he”

For the Gouvernementstraat, that’s an interesting case :slight_smile:

The street is half in Flanders, half in Brussels, which means it might need both the name:left/name:right tags, as well as the name:nl/name:fr tags.
If you look at CRAB , this road is called Gouvernementsweg. But the GRB also shows “Goevernementsweg” for this road, so I think this is the official (and wrong) Dutch name of the Brussels side of this street, which is also shown on the Urbis Dutch version. So you can’t just say “map the street signs”, you have to look at the street signs at the correct side of the street.
The convention for streets that have a different name on the left and right side is that the name tag should have both, separated by space hyphen space " - ". But this is also the convention for the French and Dutch name, so this is going to be confusing.
To further complicate it, Kraainem is a “faciliteitengemeente”, so the name should be in Dutch only, and the French name only added under name:fr (according to https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Multilingual_names#Language_facilities)). Not that Kraainem is mapped like that, as that wiki page aknowledges, and massively changing this in the facility communities bordering Brussels should probably be discussed first on talk-be.

So given that Brussels is on the left (for the part I look at), we get:
name:left:fr=Route Gouvernementale
name:left:nl=Goevernementsweg
name:right:fr=Route Gouvernementale
name:right:nl=Gouvernementsweg

and then we have:
name:left=Route Gouvernementale - Goevernementsweg (Dutch first allowed too)
name:right=Gouvernementsweg - Gouvernementsweg

And because why not :slight_smile:
name:nl=Gouvernementsweg - Gouvernementsweg
nalme:fr=Route Gouvernementale

And the name should be:
Route Gouvernementale - Goevernementsweg - Gouvernementsweg

But that doesn’t make very much sense, so maybe it would be better to do a combination of " - " and " / ".
I think I would opt for Route Gouvernementale - Goevernementsweg / Gouvernementsweg

I think that houses in Flanders, like this one: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/189640119#map=19/50.82927/4.47094
are wrong in the sense that they should have Gouvernementsweg, the official Flemish spelling. It is also wrong in the sense that the French name should not come first. And maybe the French name should not be included in the name tag at all.

(EDIT: added name:left/right and name:nl/fr tags)

that is why i (anonimous) made this ‘remark’ → https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/1514664#map=19/50.83192/4.46914&layers=N

if the people of Brussels streetname-makers were a bit smart, and named that street ‘route goevernement weg’ on both sides, then there was not any ‘problem’ in my opinion … :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m really interested to see how Nominatim deals with Joost’s proposal.

i am ‘confused’ about the R20 in Brussels. Should it tagged as highway=primary , or highway=trunk ? Because, there are both(primary and trunk) used … :roll_eyes:

EDIT : i found on googie maps, that there are some parts of the R20 are ‘marked’ with a F9 sign , though, there are several parts incorrect tagged on OSM map … maybe i can try to correct that in future (if i have the ‘goesting’ for it ) :stuck_out_tongue:

Also, there is a difference between highway=motorway, and highway=trunk , though, the incorrect dutch translation on OSM map of trunk is ‘autosnelweg’ , should be ‘autoweg’ →

also ‘noteworthy’ ;

If the people of Brussels were a bit smart, they would hire some firm to map Brussels with 3D streetview (maybe on a regular timescale) and then ‘donated’ that data to Mapillary,like Amsterdam did , so that OSM people could help to better map Brussels. :wink:
Because, for example, i doubt that Rue du Tanganika / Tanganikastraat even exists, because when i saw on streetview, that it is only a ‘permissive’ service-street, closed with gates, i think, that it is some kind of ‘error’ from urbis because they ‘linked’ their info on some websites’ firm (Italia Autentica) at that place in the past, and then , that ‘error’ was copied by several others(including google/geonet/etc.) :roll_eyes:

EDIT : i corrected that ‘supposed Tanganikastreet’

Also, is it ‘common’ to give an address to garageboxes ? Which i saw still exists on streetview . :roll_eyes:

In hindsight we all like to think we’re smarter. Changing names in bulk at a later point is bound to create an even bigger mess.
Having two languages can cause a mess in administration, but ironically, a ‘belgian compromise’ in meetings tend to be… to resort to english.

Here is also a ‘good one’ → VOGELENzangstraat or Rue Chant d’Oiseaux(in french)
The french word ‘oiseaux’ means ‘birds’ in english, ‘vogels’ in dutch/flemish, but the streetname-makers translated ‘oiseaux’ into ‘vogelen’ , which has a completely different meaning in flemish:stuck_out_tongue: :laughing:

Wie heeft het nu ‘bij het rechte eind’ ?
URBIS of de gemeente Elsene ?
Als je op de grens van Elsene kijkt met de Web Map Service for the CIRB layers van URBIS, zijn de adressen(en aldus ook de postcodes)anders dan op de search van Elsene

zo is bijvoorbeeld Venezuelalaan nr. 12 (en nr. 23) →

  • URBIS : → Venezuelalaan 12 1000 Brussel
  • Gemeente Elsene : → Venezuelalaan 12 1050 Elsene
    :roll_eyes:

Bordjes “Oude Linde” en “Oude-Linde” square.
In osmand is het met een “-”.
Met mijn excuses voor de wazige foto’s. Die zijn de laatste tijd niet meer te wissen.

https://www.mapillary.com/app/?lat=50.80719765646388&lng=4.391311674144487&z=17&pKey=8JYIG7VjibnBkEbbV649zA&focus=photo&dateFrom=2019-02-01
en
https://www.mapillary.com/app/?lat=50.80750027341513&lng=4.392238447239263&z=17&pKey=wintvi2JSxjgqAsrY58vwg&focus=photo&dateFrom=2019-02-01&x=0.5050767806984536&y=0.5243588843730731&zoom=0.9605122732123799