OSM Toronto addresses (sometimes/often[?]) better than Google Maps
Posted by scruss on 14 November 2016 in English.For years, I knew there was an address hole in OSM along Eglinton Avenue East. Querying Nominatim for an address would often return a location ≥ 5 km away from the real result.
Then came Metrolinx’s clean up and import of address ranges. Folks might turn their noses up at address ranges, but at least ranges give you a location within a few metres without adding millions of nodes. This is good enough for Metrolinx’s commuters, and improves the map.
A couple of days ago, I had to look up an address while mobile on Eglinton East. All I had was my phone with Google Maps. I put in the address, and Google suggested somewhere really far from where I’d expected it to be. Oddly enough, Google was suggesting a location in the general area that OSM always used to return. How nice to know our addresses can be more useful than those provided by a corporate entity!
Discussion
Comment from Omnific on 14 November 2016 at 23:31
“Folks might turn their noses up at address ranges, but at least ranges give you a location within a few metres without adding millions of nodes.”
This is why I don’t understand the aversion of the OSM community to importing the address ranges from TIGER for the United States. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing.