Which sides of a parcel have road frontage.

Question

Im trying to figure out how to find which 'side' of a land parcel has road frontage. The matter is complicated by our PA not storing true curves when they draw the parcels. Any cul-de-sac is made of hundreds of tiny lines each technically a side of the polygon. Ive converted polygons to lines and split at vertex but I cant figure out of the line fronts a road. I was thinking that if I can flag the segments as road front I could delete the other lines and merger the remaining back into longer lines by parcel ID. Any ideas on how to check this?

LukeWebb · Answer

Ive done something similar using the approach below:

*  Simplify every parcel, to just 4 vertices     A quick and dirty method is to use minimum rectangle - by area. Minimum Bounding Geometry—Data Management toolbox | ArcGIS Desktop
* Use Feature Vertices To Points—Data Management toolbox | ArcGIS Desktop  to get a point for each vertex.
* Use Split Line at Point—Data Management toolbox | ArcGIS Desktop  to convert each parcel, into 4 "Side" line features.
* Spatial join the sides to the roads, for each parcel, the side with the smallest distance, is the frontage on the road.

KevinBell1 · Answer

Maybe python isn't needed much?  Explode your parcels to individual segments, spatial join parcel segments to your roads.  Now the shortest distance segment would be your frontage.

HeatherHanson · Answer

Did you figure this out? I'm also at a PA office and they want to know water frontage of parcels.