Using Alternate Street Names For Beginners

Question

I am working on a project in which the data set uses alternate names than my centerlines file.  So, I assume there's a fix for this using ALTNAME geocoding.  However, I have not yet found a help topic that tells me how to create the table of alternate names.  I've seen this (http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.3/index.cfm?TopicName=Alternative_searches) but I still don't understand how to go about creating the two parts that match street names in the centerline to alternate names.

I have generally worked around this in the past, but now I'm facing 15% or more of my data that uses alternate street names, so I need to learn how to do this.

I'm using 9.3.

Thanks!

JoeBorgione · Answer

I'm not familiar with geodatabases and feature classes yet.  I have worked almost exclusively in shapefiles.  I see a tool for featureclass to shapefile, but not the other way around.

I opened the centerlines shapefile dbf table and added the JOINID field.  I was not working with just a dbf of street names, if that matters.

I felt like I was following all the steps, but when it tries to build the locator, it would fail with a very general error.

Chris-  I had responded earlier this morning, but apparently didn't click the 'post' button....

Your original post mentioned a 'centerlines file' which I took literally.  To get a shapefile into a geodatabase is pretty easy. Take a look here to start.  That said, you can use shapefiles, I just prefer geodatabases.

Without taking a look at your data, I really can't comment on what the problem is that tosses the error.  If you can post some of your data here, I'd be happy to give it a go, or you can contact me via pm and we can take this off-forum if you prefer.

ChrisHagwood · Answer

Your streets need to be in the form of a feature class, not a file. When you geocode, you are turning an address that you and I recognize into a pair of X,Y coordinates that the GIS recognizes;  the coordinate system of your street feature class is the basis of those x-y pairs.

I'm not familiar with geodatabases and feature classes yet.  I have worked almost exclusively in shapefiles.  I see a tool for featureclass to shapefile, but not the other way around.

I opened the centerlines shapefile dbf table and added the JOINID field.  I was not working with just a dbf of street names, if that matters.

I felt like I was following all the steps, but when it tries to build the locator, it would fail with a very general error.

JoeBorgione · Answer

Thanks for the offers of help.  I did attempt to create an altname table and I thought I had it figured out to some extent, but it fails when it tries to create the locator.

I have a centerlines file with a streets with many segments.  I created a JOINID field on each segment.  For example, segment JOINID 36 is called FAYETTEVILLE RD, but it's also known as US 401 HWY.

So I have a matching ALTNAME table with JOINID 36 and it's street name is US 401.
STREET_ID DIR_PRE STNAME STYPE DIR_SUF joinid
465               US 401 HWY  36

The ALTNAMES table I'm creating is a DBF file.  The centerlines file table I used was also a DBF table.  Is that what I should be doing?

Your streets need to be in the form of a feature class, not a file. When you geocode, you are turning an address that you and I recognize into a pair of X,Y coordinates that the GIS recognizes;  the coordinate system of your street feature class is the basis of those x-y pairs.

I'm a big fan of personal geodatabases since I'm a big fan of access, so I'll store both my streets feature class as well as my alt-names table there.  I like to keep the addresses in there too, and write my geocoded output there as well.  However, I write my locators to a directory, typically the one that holds the pgdb.

Take a look here; it may help you out a bit.