Articles used as demonstrative pronouns ("die") are in strength somewhere between personal pronouns ("sie") and true demonstrative pronouns ("diese"). So in "Die Strasse ist laut. Die ist in der Nähe." the emphasis would be too strong, just as if you'd say "The street is noisy. This one is close by." in English instead of "It is close by". As soon as the context allows some sort of mental pointing, you can use "die": B: Ist da Straße in der Nähe? A: Welche Straße meinst du? B: Die Straße, die laut ist. A: Ja, die ist in der Nähe. Often it's a judgment call which one needs to be used, so you need to have seen enough examples to get a "feeling" which one is appropriate, and sometimes you can use either.

I'm just a conversation-teacher, so I also have no idea of german grammar. ;) But what I can tell you, don't worry about that so much. If you not talking to a grammarnazi, then everyone will understand you or even better: no one will see it as a mistake. "Herr Schafer ist nicht da. Er arbeitet." I was living in eastgermany (grow up there) and westgermany (lived there since I was 18 years old) and there I notices something. People in the west say "der, die, das" often to people. Like a westgerman could say: "Der arbeitet." and it sounds unpolite for a eastgerman. (my opinion!) But I got so used to it, that I also say something like: "Emma? Achja, die ist schon zu Hause." (Correct me if I'm wrong) but my personal "eastgerman-feeling" would have said, that's pretty unpolite. :D But I think, or I just got used to it, that there is no problem to say both. So what I want to say, german has so complicated grammar, don't think about this grammarpoint too much. Der, die, das, er, sie, es. Mostly it doesn't matter in this case. Germans also don't speak like the grammarrules are, unless you are a teacher or somethingelse. I know I couldn't help so much, but maybe someone with grammarknowledge will answer too. I just want to tell you: in this case it doesn't matter at germanys streets(talking).

Of course, to use the pronoun 'er', 'sie' is much better then 'der', 'die' etc. But in the spoken language, it is quite common to use the article instead of the pronoun. Depending on the context, it can also mean this or that, e.g. when somebody pointing to a street says: Ich meine die da (I mean this one there). In this case, you can't say: Ich meine sie.