Jackson mapping to POJO cannot deserialize instance instance

Question 1

Create Street by this way:

Street

public class Street {
    private List<StreetSegment> streetSegment;

    public Street() {
        // TODO Auto-generated constructor stub
    }

    public List<StreetSegment> getStreetSegment() {
        return streetSegment;
    }

    public void setStreetSegment(List<StreetSegment> streetSegment) {
        this.streetSegment = streetSegment;
    }
}

StreetSegment

public class StreetSegment {
    private String distance;
    private String highway;
    private String name;
    private String line;
    private String wayId;

    public StreetSegment() {

    }
    public String getDistance() {
        return distance;
    }
    public void setDistance(String distance) {
        this.distance = distance;
    }
    public String getHighway() {
        return highway;
    }
    public void setHighway(String highway) {
        this.highway = highway;
    }
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }
    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }
    public String getLine() {
        return line;
    }
    public void setLine(String line) {
        this.line = line;
    }
    public String getWayId() {
        return wayId;
    }
    public void setWayId(String wayId) {
        this.wayId = wayId;
    }
}

To check it, here is main:

public static void main(String[] args) throws JsonParseException, JsonMappingException, IOException {
        String str = "{" + 
                "    \"streetSegment\": [" + 
                "        {" + 
                "            \"distance\": \"0.04\"," + 
                "            \"highway\": \"residential\"," + 
                "            \"name\": \"Swift\"," + 
                "            \"line\": \"-1.6720224 52.6251985,-1.6721061 52.6250432,-1.6721799,             52.6248908,-1.6721996 52.6247594\"," + 
                "            \"wayId\": \"76473524\"" + 
                "        }," + 
                "        {" + 
                "            \"distance\": \"0.05\"," + 
                "            \"highway\": \"residential\"," + 
                "            \"name\": \"Swift\"," + 
                "            \"line\": \"-1.6721799 52.6248908,-1.6723374 52.6248669,-1.6732035 52.6249774,-1.6734643 52.6249894\"," + 
                "            \"wayId\": \"76473523\"" + 
                "        }" + 
                "    ]" + 
                "}";
    // to simulate stream reader    
    InputStreamReader in = new InputStreamReader(new ByteArrayInputStream(str.getBytes())); 

     BufferedReader streamReader = new BufferedReader(in); 

    StringBuilder buff = new StringBuilder();

    String inputStr;
    while ((inputStr = streamReader.readLine()) != null)
        buff.append(inputStr);


    ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();

    Street mj = mapper.readValue(buff.toString(), Street.class);

        if(mj == null){
            System.err.println("null");
        }                
    }

Checking...

System.out.println(mj.getStreetSegment().get(0).getHighway());//dummy print

Output: residential

Question 2

Redefine your models in two seperate classes, viz StreetSegment and Street.

public class StreetSegment {
    list<Street> street_list;

    //getters and setters
}

and

public class Street {
     private String distance;
     private String highway;
     private String name;
     private String line;
     private String wayId;

      //getters and setters
 }

//skip the rest if your problem is solved

I'm guessing you're using @RequestBody for getting JSON body of request. I would use it this way:

public your_return_type your_method(@RequestBody String rb) {
    ObjectMapper om = new ObjectMapper();
    StreetSegment ss = om.readValue(rb, StreetSegment.class);

    //and the rest
    .
    .
    .