Make amenity=bus_station render more like railway=halt

[kolgza]

This comment is outdated!

See #4383 (comment)

---

Changes proposed in this pull request:

• Change style/amenity-points.mss to render amenity=bus_station at z>=12
  • Use symbols/square.svg at z<16
    • Rendering is unaffected above z>=16
  • The marker width at each zoom level is the same as for railway=station

Test rendering with links to the example places:

• Pittsburgh, PA
• Adelaide, NSW

Before

Pittsburgh at z=12:

Adelaide at z=12:

After

Adelaide at z=12:

Adelaide at z=14:

Pittsburgh at z=12

Pittsburgh at z=12, except the rendering for highway=bus_guideway is applied to highway=busway:

[imagico]

This does not seem to make much sense to me - an amenity=bus_station is - both according to actual use and documentation on the wiki - something semantically very different from railway=station. And your example seems to show what would normally be tagged a bus stop rather than a bus station.

Independent of that bus stations are currently rendered at z16+ - i don't think moving this down four (!!) zoom levels is a good idea. I also don't see what purpose this would serve in a typical case at this zoom level.

[kolgza]

Thank you for the reply. I should have included my rationale and the history in the comment.

I started working on the proposal for highway=busway because of #4226. I wanted BRT networks to render more-similarly to light-rail networks.

Initially, I intended to additionally propose station=busway — which would be to highway=busway what station=light_rail is to railway=light_rail. After all, the difference between a light-rail station and a BRT station is the types of vehicles used, and most transit maps that I've seen show "BRT stations" and "light-rail stations" as the same. However, I had difficulty trying to create a definition that differentiates station=busway from highway=bus_stop and amenity=bus_station.

---

Anyway, amenity=bus_station is generally applied to bus stations along a BRT corridor, even if they don't meet the specific definition in the wiki page.

An example of this occurring would be in Bogotá, Columbia:

https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/16wt

[kolgza]

TLDR: amenity=bus_station is applied to bus stations along BRT corridors like station=light_rail is applied to light-rail stations along light-rail corridors.

[kolgza]

I also don't see what purpose this would serve in a typical case at this zoom level.

I suppose it would serve the same purpose thatrailway=station serves at this zoom level.

[imagico]

Well - at the moment amenity=bus_station is predominantly used for what are bus stations according to what is documented on the wiki and we render it accordingly. What the appropriate tag would be to tag BRT bus stops/stations and if it makes sense to overload amenity=bus_station for that purpose is a topic for a different venue.

I suppose it would serve the same purpose that railway=station serves at this zoom level.

Rendering of railway=station at z12 serves to display further structure and details on the rail network (which we start displaying at z8 for the major rails). They serve this purpose well without adding too much noise because typical distances between train stations are from a few km to more than 50km and therefore sparse enough to not overfill the map and since the choice of color is with only subtle contrast with the color of the railway line. Note we have railway=halt for simple train stops en route without more structure typical for a railway station. Use of that varies between countries and in your two samples the majority of train stations shown would elsewhere probably be tagged as railway=halt.

[kolgza]

Note we have railway=halt for simple train stops en route without more structure typical for a railway station. Use of that varies between countries and in your two samples the majority of train stations shown would elsewhere probably be tagged as railway=halt.

I suppose I should change this PR to instead render amenity=bus_station more according to the rendering of railway=halt.

[kolgza]

BRT stations are usually supposed to be between 300 meters and 800 meters apart. I'm not completely sure if the distance between railway halts is about the same.

[kolgza]

Changes proposed in this pull request:

• Change style/amenity-points.mss to render amenity=bus_station at z>=13
  • Use symbols/square.svg at z<16
    • Rendering is unaffected where z>=16
  • The marker width at each zoom level is the same as for railway=halt

Test rendering with links to the example places:

• Pittsburgh, PA
• Los Angeles, CA

Before

After

Pittsburgh, PA at z=13

Los Angeles, CA at z=13

[kolgza]

Some might be interested in how this PR would affect cities in Europe where amenity=bus_station is used much more sparingly. Here is a demonstration of this rendering in Paris, France.

---

Link to area in question

Before:

Overpass Turbo query for amenity=bus_station:

At z=13

At z=15

At z=16 (unchanged)

[kolgza]

Closing this PR so I can reopen it under a different branch in my personal repo.

Edit: #4391