How do you handle bus stops?

When I was checking for duplicates at the map, i was baffled to see that apparently every bus stop sign at some town was an already existing waystop. I knew that “popular transitstations” are eligible for waystops, but that was the first time I saw a bus stop and not some metro station as a waystop.I was shocked to see that this was even accepted several times, because I would have never accepted a sole bus stop sign.
So I wanted to ask: Do you accept bus stops as wayspots?

It very much depends on the bus stop. I submitted this one:

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Well, this is a cool shelterhouse, with that description i also would have accepted that. In my case it was just a generic german bus stop sign like this

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there is always more to a nomination than just the photo, but from the looks of that it does seem pretty generic and something that is just infrastructure that I would not have accepted. i am going to tag @kawin240 for better insight into that part of the world

There are places in Germany that have been affected by botting in Wayfarer and there are still such fraudulently accepted wayspots online, mainly in NRW and some part of Bavaria. From your description it sounds to me like it was a location in those areas.

Is this the case?

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Hi
On the picture you can see “Reichstag” and “zoolog. Garten” - seems to be Berlin

The person has used a stock image to illustrate what they see rather than an actual image from lightship database.

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If the stop has been decorated as part of some art project, then provide a citation. Otherwise it could be considered temporary, or just simply part of the bus stop design.

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This certainly seems sketchy :thinking:

However, for anybody coming across this in a search, I would add that a singular bus stop in a rural or remote community that only has one or two as the sole public transport connection to the outside world can (and should IMO) be eligible for enabling exploration in a much more meaningful way than any large transit station.
For youths, aged, disabled, or those simply lacking a running vehicle, these are a vital connection for exploration.
I’ll use the tiny town Tempy as an example: https://maps.app.goo.gl/YXjhHU7qZNaAbKvj8

Getting them through may be difficult if other rural or remote Wayfarers aren’t the ones reviewing, though. You would need to explain this situation well so that metro reviewers could draw the parallels.

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I’d still say that bus stop in Tempy isn’t notable. Often bus stops in rural locations will have noticeboards that would probably make them eligible.

However, taking this location as an example, there are potentially a load of missing wayspots. I see a church, open air swimming pool, picnic area, tennis court, post office, bar/pub and possibly some other wayspots that could be added on the recreation ground.

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Yes the town i was talking about was Kempten in Bavaria

Yes!

Define “notable”? Since when does a trail marker, etc need to be “notable” beyond meeting a criteria (explore)?
These remote bus stops encourage exploration and social connection in a way that little else in those communities does. It is an extremely important outside connection for those communities and certainly “connects and unites people” in a way that makes them arguably more significant than any city transit station or hub or whatever.
If even a generic post office is notable because it connects people (by a communication method barely even used anymore), then how is the sole public transport connection of a remote community that doesn’t even one of those not? :exploding_head:

Anybody with lived experience of these communities, especially in their youth, will vehemently disagree with that stance.
My school and best friend were both 40kms away from the town I lived in during high school and my social life was almost entirely dependant on the connection provided by my town’s sole bus stop.

This town was just one of many possible examples. I don’t live in Tempy and my family won’t be happy for me to stop there for long enough to submit things on the way through (let alone every other underrepresented tiny town along that route) :sweat_smile:

Other potentially eligible nominations in the town don’t negate the significance of the bus stop to the town or potential eligibility for the exact same reasons as a transit station, that has specifically been listed as a great nomination to encourage exploration, because they “connect and unite people”.

I would suggest that the wayspots you mentioned don’t exist there partly because many are no longer operational, but mostly because most people who start playing Niantic games from areas like that don’t continue to do so after realising that gameplay is restricted to a point of being fairly pointless, expensive, and unenjoyable (therefore don’t stick with it long enough to reach anywhere near level 37 and discover Wayfarer). I know this is what happens because I know people in similar communities who’ve played briefly and then quit for these exact reasons.
Submissions in these areas are often done by those visiting family or on the fly by people taking a bathroom break on the 6 hour drive to Melbourne, as I have done previously in other towns (this one is one most forget exists and is very much a case of “blink and you’ll miss it”).
If you actually look at the street view in Tempy, much of their basic services are long abandoned (which is common in similar sized towns), so that even basic grocery essentials are a 64km round trip away (and 268km round trip for “proper shopping”). So tell me again how unnoteworthy the public transport stop is and why a transit station in the city is so much more worthy? It’s literally their only connection to the outside world :thinking::woman_facepalming:t2:

As somebody who grew up even in larger small regional communities (250-700 populations, rather than the piddly 60 of Tempy) and used to frequently travel on the coach through these tiny towns (to visit family before I had my licence), I know first-hand of the importance of these public transport connections, not just to locals and their family and friends, but also for tourism and seasonal workers.

I personally consider the total lack of holistic consideration for rural residents offensive and hypocritical, particularly when transit stations are acceptable :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Often in bus stops in rural locations where? It is a global community :woman_shrugging:t2: That’s not common even in larger towns in these areas, and certainly not in the smaller communities where I’m suggesting the stops would be eligible. These are extremely underfunded communities.
Even in the nearest regional hub “cities” we struggle to get basics that metro areas take for granted, because our local government areas are the largest in the state, with the lowest percentage of funding (because politicians don’t care about the limited potential benefit of rural votes to their campaigns).

In any case, it’s certainly not a new interpretation that I’ve pulled out of by butt:

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Yeah that’s the one abuse town

@thenamelesskath I do get your point, but in that particular case I could see other valid wayspots.

There’s certainly a point for making some categories of wayspot valid for rural areas that wouldn’t be in urban areas. For example, if you have a general store then that’s often a community hub, but it’s the sort of thing that wouldn’t be eligible otherwise.

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I totally support this. A bus stop in a small village is significant to the residents of that town where as it might not be so much to somebody in a city.

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As I said, I don’t think other wayspots negate the eligibility or undermine the importance of these POI, though.
Many of these communities are near on ghost towns with most services (pubs, general store, etc) long closed because they’re not particularly financially viable and most younger adults who aren’t farmers and could run them can’t hack the isolated lifestyle long-term.

I think it’s important to maximise the playability for youths in rural areas as much as possible.
AR games are definitely a preferable form of entertainment than the silly, unhealthy, and dangerous activities rural kids commonly engage in. Even as a fairly uninvolved reclusive teen I was touched by fatalities resulting from common senseless pastimes :woman_facepalming:t2:

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Last time I submitted a bus shelter and appealed it, Niantic was looking for transportation hubs. Like places where you have a hub to transfer stations over to other bus route or a place where you can switch routes.

What kind of area was the submission in?
I would argue that the only bus stop or public transport connection of any kind in a tiny town that’s hours from any large centre is a transportation hub :woman_shrugging:t2:

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Ugh, sounds like a mess in Bavaria.

I sure wouldn’t want the bus stop signs in my city having Wayspots, as they are just the same sign, with the transit company logo on it, their website, and hub phone number on them. No route or route numbers are listed on the signs, as the stops can be found online with the transit company, as well as on Google Maps. The nearest stops to me are 2 signs on the same street, just opposite sides, since there’s a route that runs east and west on said street.

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