Render highway rest areas

[wmisener]

As the discussion on rendering POIs in general (#128) and prioritizing which "anchor institutions" render at low zoom (#435) progresses, I think it's a good time to start discussing rendering rest stops along freeways (highway=rest_area). A lot of American paper maps render these pretty prominently at low zoom levels, since they're most important for long distance travelers. I think AAA uses a green triangle inscribed in a circle. While I'm not sure that's particularly intuitive, I'm also not sure what an intuitive symbol for a rest area would be. A color matching the motorways they are found along could be fun, or a color matching other "service"-oriented icons (parking lots, gas stations, etc.) may be more appropriate. Blue would match the color of the signs for them, at least in the US. Rest areas typically have names, though at least for the ones I'm familiar with, these names aren't very prominent. So it'd probably be OK to render them without names, at least until fairly high zoom.

[1ec5]

Many state travel maps distinguish between different kinds of rest areas, for example welcome centers, ordinary rest areas, primitive wayside rest stops, and commercial toll road concessions/service centers:

Some even distinguish the kind of toilet:

Some state travel maps also highlight tourist information centers (including welcome centers) as a separate kind of POI:

Most maps symbolize rest areas as a tree or picnic table or triangle (tent?). But older maps by the Alabama DOT use an icon that resembles the architecture of rest areas throughout Alabama and Mississippi; this icon continues to be used in strip maps on the reverse side:

A color matching the motorways they are found along could be fun

Older Ohio DOT maps color roadside rest areas red along freeways (which are red) and black along expressways and surface roads (which are black):

Some maps vary the symbol to indicate handicap accessibility, while others pair the icon with a separate ♿ symbol:

The Montana DOT varies the icon based on not only ADA compliance but also seasonality:

Other assorted examples:

[wmisener]

Thanks for all these paper examples. Like you say, it seems like a number of these maps go with either some sort of triangle (maybe to evoke a tent, or just a primitive building) or a picnic table (would it make sense to render these features similarly to an eventual tourism=picnic_site and/or leisure=picnic_table rendering?).

Regarding making other distinctions on the rendering, I took a quick look at how rest areas are tagged in OSM. A prominent differentiator in your maps are between those with and without toilets. This could be picked up by looking for toilets=yes or no, an attribute tagged on a number of rest stops: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/95613616, https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/506497572, https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/725995262. Identifying which rest stops have welcome centers may be a little trickier, as the typical tourism=information tags of the welcome centers seem to usually be on the building within the rest stop area: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/818171543, https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/894704451.

[wmisener]

Also, I should note that some states have "service areas", an area directly connected to the motorway like highway=rest_area but with a fuel station and other amenities. These get a separate tag in OSM: highway=services, which should probably be rendered similarly. They also can have additional attributes like the presence of restrooms tagged on the ways: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/319779434.

[adamfranco]

I like the idea of distinguishing between toilets/no-toilets -- pretty important at times. 😉 In the northeast I often encounter areas called "parking area", "text stop", or "overlook" which have parking and sometimes picnic tables, but not toilets/fast-food/fuel/etc.

While the triangle symbol isn't immediately obvious, I'd be hesitant to overload the picnic table with rest areas as those with services are something more than picnicking. Additionally, the tables themselves might be micromapped in the same area leading to confusion over which icon means what.