The mysterious powers of the SimCity 4 Bus Stop
The mysterious powers of the SimCity 4 Bus Stop
Most SimCity 4 players have no idea, that the humble vanilla Maxis Bus Stop (Ctrl+Shift+R) has super powers. A big part of the problem is the incongruous name, "Bus Stop", and it's unassuming appearance. Think of telephone booths and Harry Potter; this is not what it appears to be! 
When you hear the words "bus stop", something like this probably springs to mind.
A Maxis vanilla bus stop sort of looks like that, cosmetically, but what it does in the game, is more like a small suburban bus interchange, NOT a bus stop.
When you start thinking like that, you don't begrudge the 1x1 plop size quite as much! 
Think about it:
- Hundreds of commuters, or with the NAM, efficient handling of up to 17,000 commuters!
- Direct bus routes to literally every other bus interchange on the map, or even intercity!
- Constant traffic, with your bus arriving the minute that you do.
- Bus vehicle entry, and exit, on all four sides of the 1x1 transit-enabled lot.
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Magically accelerated bus loading and off-loading.
- Immediate transfer to a shuttle bus for bus lanes.
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In fact, in SimCity 4, all mass transit connections occur within moments, like something out of The Twilight Zone. No waiting. Oh, how I wish it were that way in real-life. Every bus you need arrives at the very moment you hop off the last bus!
The humble Bus Stop is even a good source of city revenue, with well placed bus stop locations making much more money in fares, than they cost to maintain. Incidentally, it works that way in real-life, too. City bus services are often profitable businesses, while subways typically run at a loss.
There is a myth going around that SimCity 4 Bus Stops are like taxi stands, and sorry, I'll have to squash that one. SimCity 4 Bus Stops will only take sims to another Bus Stop, or to a road Neighbour Connection, but certainly not to any destination on the map. That way, it's more like a Greyhound bus terminus, rather than a city bus stop. Do make sure that you place Bus Stops near both their home and their work, and anywhere else you need a mass transit interchange.
They also don't allow pedestrian access to adjoining RCI zones, which is really counter-intuitive. They only allow pedestrian access to street, road, avenue or Pedmall, and from there pedestrians enter and exit the RCI zones, or other transit stations.
Incidentally, the buses don't drive on board the car ferries, either! 
As it is, the humble Maxis vanilla Bus Stop is probably one of the most underrated, and overpowered, pieces in the game.
It even has a high density YIMBY effect, encouraging development of high rise residential blocks, and commercial towers, of any wealth level. I have to admit, subway stations have an even bigger high density YIMBY effect, but those things are darned expensive!
That's just the start. When you place a bus stop next to a Maxis Ground Level Highway (L0 MHW), it turns into one of these:
... a 1x1 ploppable highway bus access without even having a highway interchange anywhere in sight, and there's street bus access on the other side! Bus stops are literally a highway transition piece, converting highway bus users to pedestrians if there is pedestrian street access on the other side, or facilitating change of bus for other routes adjacent to the same bus stop.
If you plop it next to an Elevated Highway (L2 MHW), you get stairs and lift access, too, along with a street level bus bay at the bottom!
Here's one last magical transformation. If you plop the bus stop above or beside the entrance to a Maxis vanilla road tunnel, or highway tunnel, you get this, as a bonus, in addition to all the surface level infrastructure. Your sims will literally catch a surface level bus, get off at the bus stop, ride the escalator or take the stairs down to the tunnel, and catch another bus through the tunnel, or vice versa! The sims are not, however, under any circumstances, allowed to walk amongst the traffic along the road tunnel!
So, I hope that I've transformed your view on the humble Maxis vanilla Bus Stop. It really is, oh so much more than it seems! 
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