Duo: la parada de autobús vs. la estación del autobús

[Lisahb7]

From two Duolingo exercises in the same module:
la parada de autobús
la estación del autobús

Why "de" for one and "del" for the other? (I was still trying to figure out "del autobús" vs. "de metro", but then the examples above popped up, both using "autobús"....)

[Julian_L.]

• del autobús → A stop or station where a very specific bus that was already part of the conversation and that the listener knows which one the speaker is talking about, stops. By default it refers to a bus that "I" or "we" intend to take.

• de autobús → A stop or station where no bus that is important to "me" or "us", stops.

[Cifi]

I think of it as a compound noun vs indicating possession. If you added an adjective, it would typically be placed after the complete expression for the former, because it behaves as one word:

"La parada de autobús más cercana", and this would be just the nearest one, no matter which busses stop there.

In "La parada más cercana del autobús" this is different, there may be a bus stop right across the street, but we are talking about a specific bus as Julian explained, that may not stop there but one block away instead.

[Cifi]

Thinking about it, the explanation about a specific bus doesn't really match the idea of a bus terminal or a central bus station, which main characteristic is that most buses stop there, not just a certain one.

Possibly "estación del autobús" is not as common as "estación de autobuses" (which is what I would have preferred) or maybe "estación de autobús"? I hope a native speaker can clarify.

[Lisahb7]

• del autobús → A stop or station where a very specific bus that was already part of the conversation and that the listener knows which one the speaker is talking about, stops. By default it refers to a bus that "I" or "we" intend to take.

• de autobús → A stop or station where no bus that is important to "me" or "us", stops.

Thanks, I will retake that particular module, thinking about your answer, to see if Duolingo provides enough context to decide whether to use "de" or "del".

[Cifi]

Follow-up: on Reverso context, the distribution is like >3.000 estación de autobuses vs ~ 500 estación de autobús vs 24 estación del autobús.

[gmads]

From a practical standpoint, there is no real difference between "parada de autobús" and "parada del autobús." But if one wants to get a bit technical about this:

• "de," is a preposition that denotes possession ("of")
• "el," is a definite article ("the")

From these two definitions we can then see that:

• "la parada de autobús," would indicate that the place in question is a bus stop (there is an indefinite feeling about this, as the definite article is not being used)
• "la parada del autobús," would indicate that the place in question is where only buses stop (this is the bus stop)

While both expressions mean the same thing, the former is the most common one.

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