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Should Cities Sell Naming Rights to Transit Stations?

Something like Canada's Wonderland Station would be fine if a station serves basically just one thing in the middle of nowhere (same as some American stadia), but if transit lines are built out to those sorts of examples, stations would probably be named after the one attraction they serve, anyway, so rights may not need to be sold. Yorkdale is an example. If it had been called Ranee from day one, the mall's owners might have tried to get the name changed at some point, but it was called Yorkdale just like the mall (with "Yorkdale Road" being a good alibi).

Maybe generic corporations would try to buy station names randomly, so Eglinton West would become Fabricland or St. George would become ScotiaBank, but there's no way Toronto would ever let this happen for less than, I don't know, a half billion dollars?
 
How much did the TTC get for naming Queen's Park station and not College West station or University of Toronto station? After all, there will be a York University station.

BTW. Why didn't they name College station Carlton station? Then Queen's Park station could have been named College station from day 1.
 
What else would York University be called? Ian MacDonald? Queen's Park has an alibi in the road name. College station is at Yonge and College, which is what the intersection is known as, not Yonge and Carlton...just as no one refers to the intersection of Yonge and Wilson.
 
Queens Park is also a landmark. And I happen to really like the names of the University line stations south of Bloor. There's a bit more of a charm to them, and to be quite honest, I don't buy the argument that people get confused because they don't represent the intersection. Subway stations around the world are named after neighbourhood and above ground features and people do just fine using them.

As for naming rights, I'd much rather they sell the naming/branding rights to each train. Let the company wrap the train however they want and give them control over all the ads. I'd even go as far as let them change the interior as long as it met certain guidelines (such as maintaining capacity levels). Then with those "Next Train" signs they could say "Coca Cola" or "Schneiders" or whatever.
 
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Oh dear, after reading this thread, I guess all that Eaton imagery at Queen station needs to come down.
 
I've thought for a while that they should expand the automated station announcements to contain more information about connections, landmarks, etc. For example: "Arriving at Queen Station - Connection to 501 Streetcar, Eaton Centre."

Maybe they could sell announcement space? Businesses could get their nearby location announced as part of the stop announcement for a fee.
 
Some transit maps had needless corporate shilling.

The early TTC "GTA Transit" maps (the first ones after adding connecting suburban routes in the mid 1990s) had sponsors. Royal Bank had one or two, each Royal Bank location was printed on the map.

Ride guides around this time also had ads on the borders. I remember Brampton Transit had ads for most of its 1980s and 1990s (since the 1986 major route restructuring), and would print the locations of many businesses on the maps themselves too. Peel Police even bought ad space on the maps in the 1990s.

Now, all the ads are gone from transit maps.

The TTC has been smart enough to realize that the money they get from advertising is a drop in the bucket, especially in-your-face ads, and would be really reluctant to go for any of this crappy naming rights. I am really happy to see the fad of fully wrapped buses disappear (if there's wraps, they are mostly partial wraps), though we do put up with station domination.
 
What a terrible idea - what does it speak of our sense of civics to sell what we call our stations? Considering the visibility of some of the ads in TTC stations, you can argue that renaming has already occurred in some way - and went too far.

AoD
 
How about a subway station named
sm_Subway_Logo_Large.jpg
 
^^ It gets aggravating when people get confused between the two.

"Let's go get some food from subway for lunch!"
"Since when does the subway have good food? Are you so cheap that your lunch is chocolate bars from the gateway newstands?"

To reduce the annoyances of this, I vote that every subway station has a subway restaurant, and every subway restaurant has a subway station. No more misunderstandings, and it's a great way to spread out our transit network!
 
So no one objects to the Air Canada Centre? How about the CN Tower? Scotia Tower? RBC Centre? It's not like we have that much significant history attached to the names. Couldn't we name stations after the major employer at the stop?
 
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