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Poll: Renaming Yonge-University-Spadina

What should the Yonge-University-Spadina line be called?

  • Yonge-University-Spadina

    Votes: 15 17.4%

  • Yonge-University

    Votes: 44 51.2%

  • Yellow Line

    Votes: 18 20.9%

  • Line 1

    Votes: 5 5.8%

  • Other (explain in post)

    Votes: 4 4.7%
  • Total voters
    86
GenerationW said:
The CBTATAT (Can't-Believe-There's-A-Thread-About-This) line
Click to expand...

The point of this thread is the poll. I just wanted to see what people's opinions were about the question (which is somewhat relevant right now because they are currently debating a bunch of name options related to the Spadina Subway Extension).

Note that one of the proposed new options has more than twice as many votes as the current name.
 
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I'm not sure if it's been mentioned in this thread, however I was driving on Jane Street today, just south of the 407 and I saw the signage for the subway expansion and I noticed that it was referred to as the "Toronto York Spadina" subway expansion. Maybe the TTC has plans to name it such once the line is operational?

If fact it's even on the TTC website as such.
"The Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension Project (TYSSE) will provide a critical extension for the existing Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) subway system across the municipal boundary between the City of Toronto and The Regional Municipality of York (York Region)."
 
JoeParez said:
I'm not sure if it's been mentioned in this thread, however I was driving on Jane Street today, just south of the 407 and I saw the signage for the subway expansion and I noticed that it was referred to as the "Toronto York Spadina" subway expansion. Maybe the TTC has plans to name it such once the line is operational?

If fact it's even on the TTC website as such.
"The Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension Project (TYSSE) will provide a critical extension for the existing Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) subway system across the municipal boundary between the City of Toronto and The Regional Municipality of York (York Region)."
Click to expand...

TYSSE is the official name of the extension.
 
JoeParez said:
I'm not sure if it's been mentioned in this thread, however I was driving on Jane Street today, just south of the 407 and I saw the signage for the subway expansion and I noticed that it was referred to as the "Toronto York Spadina" subway expansion. Maybe the TTC has plans to name it such once the line is operational?

If fact it's even on the TTC website as such.
"The Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension Project (TYSSE) will provide a critical extension for the existing Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) subway system across the municipal boundary between the City of Toronto and The Regional Municipality of York (York Region)."
Click to expand...

No. The "Toronto York Spadina Subway Extension" is the name of the extension project, not the name of the line. It is an extension of the Spadina subway from Toronto to York Region (and York University).
 
reaperexpress said:
No. The "Toronto York Spadina Subway Extension" is the name of the extension project, not the name of the line. It is an extension of the Spadina subway from Toronto to York Region (and York University).
Click to expand...

Yes, I understand that is the project name; I found it interesting that it was named as such and my point was maybe the TTC has plans to rename the line "Toronto York Spadina" once the line is fully operational.

For conversation purposes, the name would make sense. However, it would be odd to continue to include Spadina in the name if you're going to eliminate Yonge from it.
Maybe Toronto - York would be a suitable name?
 
JoeParez said:
Yes, I understand that is the project name; I found it interesting that it was named as such and my point was maybe the TTC has plans to rename the line "Toronto York Spadina" once the line is fully operational.
Click to expand...

It's a logical name for the extension, but it would make a stupid name for the line because:

JoeParez said:
it would be odd to continue to include Spadina in the name if you're going to eliminate Yonge from it.
Click to expand...

The TTC does not plan to rename the line "Toronto - York" or "Toronto- York Spadina".
 
JoeParez said:
Yes, I understand that is the project name; I found it interesting that it was named as such and my point was maybe the TTC has plans to rename the line "Toronto York Spadina" once the line is fully operational.
Click to expand...

No. The extension is an extension of the Spadina Line (the route from St.George to Downsview) from Toronto to York Region. The reason Yonge is left of is that the Yonge line (the route from Union to Finch) is not being extended and the reason the University is left off is that what the TTC considers the University line (the route from Union to St.George) is not being extended either.
 
I'm for Yellow. Think of the poor tourist from Poughkeepsie!!

I recognize that the percentage of TTC riders who are visitors is low. But occasional users ... those numbers start to add up.

Despite the fact the majority of riders would have a new nomenclature to deal with, I would be willing to sacrifice the local namings. Of course, anyone would be free to call the BD line whatever they want -- but do the locals even agree on what they call our two main subway lines? It would be the media that might make the difference -- "the Green line is currently closed between X and X", etc.

I'm in DC where the colour branding of Metro was key to introducing a whole new system not only to locals but to the tremendous number of annual visitors. It is simple. No numbers are used and I don't know the history of that decision. (Of course too few subway operators seem to consider tourists when they announce each stop over the PA -- some have said them so many times the words have mushed together... It's very DC but can be very difficult for visitors.)

Do folks who voted for the YUS or YU options feel these names have a unique cultural value, in the same way that many (like me) want to keep the TTC subway font as part of our daily lives?

And when it comes to battling for subway construction, wouldn't it help to have simpler names? DRL is clunky and indicates its biggest political liability -- it's seen as a downtown-oriented line. Why not pick a colour now and get folks used to it?

Ed D.
 
I don't think anyone is suggesting the DRL will (or should) actually be called 'DRL' once built. But using current naming schemes it would likely be saddled with Don Mills - Front - Jane, or Pape - King - Keele, or some messy variation. You might be right...maybe switching to colours is not a bad idea.
 
Thinking about how out-of-towners use the subway is interesting. I overheard a dude on a cellphone the other day talking to a (presumably) out-of-towner friend. He instructed that his friend should take the "right side of the U" subway to Dundas.
 
I would represent the line with a yellow circle with the number one in it. I don't think calling the line the yellow line makes sense because it requires colour vision to understand, doesn't explain where it goes, and when you look at larger networks some of the line colours don't look too far apart. I voted Yonge-University for the name, but it should also be known as the yellow line and line 1.
 
I think the current usage of the colour yellow is already fairly effective. Some tourists (and some of my suburban friends) know the lines by their colours on the map. I was once waiting for a southbound University train at St. George and some tourists came up and asked whether this was the right platform to take "the Yellow line to Union".

The signage is already colour-coded enough that you don't even need to know the name of the line anyway.

I voted for Yonge-University, not because of cultural value, but because it distinguishes between the two sides of the line. If I'm downtown with friends, I might ask them "Are you taking the Yonge line or the University line home?" What would I ask if the line were simply called the Yellow line?
 
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The TTC should adopt a standardized naming policy and use it in all communications, though. It doesn't do much good if a tourist knows of the YUS as the Yellow Line when they hear a garbled announcement that there's been a delay on the "Yonge line."
 
YUS = the U line or the #1 line

BD = The #2 line or the east-west line

Sheppard = The white elephant or the no where line.

DRL = The relights line or the #3 line
 
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