Poll: What Should The New Eglinton/Scarborough LRT/Metro Be Called?

[golodhendil]

You've reverted to my comment about Metro meaning Metropolitan, like the DC Metro is shorted from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, such systems do not refer exclusively to an underground right-of-way.

I mean, goodness gracious, of course "metro" is short for metropolitan - it is where the short form came from! Whether it was a direct adoption of the term or a sort-of rederivation (as is the case for DC, but which explicitly chose the "metro" moniker for its worldwide reference to rapid transit - go look up the history), there is little ambiguity among anyone that "metro" refers to the rail system in the context of transit. Just go on the street in DC and ask anyone to take you to the metro - no one is going to take you to a bus stop (unless you specify Metrobus; or unless you're in one of those American cities that futilely try to brand their bus systems as "Metro" in order to attract ridership, such as Cincinnati). And so what if the systems aren't exclusively in underground ROWs? Even the original lines of the original Metro has significant aboveground / elevated sections. No one in Paris, in the 1900s or nowadays, would call the elevated sections anything other than Metro, just like no one in London would call a "non-tube" section of the Tube anything other than Tube/Underground, or no one here would call the aboveground sections of our subway anything other than subway.

Also, I highly doubt Russia, Japan, China, and Korea use the English/French term of Metro, but have their own native language term, which we replace with what Westerns might call it.

Then your doubt could have been cured easily by a simple Wikipedia or Google search, if you don't feel like checking the respective system's websites (or, here you go: метро, メトロ, 메트로), and transliterate the Cyrillic, Katakana or Hangul into Latin alphabet and see what they say. Or just check their English websites and read their official English names. And even if it were all just Westerners projecting their own terminology, why would they have used "Metro" if that word, to quote yourself, "only means metropolitan, nothing specific about transit"? (Of course, the East Asian systems also have a common term derived from their common linguistic tradition of translating, rather than transliterating, foreign terms into Sinic ones - 地鐵/地下鉄/지하철, or literally "underground railway")

Until the 1890s there were not underground railroads, unless you count the Thames Tunnel or other Brunel rail bridges, so what a surface railroad called itself is immaterial to the question of what subsurface transit was called after the innovation of tunnelling supportive shields. To take that tact, the Tower Subway was built in 1869, which was the template used by C&SLR in the 1890s for the first 'tube'.

Um, double-u tee eff? So underground railways built by cut-and-cover (such as the MetR and the District, or the Paris Metro, and pretty much at least parts of most systems) are suddenly "surface transit"? I mean, one can reasonably point out the difference between a cut-and-cover underground vs a deep-bore tube, but to consider the former to not be underground at all? Are you sure you know what you're talking about? If you are going to quote Wikipedia almost verbatim, at least read a couple of sentences further down.

 

[Earlscourt_Lad]

Why would we start calling transit here a metro? The terminology (with regards to transit) has never really been commonly used in Toronto; and likely most in Toronto think of Metro (the gov't) when they hear it. It reeks of pseudo-Europeanism to adopt a name because Paris, Rome, Moscow, etc., call it that.

 

[golodhendil]

Why would we start calling transit here a metro? The terminology (with regards to transit) has never really been commonly used in Toront;

Agreed. To quote myself for the third time,

it is pointless to introduce new terminology to Toronto's transit at this point, for this one line.

and likely most in Toronto think of Metro (the gov't) when they hear it. It reeks of pseudo-Europeanism to adopt a name because Paris, Rome, Moscow, etc., call it that.

As for these reasons, give it another 10 years, and I'd say a significant number of people (if not the majority) would have no idea a Metro government existed. And as for pseudo-Europeanism, why don't we call it pseudo-Asianism because Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, etc also use it? How about pseudo-internationalism because most other places in the world use it? Why didn't we call "subway" a pseudo-Americanism because so many American cities used it? Afterall, "subway" and "metro" are each used once in Canada and so neither term is any more or less "Canadian" than the other?

 

[kEiThZ]

Could it be an english/french thing in Canada? Subway in English. Metro in French.

As for Toronto. It's going to be called the xyz "subway" or xyz "line" just like the other lines on the subway map. It's ridiculous to try and change established naming conventions for no purpose, other than to bring us in line with words used elsewhere. If we're going to that why not have Toronto stick to its British heritage and call it the "Underground" officially and "tube" unofficially?

 

[Filip]

Renaming the subway system to metro would probably come as a massive new branding exercise for the TTC.

I can easily see Metrolinx absorbing it within the next decade, which means a massive rebranding effort will take place where hopefully that godawful archaic logo from the 1950s gets the boot and we get something that actually looks like rapid transit.

Excellent

Good

Alright

'The 50s called and they want their design diarrhea back'

 

[golodhendil]

If we're going to that why not have Toronto stick to its British heritage and call it the "Underground" officially and "tube" unofficially?

Well of the three rapid transit systems in Britain (four if considering the DLR a separate system), there is one Underground/Tube, one Subway, and one Metro. So that doesn't help. (but since the "Subway" was used a decade before either "Tube" or "Underground", I guess that means it's fine for us to stick with subway. Unless we start fearing it reeks of being pseudo-British)

 

[nfitz]

Well of the three rapid transit systems in Britain (four if considering the DLR a separate system), there is one Underground/Tube, one Subway, and one Metro. So that doesn't help. (but since the "Subway" was used a decade before either "Tube" or "Underground", I guess that means it's fine for us to stick with subway. Unless we start fearing it reeks of being pseudo-British)

There is the other British rapid-transit system as well ... at least it was British until we gave Hong Kong back to China ... but back then they called them trains.

Everywhere is different.

What will we call Eglinton? Eglinton ... perhaps Eglinton Line. I'm sure many will call it the Eglinton Subway. What will catch on? Who knows ... if you'd asked me in 1984 what our $1 coin would be called, I'd never have said a loonie!

If Vancouver can call the Canada Line subway a Skytrain, I'm sure we can call an underground LRT train a subway! But it's time that will make the decision ... not us!

 

[M II A II R II K]

It won't be subway since it's not the same as the regular subway that's already here. Maybe they can call it Submerged LRT or Submerged Streetcar.

 

[nfitz]

It won't be subway since it's not the same as the regular subway that's already here.

So Vancouver can't call the Canada Line a Skytrain because it's not the same as the regular Skytrain that's already there?

Perhaps London shouldn't call the Hammersmith and City line a Tube, because it't not the same as the regular Tube trains.

 

[golodhendil]

There is the other British rapid-transit system as well ... at least it was British until we gave Hong Kong back to China ... but back then they called them trains.

No, we've always called it the MTR, or the "Underground Railway" in Chinese (though after the merger with KCR the official Chinese name is now "HK Railway"). "Train" (and the equivalent Chinese term) is (was) reserved exclusively for the surface-running suburban rail KCR.

It won't be subway since it's not the same as the regular subway that's already here. Maybe they can call it Submerged LRT or Submerged Streetcar.

Better tell Paris they can't call both the rubber-tired and steel-wheeled lines Metro. Or tell Köln that they can't call both their HF and LF lines U-bahn. And Amsterdam and Boston must be out of their minds to call their LRT and HRT lines, with 3-4 mutually incompatible rolling stocks, by the same name.

 

[nfitz]

No, we've always called it the MTR, or the "Underground Railway" in Chinese (though after the merger with KCR the official Chinese name is now "HK Railway"). "Train" (and the equivalent Chinese term) is (was) reserved exclusively for the surface-running suburban rail KCR.

Did they really say the MTR is coming? I'm sticking to the English-language usage here.

 

[M II A II R II K]

There's still a difference between an official name and what people on the street call it.

But knowing the TTC they'll end up calling it the Eglinton Rocket, or Crosstown Rocket if we're lucky!

 

[Tewder]

It won't be subway since it's not the same as the regular subway that's already here. Maybe they can call it Submerged LRT or Submerged Streetcar.

I think you are overthinking this!

Could it be an english/french thing in Canada? Subway in English. Metro in French.

As for Toronto. It's going to be called the xyz "subway" or xyz "line" just like the other lines on the subway map. It's ridiculous to try and change established naming conventions for no purpose, other than to bring us in line with words used elsewhere. If we're going to that why not have Toronto stick to its British heritage and call it the "Underground" officially and "tube" unofficially?

I agree with you. We should keep with the local vernacular on these things and they will likely stick better. I think the Midtown Line would be a better choice going forward, given that hopefully there will be other 'crosstown' lines one day.

'The 50s called and they want their design diarrhea back'

I'm not a branding expert by any means but why would you forego the decades of branding already established in exchange for something new that will carry alomost zero collective meaning? All you will do is end up having to wait another 60 years to establish the same sort of shared reaction, by which point the 'look' wont be 'fashionable' or current anymore either... and is fashionable/current what we really want? These kinds of fonts/logos etc become iconic over time whether it's street signs in Paris or underground signs in London, and even if they are tweaked ever so slightly over time the essence of them remains familiar enough within the urban landscape to keep them feeling timeless.

 

[DSC]

We could just call it the Gravy Line?

 

[smarches]

Toronto's subways should be...
#1 (Yellow Line)
#2 (Green Line)
#3 (Blue Line) <-- my choice for this poll
#4 (Purple Line)

I agree with a system similar to this. Toronto should have colour names for the lines. It sounds silly telling someone to get on the Yonge-Univeristy-Spadina line and then transfer to the Bloor-Danforth line. Telling someone to take the Yellow to the Green line is way more simple and to the point. Although I do agree that Gravy Line is probably the most appropriate name for the line.