TTC: Redesigning TTC Signage

[nfitz]

I can't agree with you. Having a mixed naming system makes no sense. I feel it would only serve to confuse customers to have some lines numbered and others without numbers/letters

I can assure you that even a 2-year old knows the difference between a subway train and a GO train (based on my observations of my own 2-year old). The current system works fine. No one is confused. No signage or wayfinding could be added based on these. If you add a G or C at Kipling or Kennedy stations, you'll complete confuse people. They know damn well what service they are looking for ... and simply need to see the GO symbol rather than making everyone try and understand 7 new and different symbols.

 

[gweed123]

I can assure you that even a 2-year old knows the difference between a subway train and a GO train (based on my observations of my own 2-year old). The current system works fine. No one is confused. No signage or wayfinding could be added based on these. If you add a G or C at Kipling or Kennedy stations, you'll complete confuse people. They know damn well what service they are looking for ... and simply need to see the GO symbol rather than making everyone try and understand 7 new and different symbols.

I do see your point. Perhaps for wayfinding within TTC parts of the station a simple "GO" could suffice, but once people are actually in the GO area of a station, specific route labels would be nice, especially if different routes are on different tracks. It would also help with identification if you have different routes running on the same tracks, as a red "A" is much easier to identify at a glance on the side of a train than reading "Oshawa" or "Lakeshore - Oshawa" or something like that. What I'd like to see is something like "(A) Oshawa via Union".

For example this from Berlin: The outside of the station shows the S-Bahn symbol, but when you get to platform level there's details on what routes are coming on what track and when, and the front of every train has the route number (in this case it was S2) followed by the terminus.

 

[P23]

I mentioned this in another thread, but I'm not completely sold on calling the two sides of the #1 Line the Yonge Line and the University-Spadina Line at Union. It's basically too repetitive. It's like saying the #1 Line's Yonge Line. The two sides should be referred to as "branches" which is actually a more normal international standard. So you'd have the #1 Line, Yonge Branch and the #1 Line University-Spadina (or possibly rename it St. George) branch.

Thoughts?

UPDATE: I admit, these aren't genuine branches, like a Northern Line in London, so perhaps "arms" are better. Or maybe I'm just way over-thinking this.

I'm not sure about labeling them as branches. I think the ideal situation would be to have them as "Line 1 to Downsview" or maybe even "Line 1 to Finch via Yonge", although this gets tricky with the University line.

Unfortunately the TTC seems to want to keep the line names for whatever reason, as you've no doubt noticed they use them in addition to their new numbering scheme. It's a bit frustrating sometimes, I know they're trying to make things better but stuff like this is holding them back.

 

[P23]

What happens when Rob Ford's SmartTrack starts operations? Do we change all of the GO train symbols just because the new trains use wires? But people might confuse those with the streetcar graphic! What about places still using diesel by necessity? We better keep both on the signs to prevent confusion! But wait! What about the airport train? Those look different too. We need that too!

Come on, let's get real. We can't go around wasting taxpayer money on crap that doesn't matter just to please a few anal retentive train hobbyists who think the graphic is "misleading" because it doesn't look exactly 100% like the real train.

Nice meltdown. I already explained what they're for, maybe if you opened your eyes when walking around TTC stations you would notice that the pictographs already represent unique vehicles. Even the SRT has it's own pictograph. I just updated them.

 

[Electrify]

Just to add fuel to the fire, GO bus routes are also numbered...

 

[Long Island Mike]

Like how they used to do it?

As GO moved away from that, I guess they didn't like it.

But they don't have the signage issues that TTC has. There's no place I'd think such signs are necessary - except Union ... and that changes by the minute.

NF and Everyone: Sometimes a change like this never catches on...I'd rather see "Lakeshore West" then "A line" used by GO...

A great example occurred in Philadelphia: Back around 1990 SEPTA attempted to re-name its rail transit routes by color in place of
their established names: The Market-Frankford Line to the Blue Line; The Broad Street Line to the Orange Line and the 10-11-13-34-36 LRT routes
became the "Green Lines"...

This change never was received well by riders and within two years was quietly withdrawn...The color coding - including MFL and BSL car color schemes -
remains intact and the color names were downgraded to internal use primarily...LI MIKE

 

[car4041]

Unfortunately the TTC seems to want to keep the line names for whatever reason, as you've no doubt noticed they use them in addition to their new numbering scheme. It's a bit frustrating sometimes, I know they're trying to make things better but stuff like this is holding them back.

I expect they're keeping the line names, at least for now, because that's how the vast majority of people know and refer to the lines. I fail to see how this is "holding them back". There's nothing inherently better about line numbers. Some cities use names, some use letters/numbers, some use colours. Is the TTC bus system being "held back" because people still talk about the Wellesley bus rather than Bus 94?

Having line names is useful in Toronto's network because there's a more-or-less 1:1 correspondence between streets and lines. In a city with a spaghetti network like Paris, you need an abstract naming system because there's no other option. But when you have the option of naming lines concretely after the street they run on, as in Toronto, it seems to me that that's a benefit, not a flaw.

 

[P23]

I expect they're keeping the line names, at least for now, because that's how the vast majority of people know and refer to the lines. I fail to see how this is "holding them back". There's nothing inherently better about line numbers. Some cities use names, some use letters/numbers, some use colours. Is the TTC bus system being "held back" because people still talk about the Wellesley bus rather than Bus 94?

Having line names is useful in Toronto's network because there's a more-or-less 1:1 correspondence between streets and lines. In a city with a spaghetti network like Paris, you need an abstract naming system because there's no other option. But when you have the option of naming lines concretely after the street they run on, as in Toronto, it seems to me that that's a benefit, not a flaw.

They have no plans to discard line names, and it's holding them back because they are now using two naming schemes at the same time, the old route names and their new numbers.

Line names seem like a good idea in grid-based Toronto until they aren't. See: the University/Spadina/Allen/Jane/Whatever line.

 

[car4041]

Line names seem like a good idea in grid-based Toronto until they aren't. See: the University/Spadina/Allen/Jane/Whatever line.

So occasionally we have to tolerate a slightly abstract name like the "Spadina subway" (really Spadina/Allen/whatever) or the "Queen streetcar" (really Queen/Lake Shore) or the "Spadina streetcar" (really Spadina/Queen's Quay), in which the name refers to the street that the core of the line runs on. This is still much less abstract than an arbitrary number.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with numbers -- they're useful in contexts where space is at a premium -- but the names are extremely useful too. Witness the fact that people very often refer to bus and streetcar routes by their names rather than their numbers, even though it's been decades since they were given numbers.

They have no plans to discard line names, and it's holding them back because they are now using two naming schemes at the same time, the old route names and their new numbers.

Again, it's been that way for the bus network for decades, and I don't see how anything has been "held back".

 

[flyinggoats]

Line names seem like a good idea in grid-based Toronto until they aren't. See: the University/Spadina/Allen/Jane/Whatever line.

If Line 2 is extended, we'll have the Bloor-Danforth-Scarborough-McCowan (BDSM) line.

 

[DavidH]

Just to add fuel to the fire, GO bus routes are also numbered...

It's only relatively recently that this has been true - it happened something like five years ago or thereabouts.

Having said that, my unscientific sampling at the bus stop waiting for my trip home tells me that most people do tend to refer to GO buses by their numbers, but that's probably because the actual route names are long ("Oshawa-Finch Express"), fairly generic, and not displayed on bus signage. The numbers are actually clearer than the names, whereas for TTC buses it's arguable that the opposite is true.

 

[DavidH]

What happens when Rob Ford's SmartTrack starts operations?

Small correction; SmartTrack is John Tory's plan.

 

[nfitz]

It's only relatively recently that this has been true - it happened something like five years ago or thereabouts.

I'm not sure about that. For example the Milton 401 Bus is route 27. And a snapshot of GO's website back in 1999 shows that the Milton 401 bus is 27 - https://web.archive.org/web/19991127154218/http://www.gotransit.com/access/lstser.asp?

They might have started used the numbers more publicly of late, but I think they've existed for a long time.

 

[DavidH]

I'm not sure about that. For example the Milton 401 Bus is route 27. And a snapshot of GO's website back in 1999 shows that the Milton 401 bus is 27 - https://web.archive.org/web/19991127154218/http://www.gotransit.com/access/lstser.asp?

They might have started used the numbers more publicly of late, but I think they've existed for a long time.

It's complicated. The historic numbers on the web site and GO timetables were called table numbers, not route numbers. Tables often contained what today would be different routes . For example, the "Oshawa Finch Express" trips used to, before it got called route 96, be part of table 94, which was mostly the Oshawa Highway 2 bus. The express buses got put in table 94 because it was geographically close and because there were only a few express trips, but it really wasn't the same route at all. One was a local bus running along highway 2 (in Durham Region) to Yorkdale, the other was an express bus running along highway 401 to Finch.

At any rate, that's largely a semantic discussion over what "route number" actually means. My previous post was really about on-bus signage, which previously just displayed a destination, possibly with a "via" designation if one made sense. For example, what's now the 96 used to display "Oshawa via 401".

 

[P23]

So occasionally we have to tolerate a slightly abstract name like the "Spadina subway" (really Spadina/Allen/whatever) or the "Queen streetcar" (really Queen/Lake Shore) or the "Spadina streetcar" (really Spadina/Queen's Quay), in which the name refers to the street that the core of the line runs on. This is still much less abstract than an arbitrary number.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with numbers -- they're useful in contexts where space is at a premium -- but the names are extremely useful too. Witness the fact that people very often refer to bus and streetcar routes by their names rather than their numbers, even though it's been decades since they were given numbers.



Again, it's been that way for the bus network for decades, and I don't see how anything has been "held back".

Sorry but there are just too many exceptions in our network for naming lines after a street to be meaningful, in fact Yonge and Eglinton are the only lines this works for. It's a mild convenience that doesn't even mean anything to the people that benefit most from wayfinding, people who aren't familiar with the city. It adds additional information to signage and announcements for a minor benefit.

The bus thing is entirely different, in a lot of cities they're only numbered and display the terminus on the headboard. And this is purely anecdotal but everyone I know uses numbers like "the 510 streetcar" instead.