Toronto Eglinton Line 5 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[T3G]

This reminds me of how I was once told Yorkdale is not a commercial name, because the nearby neighbourhood that few people have heard of was also called Yorkdale.

The fact that the station came 14 years after the mall with a coincidentally identical name was apparently not relevant...

 

[Mind_the_gap]

Ironically, lefts never had to be banned on Leslie nor interact with the LRT at all in any way. It could be accomplished with one of the simplest fixes in human history. One that is used everywhere around the world with LRT's already, but Toronto is completely blind to because "we do things best here" and we are the centre of the universe. This solution is so groundbreaking it will completely shock you to your core: have had the LRT leave the Laird tunnel to the south of Eglinton and move the street to where the LRT is in the centre. Then have the LRT continue on the south side of a shifted Eglinton until it goes under at Don Mills again.

This radical, mind blowing invention (for Toronto, elsewhere in the world its the norm) would have allowed Leslie to have an intersection that doesn't interfere with the LRT at all, because its a 3 way street that only goes north, and meant the entire segment from Laird to Don Mills could have been completely grade separated.

Unfortunately this would have meant doing things in a way that we don't do them in Toronto (streetcars run in the centre lane and thats the word of the gospel in Toronto gosh darnit!) which is something Toronto is incapable of doing because we love to look at our own reflection in Lake Ontario sooo much.

And before people start commenting on Queen's Quay West or Sumach/Cherry...

It was my understanding why we couldn't do this was because of Rob Ford's underground proposal, and the City's desire to push this through as planned.

@robmausser is right. If we hadn't been so quick to push Line 5 forward to oppose Ford, we could have had a dedicated ROW between YYZ/Renforth/Mount Dennis and whatever Don Mills calls itself...

Not to beat a dead horse, but the South Side-alignment was correct, and we'll be paying for this in decades to come, especially if every other train turns back at Laird.

Look at all the bus routes terminating at Don Valley...

I'll already be punished with a linear transfer at Sheppard (51A/151).

 

[robmausser]

And before people start commenting on Queen's Quay West or Sumach/Cherry...

It was my understanding why we couldn't do this was because of Rob Ford's underground proposal, and the City's desire to push this through as planned.

@robmausser is right. If we hadn't been so quick to push Line 5 forward to oppose Ford, we could have had a dedicated ROW between YYZ/Renforth/Mount Dennis and whatever Don Mills calls itself...

Not to beat a dead horse, but the South Side-alignment was correct, and we'll be paying for this in decades to come, especially if every other train turns back at Laird.

Look at all the bus routes terminating at Don Valley...

I'll already be punished with a linear transfer at Sheppard (51A/151).

Yes the understanding I have is that in order to realign the track to the south, the city had to yet again reopen the file, and you have to accept other proposals as well, which would have given Rob Ford another chance to try and force the whole line to be buried. So they just decided to leave it as is.

I believe it actually would have been possible to have a completely grade-separated line all the way to Bermondsey, if you did the south alignment of the Leslie section, and then rebuilt the DVP ramps, and simply disallowed a small road to not cross the LRT. The rest of the line until Bermondsey in the east doesn't interact with a single intersection, because there are on/off ramps for several streets in anticipation of the Richview Highway.

 

[ShonTron]

Yes the understanding I have is that in order to realign the track to the south, the city had to yet again reopen the file, and you have to accept other proposals as well, which would have given Rob Ford another chance to try and force the whole line to be buried. So they just decided to leave it as is.

I believe it actually would have been possible to have a completely grade-separated line all the way to Bermondsey, if you did the south alignment of the Leslie section, and then rebuilt the DVP ramps, and simply disallowed a small road to not cross the LRT. The rest of the line until Bermondsey in the east doesn't interact with a single intersection, because there are on/off ramps for several streets in anticipation of the Richview Highway.

Nothing to do with the Richview Expressway, which was only intended to link the 401/427 interchange with the Highway 400 extension somewhere around Black Creek & Eglinton.

It was simply a high speed arterial built by Metro in the 1950s to connect two previously disconnected sections of Eglinton between Leaside and the Golden Mile, which did not cross the Don Valley.

 

[Transportfan]

lol maybe because no has ever heard of the Village of Eglinton, which also happens to share its name with the entire stretch of the EGLINTON crosstown line which runs on EGLINTON avenue. anyway this line has bigger problems than the names of the stations

That name choice is particularly striking given Metrolinx' overboard insistence on avoiding confusion, considering that in other cases they used odd names where confusion would be unlikely anyways, such as the on-street stops, where people would just see them as analogous to bus or streetcar stops, even for the Hurontario LRT, which is not even in Toronto.

 

[Richard White]

Did someone rename this thread or am I on drugs?

 

[reinventingthewheel]

Did someone rename this thread or am I on drugs?

Yes the Crosstown moniker was dropped though I cannot speak to the latter.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

That name choice is particularly striking given Metrolinx' overboard insistence on avoiding confusion, considering that in other cases they used odd names where confusion would be unlikely anyways, such as the on-street stops, where people would just see them as analogous to bus or streetcar stops, even for the Hurontario LRT, which is not even in Toronto.

Would it be so bad to just embrace duplicate station names, the exercise in avoiding it is just going to get harder and harder over the years, and names will become more and more obscure historical references

New York, Chicago and Paris seem to do fine with duplicates, although Chicago's duplicates on the same line is a bridge to far in my books.

 

[crs1026]

Would it be so bad to just embrace duplicate station names, the exercise in avoiding it is just going to get harder and harder over the years, and names will become more and more obscure historical references

New York, Chicago and Paris seem to do fine with duplicates, although Chicago's duplicates on the same line is a bridge to far in my books.

Totally agree. The whole business of obsessing over naming conventions is a bit nerdy and pedantic in my view. It leans to overthinking and unnecessary perfectionism. Very much like railcar paint schemes, locomotive horn selection, and GO cabcar spotting.

The most important things to appreciate about station naming are
a) any naming protocol is inherently likely to have contradictions and logical inconsistencies, that defy solution, so good is good enough - there is no perfect answer
b) real users especially those with regular repeat routes quickly learn and grow accustomed to odd place names that have no intuitive meaning, so arbitrary place names mostly work fine
c) real tourists don't memorize naming conventions, nor does the naming convention from the last city they visited assist them when visiting the next city - so they mostly do know how to read maps and figure things out on their phones
d) place naming decisionmaking is a gold mine for high priced consulting, usually with only marginal value added, so while irresistible to ineffective bureaucracies like ML, is something best avoided

- Paul

 

[felix123]

Would it be so bad to just embrace duplicate station names, the exercise in avoiding it is just going to get harder and harder over the years, and names will become more and more obscure historical references

New York, Chicago and Paris seem to do fine with duplicates, although Chicago's duplicates on the same line is a bridge to far in my books.

Every time I've ridden the L and they announce Cicero for the 5th time, I think of this:

 

[Cyrobyte]

Would it be so bad to just embrace duplicate station names, the exercise in avoiding it is just going to get harder and harder over the years, and names will become more and more obscure historical references

New York, Chicago and Paris seem to do fine with duplicates, although Chicago's duplicates on the same line is a bridge to far in my books.

They definitely should embrace duplicate station names.

 

[robmausser]

Yes the Crosstown moniker was dropped though I cannot speak to the latter.

 

[ARG1]

Would it be so bad to just embrace duplicate station names, the exercise in avoiding it is just going to get harder and harder over the years, and names will become more and more obscure historical references

New York, Chicago and Paris seem to do fine with duplicates, although Chicago's duplicates on the same line is a bridge to far in my books.

Strongly disagree. NYC's subway system can often be pretty confusing for those not familiar with the system or the city. Heck, even in Toronto its not uncommon to find confused tourists at Dundas Station trying to get to the airport because they confused it for Dundas West. If you need to have duplicate station names, they should at least be walking distance from each other (see: Canary Wharf in London).

 

[Kyle Campbell]

Strongly disagree. NYC's subway system can often be pretty confusing for those not familiar with the system or the city. Heck, even in Toronto its not uncommon to find confused tourists at Dundas Station trying to get to the airport because they confused it for Dundas West. If you need to have duplicate station names, they should at least be walking distance from each other (see: Canary Wharf in London).

I feel like in the NYC case, it might be a bit more about the interlining than the station name where people get confused

I'm just saying that trying to avoid duplicates can create as much confusion as what you were trying to avoid. It's hardly a unique problem to the GTA

Ottawa's system isn't huge, yet still has already hit duplicate name issues. Originally the station at Heron and Bronson was called "Confederation Heights", as to not confuse with Heron Transitway station 400m away. It was technically the name for the neighborhood, but not well known, but okayish. Then when the Confederation line was built they needed another name as line didn't pass anywhere near there. Bronson doesn't work as it's on an overpass above the station with no access. They considered Brookfield, but that's not the street it's on. So instead they named it Mooney's Bay, which is the name for the adjacent neighborhood, but most Ottawans think the actual bay when they hear that, which is over 1 km away.

WIth Metrolinx building lines crossing the region you're going to get this situation over and over again.
.
There's a fairly simple solution though, you can number stations like they do in Asia, in which case the names are less important

 

[CapitalSeven]

Please don't take the Ottawa example as a sensible process. For no good reason - in no way was a new name needed - they changed the station name from the neighborhood it is exactly in the centre of to a place it's not even a reasonable walk to.