News   Mar 14, 2025
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News   Mar 14, 2025
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News   Mar 14, 2025
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Toronto Crosstown LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

You don't need to sound confrontational if you disagree
What was confrontational about that? You offered an opinion, I offered a counter opinion. If we wanted to extract money out of CF in the name of accurate wayfinding, it's fair do's to question why we don't do that for all other names that refer to institutions.

Yorkdale's wasn't a name change
How does this materially change the equation? If you have an objection to 'free advertising' this surely fits the bill, new name or no.

Scarborough Centre was not named after the mall (which is called Scaborough Town Centre)

Semantics. If you called the station Fairview instead of Fairview Mall, you'll get the same result.

York University is right in the middle of it and more than likely built to serve the university.
Don Mills, being right under Fairview Mall, is also not incidental to it.
 
In Metro Vancouver, under regional planning, Burnaby has two regional town centres called "Brentwood Town Centre" and "Lougheed Town Centre" , each of which is centred on a SkyTrain station bearing those names.
Each station also has an adjacent shopping mall.
Brentwood Mall had changed its name to Brentwood Town Centre following the 2002ish arrival of SkyTrain, but has now rebranded to "The Amazing Brentwood".
Lougheed Mall had also changed its name to Lougheed Town Centre (I think), but has now rebranded to "The City of Lougheed".
I suspect that the new names were chosen to avoid confusion with the broader regional planning names.
Both are owned by the same developer - Shape Properties.

Also in Burnaby, Eaton Centre Metrotown and Metrotown Centre (both adjacent to SkyTrain's Metrotown Station) were rebranded as "Metropolis at Metrotown" when the malls were combined under common ownership (Ivanhoe Cambridge), which retains the distinction for the Metrotown regional town centre.
 
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What was confrontational about that? You offered an opinion, I offered a counter opinion. If we wanted to extract money out of CF in the name of accurate wayfinding, it's fair do's to question why we don't do that for all other names that refer to institutions.


How does this materially change the equation? If you have an objection to 'free advertising' this surely fits the bill, new name or no.



Semantics. If you called the station Fairview instead of Fairview Mall, you'll get the same result.


Don Mills, being right under Fairview Mall, is also not incidental to it.
Now is probably the time for the TTC/Metrolinx to come up with a naming policy that considers duplications. Just adding "West" or "North" might not cut it

Imagine if you had line 6 extend east. You'd have Don Mills, Don Mills North, and Don Mills Even more North 🤣

You could go the Chicago way and just embrace having multiple stations with the same name and add the cross street
 
In Metro Vancouver, under regional planning, Burnaby has two regional town centres called "Brentwood Town Centre" and "Lougheed Town Centre" , each of which is centred on a SkyTrain station bearing those names.
Each station also has an adjacent shopping mall.
Brentwood Mall had changed its name to Brentwood Town Centre following the 2002ish arrival of SkyTrain, but has now rebranded to "The Amazing Brentwood".
Lougheed Mall had also changed its name to Lougheed Town Centre (I think), but has now rebranded to "The City of Lougheed".
I suspect that the new names were chosen to avoid confusion with the broader regional planning names.
Both are owned by the same developer - Shape Properties.

Also in Burnaby, Eaton Centre Metrotown and Metrotown Centre (both adjacent to SkyTrain's Metrotown Station) were rebranded as "Metropolis at Metrotown" when the malls were combined under common ownership (Ivanhoe Cambridge), which retains the distinction for the Metrotown regional town centre.
Ottawa has 4 stations named after the malls they are attached to

Rideau and St Laurent are both the mall and the street

Bayshore is both the mall and technically the neighborhood, but if you say Bayshore in Ottawa everyone thinks you mean the mall, especially because the neighborhood was rebranded as Accora Village

Place d'Orléans is completely named after the mall. The street it's on is Champlain
 
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Failing this, Don Mills on Line 4 should've been renamed Fairview, and Science Centre should've been Don Mills.
Fairview is a business name with no relation to the actual official neighbourhood name—the station straddles the border of Don Valley Village and Henry Farm (my preference, if it were to change). The mall was named after parent company The Fairview Corporation. It would be like renaming Queen and Dundas as Eaton Centre South and Eaton Centre North, respectively.
 
Why? Does Yorkdale pay for its station? Scarborough Town Centre? Sherway for being called out on the bus destination signs? What about other institutions? York University?

Yorkdale was already the existing neighbourhood name, and Scarborough Town Centre (not the name of the station) was a government initiative (building urban hubs in the former municipalities) before it was a mall. York University is a government subsidized educational institution. Naming stuff after pure capitalist ventures would be government patronage. Listing nearby sights and destinations on signs and in announcements is different.
 
Yorkdale was already the existing neighbourhood name, and Scarborough Town Centre (not the name of the station) was a government initiative (building urban hubs in the former municipalities) before it was a mall. York University is a government subsidized educational institution. Naming stuff after pure capitalist ventures would be government patronage. Listing nearby sights and destinations on signs and in announcements is different.

So what is the alternative? If, for some reason, we HAD to change the name of Don Mills (we don't, but let's pretend for the sake of argument), Fairview Mall is a location that is going to be known to far more people than Parkway Forest. That's the trouble with suggesting station names based on neighbourhoods - we are not in New York, where neighborhood names are commonly known. A person from lower Manhattan will be aware of places like Coney Island, Red Hopk, Flushing, or Washington Heights, but with the exception of a few choice areas like the Annex, most neighborhood names in this city are not known to those living outside of its borders.

If we don't want stations named for private businesses, we need to do a much better job at city building. I don't like government subsidies of private businesses, but at some point we have to set aside our principles and be pragmatic. I come from Bratislava, Slovakia, where this exact aversion to corporate stop names by the new transit management has caused stops right next to major shopping centres to be renamed to pearls such as "(Street Name) Shopping Centre", or "Next to the park". Is this really for the general benefit of the public?

The only viable alternative is Don Mills - Sheppard.
 
Labour Day is September 1st. School returns on September 2nd. The TTC usually implements route changes during the weekend of Labour Day to correspond to the return of school.

We can expect routes to be changed when Line 5 and 6 open.

Better to open both Line 5 & 6, along with all the bus route changes, on the long Labour Day weekend, than to have several changes spread out on different weekends in September.
 

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