Toronto Crosstown LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[Tuscani01]

Just think what would happen if it is say, Keele that we are dealing with - you'd have Keele (Bloor-Keele), Eglinton-Keele, Finch-Keele (if not for the alternate name of Finch West, which itself is also problematic should there be a future station along Finch). Also, these names are not error proof - if you just mentioned Keele and neglected to provide the E-W line information (which will inevitably happen), someone will have 3 different options to choose from (if not more, in the future). Why create opportunity for confusion?

AoD

That's grasping at straws. All of our surface routes duplicate street names now and it doesn't cause an issue. Who just says meet me at Keele? That doesn't happen today, and it won't happen tomorrow.

Even if you said meet me at Keele today, I wouldn't know what you were referring to. Keele and what would be my next question.

 

[44 North]

Bah, I don't get the sentiment I'm reading or see the problem with obscure station names. Perhaps we should just get rid of street names altogether and use numbers instead? And in place of neighborhood names just ID blocks by their number. Sure it will make things boring and suburban, but at least it'll be easy to navigate the city!

 

[TheTigerMaster]

What's this obsession with naming stations after street names anyways? Naming them after neighbourhoods is a fairly well established practice pretty much everywhere - and as the subway/transit system expands, you will end up with an increasingly unwieldy amount of duplication and hypennated station names because you inevitably will build stations by grid. Time to get away from that. People don't have any issues figuring out where to get to with station names like Yorkdale, Osgoode, Downsview, St. Patrick or St. Andrew (nor will they with Pioneer Village, VMC, York University), and they aren't about to just because Metrolinx chose this naming convention.

AoD

In my experience, people usually have at best a vague idea where stations named after named after neighbourhoods are located. For example, few people (who aren't regularly in the area) remember where or on what street St. Andrew, Osgoode or St. Patrick are. They may, at best, know that it's on the southern half of University Line, and that's only because the three stations happened to be grouped together. If these three stations were randomly distributed throughout the system, it would be even more difficult to locate them.

I also don't buy these arguments that people will come to associate the name with the neighbourhood. 50 years after the University Line opened, I don't expect that any of you could tell me a thing about the St. Patrick, Osgoode or St. Andrew parishes. Nobody in Toronto associates those names with a geographic area. If you told someone you were in St. Andrew, that person would have no clue what you were talking about. People in Toronto don't understand why those stations were given those names, but accept the names because that's just the way it is.

Station names are navigation tools and thus must be instantly identifiable whenever possible. If most Toronto residents have to go on Google to figure out the location of a station, you've probably failed to name the station correctly. "Dufferin & Eglinton" is instantly identifiable. "Fairbank" is not.

 

[sixrings]

you know north... I was tempted to write that in my last post. Numbering the streets is not a bad idea. The problem is that the our street grid is so far apart I don't think that makes sense outside of downtown. I realize you were most likely being sarcastic but it has crossed my mind several times. Perhaps you are right that people seem to be making a big deal out of it, but it just doesn't seem to make too much sense.. Again why are the underground station hyphen opposed versus the surface stops which seems to embrace it?

 

[sixrings]

The Tiger Master at least St Andrews or St Patricks were known destinations at the time the subway was named. Perhaps not anymore. But I doubt Fairbank will ever come back into vogue.

 

[ShonTron]

I like Fairbank (it's also the name of the nearby park) and Silverthorn, but don't care for Oriole Park (Avenue Road is better). I'm mostly okay with Forest Hill (Bathurst) and Leaside (Bayview); but I would have preferred Sunnybrook for Bayview. I would have gone with Flemingdon Park over Science Centre; it may be a well-known landmark, but it's become irrelevant to me. At least Maestro Fresh Wes rapped about "Flemington, Don Mills and Eglinton."

There's shouldn't be a stop called Aga Khan (or Leaside) at all; but unfortunately that ship has sailed.

Metrolinx shows an asterisk next to Mount Pleasant. I wonder if they're worried about duplication with the GO station in west Brampton. (They shouldn't be.)

 

[sixrings]

maestro fresh wes was forever ago. I think people recognize Bathurst and eglinton with forest hill. I wouldn't have minded sunnybrook for bayview. I also think the Aga Khan gets enough attention it is worthy of the name.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I like Fairbank (it's also the name of the nearby park) and Silverthorn, but don't care for Oriole Park (Avenue Road is better). I'm mostly okay with Forest Hill (Bathurst) and Leaside (Bayview); but I would have preferred Sunnybrook for Bayview.

I find Forest Hill to be the most confusing of the bunch. The issue is that Forest Hill is a very large geographic area. Eglinton-Allen Station, Bathurst (ECLRT), Chaplin Station, Oriole Station (Avenue Station?) and St. Clair West Station are all within Forest Hill. So any one of five stations could be called "Forest Hill". The issues is further exacerbated because Bathurst and Eglinton isn't even the centre of Forest Hill. My initial impression was that it was the new name for Chaplin.

We can't be having station names that could potentially apply to five stations. Names like this tell customers little about the location of the station. There's no way anyone who's unfamiliar with the station would ever be remotely sure about where Forest Hill Station is without consulting another resource.

 

[sixrings]

I think this is the problem with names based on areas, themes or what people may view important (st Andrews). there is never going to be a clear consensus.... Sticking with intersection names would have been the easiest thing without confusion or debate.

 

[Palma]

Oh please no. Stop creatively naming stations. Like honestly.

Nobody will know what Silverthorne, Fairbank, Oriole Park and Aga Kahn is.

Its crazy. Obviously Metrolinx employees have too much time on their hands

 

[M II A II R II K]

The current naming convention has worked well when you have just 2 perpendicular lines, so each major street gets one station except for the handful of east and west stations. So when there are more lines then neighbourhood names starts to make more sense, particularly if you put the street name under the station name like on University section of the line. The street name can even be part of the announcements we well.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

I find Forest Hill to be the most confusing of the bunch. The issue is that Forest Hill is a very large geographic area. Eglinton-Allen Station, Bathurst (ECLRT), Chaplin Station, Oriole Station (Avenue Station?) and St. Clair West Station are all within Forest Hill. So any one of five stations could be called "Forest Hill". The issues is further exacerbated because Bathurst and Eglinton isn't even the centre of Forest Hill. My initial impression was that it was the new name for Chaplin.

We can't be having station names that could potentially apply to five stations. Names like this tell customers little about the location of the station. There's no way anyone who's unfamiliar with the station would ever be remotely sure about where Forest Hill Station is without consulting another resource.

Leaside has a similar problem. Nobody associates Leaside with Bayview, the retail there is called South Bayview Village BIA and not Leaside BIA for a reason.

And I thought the same regarding Chaplin. I don't mind if Chaplin is renamed Forest Hill, that is kinda the center of Forest Hill, up the street from Forest Hill Secondary, and next to both Spadina and Chaplin.

I'm mostly okay with Forest Hill (Bathurst) and Leaside (Bayview); but I would have preferred Sunnybrook for Bayview.

Problem with Sunnybrook is that the hospital is at Bayview&Lawrence, not at Bayview&Eglinton. Plus more people associate Sunnybrook with Sunnybrook Park which is on Leslie, not Bayview.

This will be further exacerbated when Sunnybrook Plaza gets redeveloped into condos.

 

[salsa]

What's this obsession with naming stations after street names anyways? Naming them after neighbourhoods is a fairly well established practice pretty much everywhere - and as the subway/transit system expands, you will end up with an increasingly unwieldy amount of duplication and hypennated station names because you inevitably will build stations by grid. Time to get away from that. People don't have any issues figuring out where to get to with station names like Yorkdale, Osgoode, Downsview, St. Patrick or St. Andrew (nor will they with Pioneer Village, VMC, York University), and they aren't about to just because Metrolinx chose this naming convention.

AoD

None of the station examples you provided are named after the neighbourhood. Yorkdale is named after the mall and that's perfectly reasonable in this case. Ditto for York University. But St Andrew on the other hand - to this day I still have no idea why it's named like that, and sometimes I forget if it's on King street or Queen street. But at least they avoided having duplicate names on the same subway line. Pioneer Village station (which is a long walk from the actuall village by the way) is the result of another council brain fart that also resulted in "Vaughan Metropolitan Centre", "Black Creek Pioneer Village" (initially), and almost resulted in "University Heights" instead of Finch West. Every one of these changed names are completely unhelpful to anyone compared to the originals, but anything council touches turns to shit. They are the opposite of Midas touch.

As I said before, I'm not against renaming some of the smaller stations after the neighbourhood. Renaming Chaplin to Forest Hill for example would be a good idea in fact, plus the station will be used almost entirely by the locals who live there. Instead Metrolinx chose to rename Bathurst (a major road and hardly the epicentre of Forest Hill compared to Chaplin), and that will cause confusion for many people since now they will no longer know where they are. I just find the whole concept too unintuitive for a city that's built on a grid system. If we were Boston or Paris then I would have no problem with neighbourhood names since street names are not very useful for those kind of cities.

and you end up with an increasingly unwieldy amount of duplication and hypennated station names because you inevitably will build stations by grid

We will still be getting exactly that because for whatever reason Metrolinx is applying a completely different naming system for surface stops. And for the most part they did a terrible job.

 

[JayBeeGooner]

Forest Hill makes more for Chaplin station.

I prefer stations being named for cross-streets. I don't mind Dufferin North, Bathurst North, etc.

If we're going to name stations after neighbourhoods, I'd like to see Oakwood changed to "Little Jamaica."

 

[M II A II R II K]

We can ultimately end up with Bathurst South, Bathurst North, and North Bathurst North on Sheppard.