Edward
Senior Member
One station on the line is called Spadina so some sense. And historically it certainly makes plenty of sense considering it was supposed to run down the middle of the Spadina Expressway.
Toronto Spadina Subway Extension Emergency Exits | ?m | 1s | TTC | IBI Group
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aquateam
Active Member
Dupont and Spadina stations are on Spadina. It's also a historical thing, given that all the stops would have been on an "extension" of Spadina, the Spadina expressway. Really, given that 2 of the stations are on Spadina, 4 are on university, and 6 are on Allen Road, it would make more sense to rename it the Allen line.
ShonTron
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It was called the "Yonge-University-Spadina" Line because it's actually three different lines with a subway single service - the Yonge Line (Union-Finch), the University Line (Union-St. George) and the Spadina Line (St. George-Downsview/Vaughan). Though the Bloor-Danforth Line is one line.
In New York, the A or the 6 are not lines, they are trains - the A uses the IND Eighth Avenue Line, the IND Fulton Street Line and the IND Rockaway Line, the 6 uses the IRT Pelham Line and IRT Lexington Avenue Line.
I get why the TTC is numbering the rapid transit services as "lines" (it's common nomenclature here) but as a transit purist, I believe that lines and routes/services are two different things.
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Tuscani01
Senior Member
I disagree. Everywhere I have been with numbered lines has been much easier to navigate than places that name lines. I don't care about the name of the line... all I need to know is what station I have to get off at. It's much easier remembering numbers than names when it comes to a line, especially when I'm not from the city.
Do I really care whether the line is or isnt under Spadina when I know I am getting off at Eglinton West Station? No. My destination would be Eglinton West station regardless of where the line travels.
ksun
Senior Member
Same thing can be said about the Bloor Danforth Line.
salsa
Senior Member
In addition to those 4 stops on University, the line also serves U of T and soon York University. I think the name Yonge-University line makes enough sense.
JasonParis
Moderator
Dropping Spadina now seems to make sense. With University Avenue, U of T and York U all on the western-side of the #1 line it actually sort of works.
44 North
Senior Member
True. But while Spadina Rd only has two stops compared to University Ave’s four, the respective sections of subway line following University (from College to Front) and Spadina Rd (from Bloor to Nordheimer Ravine) seem to be about the same: ~1.7km. So obviously there is some sense.
And I erred earlier by saying Spadina would’ve been the only RT route with an aboriginal word in its name. Minnesota’s Blue Line used to be called the Hiawatha line. And I’m sure there are others.
Palma
Senior Member
To think people will think (though false)) the reason the line is called University is because of University of Toronto at one end and York University at the other end,
nfitz
Superstar
While not the original name, I have to think that IS actually why TTC renamed the line this year.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
Palma
Senior Member
sorry. I forgot about that one.
aquateam
Active Member
University makes sense too. I was just saying that, if our choice of name is based on the name of the street that it runs under for the longest, then you'd call it the Allen line.
Let's just call it the yellow-line. Or line 1 if you don't want to discriminate against the colour-blind.
I don't think Spadina is a real native word. It's like a 20-generation broken telephone version of what might have once been a native word. And let's not get started on the Spa-DIE-nah vs. Spa-DEE-nah debate.
Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
In toronto where we haven't had distinctions between a subway "line" and a subway "route" making a trying to separate three "lines" that runs under three streets (Yonge-University-Spadina) that happen to have one "route" or "service" is unnecessary. Making the claim that Bloor-Danforth route/service, which happens to run under two streets (Bloor and Danforth) is really running on one line a la NYC's Fulton Street or Rockaway lines doesn't make sense to me.
The only differentiation between Bloor-Danforth being one line and Yonge-Universty-Spadina being three is that the transition between the Yonge and University lines occurs at the hairpin at union where Line 1 heads back North. While on Bloor-Danforth Bloor st. becomes Danforth ave and there is no transition in directions. In today's TTC there is no need to view Yonge-Unversity-Spadina as three separate lines.
Perhaps if the original routing of the Bloor-Danforth line with service to the downtown core would it have made more sense to differentiate between Yonge and University subway lines. i.e. Bloor/Danforth to Finch via University.
