TTC: Other Items (catch all)

[nfitz]

Rode the 504 westbound this morning and there was no backup at the Queen/Church/Richmond area. It took just over six minutes to go from Queen and Church to Yonge and Richmond, which is roughly as fast as walking, but traffic could not be blamed.

Are there really no stops at Adelaide/Church or Richmond/Church? Given the stops on King (and Wellington for the 503), I don't know why one has to walk all the way up to Queen to catch a streetcar.

 

[Jonny5]

AFAIK there are 3 stations with "Center" in their names – Scarborough Town Center (STC), North York Center (NY(C)C) and Vaughan Metropolitan Center (VMC) – but AFAIK none of them have their respective acronyms engraved in the station walls. If we're drawing parallels, a better example is YorkU, also named after its respective university.


Incidentally, it'll be the final year of service for the T1s in the best case scenario, but I don't see why it would have anything to do with renaming stations.

To be pedantic for fun, there are no stations with "Center" in their names.
There are however three stations with "Centre" in their names.

 

[Jonny5]

Are there really no stops at Adelaide/Church or Richmond/Church? Given the stops on King (and Wellington for the 503), I don't know why one has to walk all the way up to Queen to catch a streetcar.

There are no stops at Adelaide/Church. That was a deliberate choice, but it was contemplated only for the 501 diversion, so no one was thinking about this scenario when planning that out.

There is a stop for southbound only on Church at Richmond, which is essentially the westbound stop relocated from Queen and Church.

 

[T3G]

The report says the name of the station will be simply "TMU".

3 letters. There's no mention of it being any longer. https://secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda-item.do?item=2025.TTC4.10
https://secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda-item.do?item=2025.TTC4.10



The Board could easily choose any name under the sun - but this is what the agreement is. And this is the proposed decision

Yikes. What a horrifyingly stupid decision. They might as well go all out and rename York University to YU, Vaughan Metropolitan Centre to VMC, St. George to SG, etc.

But hey, it's all good because now we won't have two Dundases.

 

[nfitz]

Yikes. What a horrifyingly stupid decision. They might as well go all out and rename York University to YU, Vaughan Metropolitan Centre to VMC, St. George to SG, etc.

But hey, it's all good because now we won't have two Dundases.

I don't hear those acronyms in common use on the street. TMU I hear used ... and is all over their website.

More like UCLA than YU (which I've never seen before). Where have you seen SG?

 

[T3G]

More like UCLA than YU (which I've never seen before). Where have you seen SG?

I haven't seen either of those, it's an example to show ridiculous the thought of using an acronym in a station is.

TMU might be the acronym the university uses, but that's frankly irrelevant. If we were setting these station names by what locals understand, we surely wouldn't be making a big cause of Dundas and Dundas West to begin with. How is a tourist coming from outside of Southern Ontario supposed to understand, looking at a subway map, what TMU is, or understand what the robot lady that lives in the attics of the Flexity means when she says the next stop is "Yonge Street - TMU Station"? Or newcomers to the city? If Vaughan Metropolitan Centres can be used in full (or at least shortened to Vaughan instead of VMC), there is zero reason why TMU should be acceptable.

FWIW, I think the fact that buses use "U of T Scarborough" to be equally ridiculous. As is this absurdity used in Mississauga.

 

[81-717]

To be pedantic for fun, there are no stations with "Center" in their names.
There are however three stations with "Centre" in their names.

I disagree with the US stubborn insistence on using anything but the metric system, but I'll stick to US spelling over Canadian or British any day. Words like "color", "center", "favorite", etc just look more correct than "colour", "centre", "favourite", etc (especially with vowels & consonants occuring in a strict alternating pattern). Words like "neighborhood" & "behavior" I'm more split on.

I don't hear those acronyms in common use on the street. TMU I hear used ... and is all over their website.

More like UCLA than YU (which I've never seen before). Where have you seen SG?

STC is definitely commonly used, VMC I'd say a bit less so but definitely out there. NYC is one I tend to use a lot within the transitfan community. As for YU, I just go by YorkU.

 

[Richard White]

Yikes. What a horrifyingly stupid decision. They might as well go all out and rename York University to YU, Vaughan Metropolitan Centre to VMC, St. George to SG, etc.

But hey, it's all good because now we won't have two Dundases.

A little late to the party but here I am nonetheless.

Honestly, renaming the station for TMU is a stupid idea to say the least. Dundas Station is straightforward and to the point for a part of Toronto visited by a large number of tourists. How many tourists actually know what or where TMU is and would be able to use it as a reference point on a map?

Dundas is the name of the street and is alot less confusing than TMU station for people unfamiliar with the city. The general rule I use is that if you have to google what something is to figure out where you are, the name is no good.

 

[bearcat]

I haven't seen either of those, it's an example to show ridiculous the thought of using an acronym in a station is.

TMU might be the acronym the university uses, but that's frankly irrelevant. If we were setting these station names by what locals understand, we surely wouldn't be making a big cause of Dundas and Dundas West to begin with. How is a tourist coming from outside of Southern Ontario supposed to understand, looking at a subway map, what TMU is, or understand what the robot lady that lives in the attics of the Flexity means when she says the next stop is "Yonge Street - TMU Station"? Or newcomers to the city? If Vaughan Metropolitan Centres can be used in full (or at least shortened to Vaughan instead of VMC), there is zero reason why TMU should be acceptable.

FWIW, I think the fact that buses use "U of T Scarborough" to be equally ridiculous. As is this absurdity used in Mississauga. View attachment 651052

University of Toronto Mississauga probably won't for on the destination sign lol.

My point earlier in the thread was that I was against using the full name as it's very long, it would be the longest subway station name on the network, and from a design and signage standpoint it would be more difficult to implement. So I personally would prefer TMU.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berri–UQAM_station exists and everyone is okay.

 

[bearcat]

A little late to the party but here I am nonetheless.

Honestly, renaming the station for TMU is a stupid idea to say the least. Dundas Station is straightforward and to the point for a part of Toronto visited by a large number of tourists. How many tourists actually know what or where TMU is and would be able to use it as a reference point on a map?

Dundas is the name of the street and is alot less confusing than TMU station for people unfamiliar with the city. The general rule I use is that if you have to google what something is to figure out where you are, the name is no good.

That ship has sailed, so to say. For better or for worse the name Dundas is going away. The question here is what is an appropriate new name. Keeping Dundas is not really an option.

 

[T3G]

niversity of Toronto Mississauga probably won't for on the destination sign lol.

Not on one exposure, no, but you could have it on multiple:

It's especially galling that there isn't even a set standard for what should be used in cities across the board.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berri–UQAM_station exists and everyone is okay.

For decades, everyone was also okay with there being a Dundas and a Dundas West station. But we artificially engineered a crisis out of scores of helpless tourists ending up in the wrong location, anyway. If one wants to argue about needing to optimize wayfinding for helpless lemmings who are unable to use Google Maps (but somehow were able to end up in Toronto), how does using an acronym which won't be explained anywhere except for the Google Maps they're too incompetent to use help them with their wayfinding? At that point you might as well forego real station names altogether and call it Narnia. That certainly won't be confused with anything else.

I am not inherently against the idea of a station bearing the name of a university, but I think the thought process that got us to this point, and that got us this result, is inherently misguided. Dundas was a perfectly fine name.

 

[Jonny5]

A little late to the party but here I am nonetheless.

Honestly, renaming the station for TMU is a stupid idea to say the least. Dundas Station is straightforward and to the point for a part of Toronto visited by a large number of tourists. How many tourists actually know what or where TMU is and would be able to use it as a reference point on a map?

Dundas is the name of the street and is alot less confusing than TMU station for people unfamiliar with the city. The general rule I use is that if you have to google what something is to figure out where you are, the name is no good.

Not to mention the precedent of Univeristy rebranding is now set.

Who knows if ten years from now TMU decides to rebrand with a new name again. Maybe York University will become something new.

 

[nfitz]

I haven't seen either of those, it's an example to show ridiculous the thought of using an acronym in a station is.

What would be ridiculous is calling it "Toronto Metropolitan University". Almost as silly as Vaughan Megalopolis Centre.

How is a tourist coming from outside of Southern Ontario supposed to understand, looking at a subway map, what TMU is ...

The same way people have done it for hundreds of years? Look at a map ... use Google Maps.

FWIW, I think the fact that buses use "U of T Scarborough" to be equally ridiculous. As is this absurdity used in Mississauga. View attachment 651052

I think people knowing where there destination is on a vehicle is a good idea. But for a digital sign like that, I agree that U of T Scarborough is too long. Might as well just use UTS.

I disagree with the US stubborn insistence on using anything but the metric system, but I'll stick to US spelling over Canadian or British any day. Words like "color", "center", "favorite", etc just look more correct than "colour", "centre", "favourite", etc (especially with vowels & consonants occuring in a strict alternating pattern). Words like "neighborhood" & "behavior" I'm more split on.

I don't know how they look more correct, given everything in this country is written properly - even the Toronto Sun. Surely using US spelling is iffy these days. And any workplace is going to frown on it.

If I had an employee who insisted on using the wrong spelling, I would terminate them.

STC is definitely commonly used ...

STC wasn't on the list they provided.

 

[bearcat]

What would be ridiculous is calling it "Toronto Metropolitan University". Almost as silly as Vaughan Megalopolis Centre.

The same way people have done it for hundreds of years? Look at a map ... use Google Maps.

I think people knowing where there destination is on a vehicle is a good idea. But for a digital sign like that, I agree that U of T Scarborough is too long. Might as well just use UTS.

It would be UTSC actually .

Not on one exposure, no, but you could have it on multiple:

View attachment 651058
View attachment 651059
It's especially galling that there isn't even a set standard for what should be used in cities across the board.

Not a fan of two exposures personally if it can be avoided, especially if It's not immediately obvious from the first exposure that the second one has more information. In this case the first exposure could easily be interpreted as the bus going to the downtown campus of University of Toronto.

 

[T3G]

What would be ridiculous is calling it "Toronto Metropolitan University". Almost as silly as Vaughan Megalopolis Centre.

Why is York University, the institution's full name, OK, but using TMU's full name would be ridiculous? That is its name, and therefore should be used. If you want to take up the name with someone, take it up with Ryerson. I'm certainly no fan.

Our city is full of people and institutions using names that are ridiculous. We don't use different names for Old Cummer GO due to its R-rated implications. We don't rename Main Street station because Main Street is not the city's main street. We don't call Pleasant View something else due to the fact that North York is hardly a pleasant place to look at, or Don Valley Village for not being a Village. We don't rename the stops at Mount Pleasant Road for the lack of a mountain along said road, or Mountstephen Street for the grammatical atrocity, Parkway Forest Drive for the lack of forest.

Either we use the proper name, or get a new name. Acronyms are acceptable to use in informal usage, but calling a station, officially, by its acronym, has to be the worst idea a Torontonian has had in at least the last month or so. We're pretty good at coming up with awful ideas.

The same way people have done it for hundreds of years? Look at a map ... use Google Maps.

Again, refer to this:

For decades, everyone was also okay with there being a Dundas and a Dundas West station. But we artificially engineered a crisis out of scores of helpless tourists ending up in the wrong location, anyway. If one wants to argue about needing to optimize wayfinding for helpless lemmings who are unable to use Google Maps (but somehow were able to end up in Toronto), how does using an acronym which won't be explained anywhere except for the Google Maps they're too incompetent to use help them with their wayfinding?

Not a fan of two exposures personally if it can be avoided, especially if It's not immediately obvious from the first exposure that the second one has more information. In this case the first exposure could easily be interpreted as the bus going to the downtown campus of University of Toronto.

But if you look at the exposure for more than a couple of seconds, you will see the additional information.
How is UTM better? How is anyone supposed to figure out what that means???