TTC: Redesigning TTC Signage

[ShonTron]

Strange that even Pearson airport has all signs french and english, with no consideration at all for any other language.
No consideration for aboriginal languages, Hindy, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian, Arabic, ...
Yet many languages are spoken in Ontario or Toronto, and french is nowhere near the 2nd one.
Which shows having two official languages while completely neglecting all others is not fair.

http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/economy/demographics/census/cenhi4.html
"Chinese remained the leading non-official mother tongue in the Toronto CMA."
"A total of 355,270 people reported Chinese as mother tongue."
"Those language groups who reported a non-official language as mother tongue represented 40% of the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area'146"

Of course not all signs can be in all languages.
Still, signs for parking, exit, toilets, stairs, elevators, departures, arrivals could appear in many languages.

For better or worse, Canada is an officially bilingual country. Airports, railways and marine transport fall under federal jurisdiction, therefore the bilingual signage. In any airport in the world, you will see English as the first or second language. As the country's largest and busiest airport, it serves all of Canada, just like Montreal and Vancouver, with connections throughout Canada and Ontario.

Nationwide, French is still by far the second-most spoken language at home and at work. French is also widely spoken in many parts of Ontario, areas served by airports like Ottawa, Timmins, Sudbury, North Bay and Sault Ste. Marie, all served from Toronto.

The amount of clutter on signage for English, Italian, traditional Chinese script (Cantonese speakers), Portugese, simplified Chinese script (Mandarin speakers), Punjabi, Spanish, Polish, Filipino, Tamil and French (which comes after those 10 written languages in the city of Toronto; take in the GTA and Urdu, Arabic and Hindi also beat French) would simply too much.

Signage on MTO highways in Toronto are also bilingual with French because of the French Languages Services Act, which kicks in when a Francophone population in a community reaches 5,000 or 10% of the population.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

V or Y: Yonge-University-Spadina-Vaughan line (its general shape on the map).
B or BD or C: B since both ends go to Bloor, or the double letter for Bloor-Danforth, or C for Crosstown (need to call the other one just Eglinton-Scarborough).
S or N: S for Sheppard or N for Northern Crosstown (in case it goes to STC).
J or U: future DRL depending on how far each leg is extended (again, the shape on the map)
M: for Midtown (in case Ford gets a subway under Eglinton.
(I won't suggest a letter for Finch West subway (sorry Mammoliti).

This is great! Doing something like this would certainly make a possible transition from the old system to the new one somewhat easier. It also eliminates the chance of people complaining about why their subway line is only #3, while another one gets to be #1. I know it sounds immature, but after seeing the subway vs. LRT debate, Torontonians haven't proven to be a very mature bunch.

I like the single digit numbers for the LRT lines. Do you have enough colours for when the entire LRT network is built, or is some sharing required?

Most people, particularly men (not trying to be sexist - but women are biologically better at identifying colours), can quickly identify only 7 or 8 colours. Toronto will likely build at least 7 LRT lines in the next decade, in addition to one new subway line which would bring the total number of rapid transit lines up to 12. That means that some sharing will most likely be required. This is the single biggest downfall of my design and the current design used by the TTC. A combination of shapes and colours could be used to identify lines so that colours could be shared by two or three lines. But the problem with that solution is that there would be multiple lines on the map with the exact same colour.

Would the pictogram for subways, LRT, streetcars and busses be different enough (mostly the middle 2)?

I dont think that the streetcar and LRT pictogram would be different at all. If you look at the LRT's and streetcars we've ordered, the design is almost identical. This is partly why I used the numbers for the LRT. I'm hoping that people will be used to having a pictogram represent streetcars, while numbers represent LRT.

Northbound, Southbound, etc. seems to be quite a long word. Has this been shortened anywhere else. "NB" or "SB" for northbound or southbound is probably not readily understood. Could you show a compas with the direction highlighted and the letter beside it?

This is another problem I've been thinking about and I was planning to include some kind of compass. I considered using NB or SB, but the problem is that they would be hard to understand for the visually impaired. One of my goals for the design was to make sure that the signs would be 100% readable by the visually impaired. Because of this I think the compass is best. The one issue with the compass is that some people may confuse the compass with the directional arrows that tell them which way to turn.

Would St. Clair or Spadina be renamed as one of the LRT lines since it is a dedicated ROW?

The TTC says that St. Clair and Spadina are a streetcar lines so they would not be renamed.

I never was a huge fan of the green for the B-D since green could be reserved for GO trains - that would be shown on an integrated map in the future. However, the B-D has been green for quite a while so maybe it is already ingrained in everyone that this line is green. Could we switch the shade of green - either GO or B-D being light green and the other dark. Since Green is the corporate colours for GO, TTC would have to switch.

I don't think that customers would get confused by the shade of green. The TTC has used green to represent BD for years, so I dont think that confusion is a legitimate issue. Also, the problem with dark green is that its hard to read black text on it. I would prefer if all the line colours were light shades, while the text is dark. I just think it looks better.

I hope I do not come off as overly critical - I really think you did a good job.

Don't worry. Unlike certain people in this thread, you wrote constructive criticism which is helpful.

 

[car4041]

While I agree that TTC signage is a mess, there are a couple of your points that I disagree with.

Why does Osgoode station have 4 different signs with different designs? And why does only one sign have the station's name? How will pedestrians know what station they're are?

I think it's fine for the major identifying signs just to say "Subway" (or just be the TTC logo, like the trial sign at the northeast entrance to Osgoode). Most pedestrians are looking for the subway, not for a particular station -- and in any case, the sign directly above the stairs gives the station's name anyway. This is the way they do it in London -- stations are identified simply by the Underground logo, which, like the TTC logo, is distinctive and easy to identify from a distance. When you get closer to the station, you can see the name directly above every entrance. Montreal and Boston do it this way too.

Why are these signs still used in 2012. They were put there in the 1960s when the subways were first built to show people that streetcars were replaced by subways.

These signs are very useful and I think there should be more of them (and that they should be more prominent) in all cases where the subway station is not directly at the main intersection. Not everyone knows that Greenwood station is on Linnsmore Crescent, and the entrance to Coxwell station is not visible at all from Danforth and Coxwell.

Also, I'm not sure that an "A, B, C, 1, 2, 3" system for naming lines really makes anything clearer. In fact I think it makes things more complicated. Arbitrary letters and numbers make sense in cities where the rapid transit lines go all over the place, but Toronto is blessed with an incredibly simple layout in which most lines follow a single street, so we don't need to resort to arbitrary designations. Nothing is gained by calling the Bloor-Danforth line the B Line, and in fact, something is lost, because now people have to learn that the B Line follows Bloor-Danforth for most of its length, whereas our current nomenclature makes this fact transparent.

Yes, "Yonge-University-Spadina" is awfully clumsy, but maybe we can just call it the "Yonge-University" line (which will be even more appropriate when the York U extension opens). I think it's good for this line to have a double name, because it's effectively two parallel lines that meet downtown to form a single route, and it's useful to be able to distinguish between the Yonge Subway and the University Subway (as opposed to the eastern branch of the A line and the western branch of the A line).

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I think it's fine for the major identifying signs just to say "Subway" (or just be the TTC logo, like the trial sign at the northeast entrance to Osgoode). Most pedestrians are looking for the subway, not for a particular station -- and in any case, the sign directly above the stairs gives the station's name anyway. This is the way they do it in London -- stations are identified simply by the Underground logo, which, like the TTC logo, is distinctive and easy to identify from a distance. When you get closer to the station, you can see the name directly above every entrance. Montreal and Boston do it this way too.

Its just good practice to have names above the station. Not everyone has a good understanding of Toronto's geography and not having the name above the station could make it difficult for people to know were they're going if they are trying to find a particular station. This is especially true downtown, where you can have a station every 400 M. Also I fear that people will not know if they are entering a subway or LRT station if the sign does not show what line they are on.

These signs are very useful and I think there should be more of them (and that they should be more prominent) in all cases where the subway station is not directly at the main intersection. Not everyone knows that Greenwood station is on Linnsmore Crescent, and the entrance to Coxwell station is not visible at all from Danforth and Coxwell.

I agree with you. But if the TTC is going to have these signs, they should have them at every subway/LRT station. If they don't, people may look for signs at stations that don't have them and get lost.

Yes, "Yonge-University-Spadina" is awfully clumsy, but maybe we can just call it the "Yonge-University" line (which will be even more appropriate when the York U extension opens). I think it's good for this line to have a double name, because it's effectively two parallel lines that meet downtown to form a single route, and it's useful to be able to distinguish between the Yonge Subway and the University Subway (as opposed to the eastern branch of the A line and the western branch of the A line).

I think that both naming systems are equally good. But the problem with the current one is that a surprising amount of people don't know what the subway lines are called. This problem will be made worse when you consider that Toronto could be building 7 additional LRT lines within a decade. I personally feel that customers would have an easier time remembering "A Line" instead of Yonge University Spadina". The numbering system also eliminates the problem of certain people and the media calling the entire YUS line "Yonge, which is VERY inaccurate and confusing.

 

[car4041]

M: for Midtown (in case Ford gets a subway under Eglinton.

How would this be clearer than just calling it the Eglinton line, which explicitly states exactly where it goes? Why make everyone learn an arbitrary correspondence (M = Eglinton line) when we can just call it what it is? What is gained?

 

[JasonParis]

Very interesting thread. A few thoughts...

I wonder if it is on the radar of the new TTC Customer Service guru - Chris Upfold? He seems to have been making some progress with the issues he has been tackling, washrooms, train cleaning, customer service panel.

I've just tweeted him this thread. I'll report if I get a response!

The commission should also consider renaming the subway/LRT lines. Names like Eglinton Crosstown, Bloor-Danforth and Yonge-University-Spadina are a mouthful. I think that the best option would be changing the names to simple letters and numbers.

YUS becomes route A, represented by yellow.
BD become route B, represented by green.
Sheppard becomes route C, represented by purple.

Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT becomes route 1, represented by blue.
Sheppard LRT becomes route 2, represented by red.
Finch LRT becomes route 3, represented by brown.

Toronto's subway lines are indeed a mouthful and need to be simplified. I like your suggestions. I'd alter it slightly though and name all the subway and LRT lines the T's (while also retaining the current colours). For example...
T1 = YUS
T2 = BD
T3 = Shep
T3 = Eg-Cross
T4 = Finch LRT, etc.

I'd also want Metrolinx to coordinate this and re-name all the GO lines the M's (or possibly G's). For example...
M1 = Lakeshore West
M2 = Lakeshore East, etc.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Very interesting thread. A few thoughts...


I've just tweeted him this thread. I'll report if I get a response!


Toronto's subway lines are indeed a mouthful and need to be simplified. I like your suggestions. I'd alter it slightly though and name all the subway and LRT lines the T's (while also retaining the current colours). For example...
T1 = YUS
T2 = BD
T3 = Shep
T3 = Eg-Cross
T4 = Finch LRT, etc.

I'd also want Metrolinx to coordinate this and re-name all the GO lines the M's (or possibly G's). For example...
M1 = Lakeshore West
M2 = Lakeshore East, etc.

I like your idea of integrating the names of the GO lines. Metrolinx wants a regional transit system, so its important for other transit systems to have a similar naming system. However, I think that there should be something differentiate subway and LRT. How about this:

T-A: YUS
T-B: BD
T-C: Sheppard

T-1: Eglinton
T-2: Finch
T-3: Sheppard etc..

 

[car4041]

Toronto's subway lines are indeed a mouthful and need to be simplified. I like your suggestions. I'd alter it slightly though and name all the subway and LRT lines the T's (while also retaining the current colours). For example...
T1 = YUS
T2 = BD
T3 = Shep
T3 = Eglinton Crosstown
T4 = Finch LRT, etc.

OK, I'm totally being a broken record here, but what would be gained by this? Even now, with our numbered bus routes, people generally refer to the buses by the street they run on (the Bathurst bus, the Dufferin bus, etc). This suggests that even if we renamed the Bloor subway to "Line T2", people would still refer to it (and think of it) as the Bloor subway. If that's the case, then calling it "Line T2" would simply make the signage system more abstract and thus more confusing, because everyone is going to have to mentally translate "Line T2" into "Bloor line".

If the subway lines really need an abstract designation, why not use colours -- at least that's something that can be linked with the visual image of the map, as opposed to a completely arbitrary letter or number. (Although it's too bad that the Sheppard line is such an indescribable purple-ish shade -- the "Mauve line"?)

 

[TheTigerMaster]

How would this be clearer than just calling it the Eglinton line, which explicitly states exactly where it goes? Why make everyone learn an arbitrary correspondence (M = Eglinton line) when we can just call it what it is? What is gained?

With this system people will no longer have to say incredibly long names such as:

Yonge-University-Spadina-York Line (when the extension opens)

and the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT Line

The new naming is also more accurate. The YUS doesn't exclusively run under Yonge and University and only two stations are on Spadina. The same thing applies to Bloor-Danforth as well.

Also a surprising amount of people don't understand that Bloor-Danforth and Yonge run under the streets that are in their name.

 

[car4041]

Its just good practice to have names above the station. Not everyone has a good understanding of Toronto's geography and not having the name above the station could make it difficult for people to know were they're going if they are trying to find a particular station.

I agree that the station name should be identified (and it normally is, right above the door). I just don't think that it needs to be identified on the big prominent sign that says "Hey, look at me, I'm a subway entrance!" Like the roundel in London, the T in Boston, the arrow in Montreal, and the U in German cities, those signs should be as simple, distinctive, and attention-grabbing as possible.

Also I fear that people will not know if they are entering a subway or LRT station if the sign does not show what line they are on.

I'm not sure if that matters -- it's not like somebody is going to walk from Eglinton to Bloor because they want to enter a subway station rather than an underground LRT station. And again, that info is currently shown on the sign over the door anyway (or at least it's implied by the colour of the line).

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I agree that the station name should be identified (and it normally is, right above the door). I just don't think that it needs to be identified on the big prominent sign that says "Hey, look at me, I'm a subway entrance!" Like the roundel in London, the T in Boston, the arrow in Montreal, and the U in German cities, those signs should be as simple, distinctive, and attention-grabbing as possible.

Its just a matter of preference I suppose. Both options are as valid as one another.

I'm not sure if that matters -- it's not like somebody is going to walk from Eglinton to Bloor because they want to enter a subway station rather than an underground LRT station. And again, that info is currently shown on the sign over the door anyway (or at least it's implied by the colour of the line).

Very true. But I think that the more information the passenger has the better.

 

[car4041]

With this system people will no longer have to say incredibly long names such as:

Yonge-University-Spadina-York Line (when the extension opens)

and the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT Line

Nobody currently has to say, or does say, names like this. People will refer to the LRT as the Eglinton line, just like they currently call the bus the Eglinton bus. The only question is, do we want the signage to reflect what people actually say, or do we want to impose some arbitrary scheme because we think it's more elegant?

Even our current numbered buses are normally identified by both the number *and* the route name on signage -- and whenever I go to an unfamiliar part of the city, it's certainly the name that I'm looking at, not the number. If I want to take the Weston bus, I'm going to look for the signs for the Weston bus. I have no idea what its number is, and the beautiful thing is that I don't *need* to know, because our system is simple enough that it works without having to memorize arbitrary numbers. Moving away from this is not going to help anyone.

 

[car4041]

Its just a matter of preference I suppose. Both options are as valid as one another.

Yes -- I'm being argumentative, but just trying to state my opinion, not saying it's necessarily correct. And on the whole, I totally agree with you in that the TTC's signage pains me on a daily basis. They recently replaced the signs on the Bloor platforms at Spadina station, and while the new signs are much more informative than the old ones (which just said "EXIT"), the design is absolutely horrible -- basically just a big paragraph of text followed by a pile of icons. It could be organized much more clearly; at a minimum, each icon could have been associated with the related text. And they don't even use a yellow line to indicate the transfer to the Spadina subway (or a red line for the streetcars, for that matter).

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Nobody currently has to say, or does say, names like this. People will refer to the LRT as the Eglinton line, just like they currently call the bus the Eglinton bus. The only question is, do we want the signage to reflect what people actually say, or do we want to impose some arbitrary scheme because we think it's more elegant?

Even our current numbered buses are normally identified by both the number *and* the route name on signage -- and whenever I go to an unfamiliar part of the city, it's certainly the name that I'm looking at, not the number. If I want to take the Weston bus, I'm going to look for the signs for the Weston bus. I have no idea what its number is, and the beautiful thing is that I don't *need* to know, because our system is simple enough that it works without having to memorize arbitrary numbers. Moving away from this is not going to help anyone.

How about a hybrid system. So instead of the YUS just being called "Yonge-University-Spadina" it would be called "Yonge-University-Spadina", in addition to "A line". That way the naming system would have the simplicity of the alphanumerical system, while the name still correlates to a geographic location in Toronto.

 

[car4041]

How about a hybrid system. So instead of the YUS just being called "Yonge-University-Spadina" it would be called "Yonge-University-Spadina", in addition to "A line". That way the naming system would have the simplicity of the alphanumerical system, while the name still correlates to a geographic location in Toronto.

I think that would be OK -- it would then be completely parallel with the way surface routes are named + numbered. Of course, the subway lines already officially have numbers anyway, but they aren't used publicly.