[dullturtle06]

I really feel like this problem is on those people.
If you don't know where to go you can simply open your mouth and ask someone.
Too many people simply don't do this, or try to rely on apps that generally provide poor information.
Just ask someone, it takes seconds and save you an hour.

If your wayfinding system relies on people asking directions, there is a big issue.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

Then there's the Eglinton West LRT extension: Martin Grove, Kipling-Eglinton, Islington-Eglinton, Royal York-Eglinton, and Jane-Eglinton.

But that's another thread ( https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/toronto-eglinton-line-5-crosstown-west-extension-m-s-metrolinx.28144/ )

At least on the Finch West LRT stops, there's only one nearly duplicate (Jane and Finch)...

At least Finch West Line 7 gets first dibs on "Martin Grove".

 

[junctionist]

I really feel like this problem is on those people.
If you don't know where to go you can simply open your mouth and ask someone.
Too many people simply don't do this, or try to rely on apps that generally provide poor information.
Just ask someone, it takes seconds and save you an hour.

You could ask the booth employees at subway stations. They'll tell you everythjing yij netd tp kpjw

 

[IsaacKhouzam]

Paris has no duplicates - they always have at least different prefixes or suffixes, or the "duplicate" stations are interchange stations.

I agree that the naming conventions are pointless to obsess over, but I do think that duplicate station names, especially of stations which are far apart, are too confusing for infrequent users and should be avoided. IMO having suffixes or prefixes to differentiate them is good enough (e.g. in Paris: Nanterre - La Folie, Nanterre - Préfecture, Nanterre - Université, Nanterre - Ville); trying to avoid these makes it too difficult to come up with names.

Duplicate station names cause problems like this:
View attachment 648197View attachment 648198
Worse than the fact that it's impossible to tell which 125 St station is showing up, only three 125 St subway stations show up for each search query, when there are in fact four different stations called 125 St! (Two of the search results in the second image are Subway restaurants)

I think this example misses the fact that this is not how New Yorkers interact with the subway system. A subway station here isn’t thought of as a destination but as a point on a network—like an intersection on the road network. Stations don’t really have names in the same way they do in Canadian systems; the “name,” such as it is, is merely a description of where the station is. You’d never get confused about which 125th street station to go to because you’d be thinking of it in the context of the line you were on. Just as it wouldn’t be confusing to, say, direct someone to take the 501 streetcar to Yonge, it isn’t confusing to tell someone to take the A train to 125th street.

I’d much prefer we followed a similar approach in Toronto vs coming up with unique “destination” station names every time a potential conflict arises. If I’m travelling along Eglinton and I come to a Bathurst Station there should be no confusion—I’m at Bathurst and Eglinton.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

I think this examples misses the fact that this is not how New Yorkers interact with the subway system. A subway station here isn’t thought of as a destination but as a point on a network—like an intersection on the road network. Stations don’t really have names in the same way they do in Canadian systems; the “name,” such as it is, is merely a description of where the station is. You’d never get confused about which 125th street station to go to because you’d be thinking of it in the context of the line you were on. Just as it wouldn’t be confusing to, say, direct someone to take the 501 streetcar to Yonge, it isn’t confusing to tell someone to take the A train to 125th street.

I’d much prefer we followed a similar approach in Toronto vs coming up with unique “destination” station names every time a potential conflict arises. If I’m travelling along Eglinton and I come to a Bathurst Station there should be no confusion—I’m at Bathurst and Eglinton.

Bathurst and Eglinton? You're at the Forest Hill Station. Named after the Village of Forest Hill. The former Reeve of Forest Hill from 1938 to 49, was Frederick Goldwin Gardiner (who became the first chairman of Metropolitan Toronto, from 1953 to 1961). They named an expressway after him.

 

[T3G]

I'm really not a fan of the idea of using neighbourhood or historical names to differentiate between stations. I agree with the approach outlined by @IsaacKhouzam that thinking of station names like surface route stop names would be the most ideal approach. There is nothing special about RT lines that means that their passengers would somehow not be able to understand multiple Yonge stations, but on bus and streetcar routes it's fine. At most I'd be OK with every station being in the style of Bloor-Yonge, Sheppard-Yonge, though I don't think of it is a priority. But artificially creating unique station names by dredging up the names of obscure neighbourhoods or historical settlements is something I find incredibly offputting.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

I'm really not a fan of the idea of using neighbourhood or historical names to differentiate between stations. I agree with the approach outlined by @IsaacKhouzam that thinking of station names like surface route stop names would be the most ideal approach. There is nothing special about RT lines that means that their passengers would somehow not be able to understand multiple Yonge stations, but on bus and streetcar routes it's fine. At most I'd be OK with every station being in the style of Bloor-Yonge, Sheppard-Yonge, though I don't think of it is a priority. But artificially creating unique station names by dredging up the names of obscure neighbourhoods or historical settlements is something I find incredibly offputting.

The St. Andrew's and St. Patrick's wards in Toronto were named after their respective patron saints, reflecting the city's diverse religious and ethnic background. St. Andrew's was named for the patron saint of Scotland, and St. Patrick's for the patron saint of Ireland. So they named the stations on the University section of Line 1 after ancient city wards.

The actual named churches...

 

[mr_content]

Is the plan to wait until there's a firm opening date to formally announce the name change from Eglinton West to Cedarvale on Line 1? For how much signage they've installed early in preparation for Line 5 (bus stops, wayfinding in stations, etc.) it feels like there should've been more noise about this by now.

 

[crs1026]

But artificially creating unique station names by dredging up the names of obscure neighbourhoods or historical settlements is something I find incredibly offputting.

I agree that place names should not be aritificially contrived - but there is lot of room for grey here. Transit place names should have relevance to the districts, communities (and their heritage) of the city and not simply be a technocratic grid... otherwise, we might as well just give them gps or map coordinates.

Certainly, past communities that had "official" municipal status deserve recognition and can be meaningful - Mount Dennis, Fairbank, Forest Hill, Swansea, Leaside, Weston, were actual municipalities with councils and post offices and fire brigades. There is value in keeping that heritage alive, and integrating transit names with community is good for the promotion of the city generally. Other points that had distinct identity or longterm use as a landmark (Cedarvale, Donlands, Six Points, Thistletown come to mind) may also merit retention. This will be subjective, as not everybody remembers or knows every bit of city history or was present when that name was used for a place. (Sometimes, where a place or a bit of history has crept into the naming of roads, there's a convenient convergence.)

We need to show much more respect for the original indigenous place names, as well. Transit should not exclude itself from this.

(My grandparents used to refer to a particular place as "The Village" because when they built their house in the 1930s, it was indeed a village with the surrounding area being countryside. Everyone in my family still uses that term, whereas most current day Torontonians would offer a blank stare if it were used. How many people know why we have Downsview? Runnymede? Scarlett Heights?....aviators will likely still think of Humber Bay as "Whiskey Point", because there was once a collection of large buildings forming a distillery that were used as a visual reference for one of the Pearson flight paths )

Longevity is not the only thing. Science Center has turned out to be unfortunate (well, scandalous, but that's not a transit issue). Hakimi is regrettable, but if someone proposed renaming NYCC as "Rush Commons" or "Lee-Leifson Corners", I would be delighted.

It's subjective, but that's OK.

Kip District remains a trigger. Ugh.

- Paul

 

[ARG1]

I'm really not a fan of the idea of using neighbourhood or historical names to differentiate between stations. I agree with the approach outlined by @IsaacKhouzam that thinking of station names like surface route stop names would be the most ideal approach. There is nothing special about RT lines that means that their passengers would somehow not be able to understand multiple Yonge stations, but on bus and streetcar routes it's fine. At most I'd be OK with every station being in the style of Bloor-Yonge, Sheppard-Yonge, though I don't think of it is a priority. But artificially creating unique station names by dredging up the names of obscure neighbourhoods or historical settlements is something I find incredibly offputting.

Idk man, you go on Google Maps and it says "Forest Hill" in big bold letters. In fact, of all neighbourhoods in Toronto, I feel like Forest Hill is one of the more well known neighbourhoods for various reasons.

Besides that, naming stations after historic names or neighbourhoods is quite literally what most major metro systems around the world use. Go to any major city, whether its Paris, London, or Moscow, and almost all of the stations are named either after the neighbourhood, a local landmark, and if all else fails the local street.

 

[Rainforest]

The St. Andrew's and St. Patrick's wards in Toronto were named after their respective patron saints, reflecting the city's diverse religious and ethnic background. St. Andrew's was named for the patron saint of Scotland, and St. Patrick's for the patron saint of Ireland. So they named the stations on the University section of Line 1 after ancient city wards.

The actual named churches...
View attachment 648434View attachment 648435

IMHO, landmark-based station names are good for downtown. Residents of the whole city tend to know the downtown based landmarks and neighbourhoods. St. Andrew and St. Patrick are perfect station names.

But when dealing with stations outside the downtown core, such names are confusing for riders who don't happen to be local residents. If you just want to find # 1234 on Abcde Street, then names based on intersections make for easier wayfinding.

 

[T3G]

dk man, you go on Google Maps and it says "Forest Hill" in big bold letters. In fact, of all neighbourhoods in Toronto, I feel like Forest Hill is one of the more well known neighbourhoods for various reasons.

Forest Hill is one of the better known ones, along with the Annex. But for every such neighbourhood that is well known, there are mountains of neighbourhoods that are obscure, to say nothing of the fact that which area belongs to which neighbourhood appears to be highly flexible and subject to interpretation.

For example, if we go by Google Maps, Eglinton-Scarlett is situated in an area called Westmount, Islington and Royal York form the boundaries of Royal York Gardens to the north of Eglinton. Islington and Kipling form Richmond Gardens to the north, but this is also overlapped by an area called Willowridge-Martin Grove-Ridgeview, which encapsulates, also, Richmond Gardens and Royal York Gardens. Conversely, Scarlett, Royal York, and Islington, with Eglinton as the north boundary, also belong to Edenbridge-Humber Valley, while the area along Kipling is also known as Princess-Rosethorn and Princess Anne Manor. And many of the neighbourhoods that are shown on Google Maps are contrary to the city of Toronto's official neighbourhood database, too.

Is this really useful to wayfinding? Surely this would cause much more confusion than Eglinton-Islington, Eglinton-Kipling, etc. Neighbourhood names only work when the places are well known, especially if the idea with this is catering to out of towners. If a person shows up at Dundas Station thinking it's going to be Dundas West, well, that sucks, but at some point the idea of personal responsibility has to kick in, especially in the age of apps which can guide you step by step through the entire process of travelling.

Or what about circumstances where two stations are in the same neighbourhood? Mount Dennis station is in Mount Dennis, but so is the future Jane-Eglinton (Eglinton Flats can't be, because it runs afoul of the same trouble that Dundas and Dundas West co-existing do). Every neighbourhood I mentioned in my above paragraphs also encapsulates at least two major concession roads as well. Which one gets priority for the neighbourhood name?

I agree that place names should not be aritificially contrived - but there is lot of room for grey here. Transit place names should have relevance to the districts, communities (and their heritage) of the city and not simply be a technocratic grid... otherwise, we might as well just give them gps or map coordinates.

Certainly, past communities that had "official" municipal status deserve recognition and can be meaningful - Mount Dennis, Fairbank, Forest Hill, Swansea, Leaside, Weston, were actual municipalities with councils and post offices and fire brigades. There is value in keeping that heritage alive, and integrating transit names with community is good for the promotion of the city generally. Other points that had distinct identity or longterm use as a landmark (Cedarvale, Donlands, Six Points, Thistletown come to mind) may also merit retention. This will be subjective, as not everybody remembers or knows every bit of city history or was present when that name was used for a place. (Sometimes, where a place or a bit of history has crept into the naming of roads, there's a convenient convergence.)

We need to show much more respect for the original indigenous place names, as well. Transit should not exclude itself from this.

(My grandparents used to refer to a particular place as "The Village" because when they built their house in the 1930s, it was indeed a village with the surrounding area being countryside. Everyone in my family still uses that term, whereas most current day Torontonians would offer a blank stare if it were used. How many people know why we have Downsview? Runnymede? Scarlett Heights?....aviators will likely still think of Humber Bay as "Whiskey Point", because there was once a collection of large buildings forming a distillery that were used as a visual reference for one of the Pearson flight paths )

Longevity is not the only thing. Science Center has turned out to be unfortunate (well, scandalous, but that's not a transit issue). Hakimi is regrettable, but if someone proposed renaming NYCC as "Rush Commons" or "Lee-Leifson Corners", I would be delighted.

It's subjective, but that's OK.

Kip District remains a trigger. Ugh.

- Paul

I am one of the most historically inclined people on the forum - in fact, I'm not at all a modernist or promoter of the future - and I'm all for reminding people of the past as much as possible, but in the case of station names I really don't see that it is at all helpful. Station names are supposed to give you quick information about where you are, and any name that is not current, likely only to be remembered by old folks reminiscing, or history nerds poring over old maps, run contrary to that. Otherwise you might as well rename Dundas Station to Crookshank, and St. Patrick to Anderson.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

The city last updated neighbourhood names in 2022. Go to https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/neighbourhoods-communities/neighbourhood-profiles/about-toronto-neighbourhoods/ for the current list.

One thing I noticed on that list is that Eglinton Avenue is a dividing line. Different neighbourhoods on each side.

 

[crs1026]

For example, if we go by Google Maps, Eglinton-Scarlett is situated in an area called Westmount, Islington and Royal York form the boundaries of Royal York Gardens to the north of Eglinton. Islington and Kipling form Richmond Gardens to the north, but this is also overlapped by an area called Willowridge-Martin Grove-Ridgeview, which encapsulates, also, Richmond Gardens and Royal York Gardens. Conversely, Scarlett, Royal York, and Islington, with Eglinton as the north boundary, also belong to Edenbridge-Humber Valley, while the area along Kipling is also known as Princess-Rosethorn and Princess Anne Manor. And many of the neighbourhoods that are shown on Google Maps are contrary to the city of Toronto's official neighbourhood database, too.

Is this really useful to wayfinding?

Unfortunately, mapmakers don't want to leave any area unlablled.... so yeah, they drag in a lot of terms that are obscure or contrived. Anybody in Etobicoke knows Princess Margaret and the Kingsway, but without really knowing the boundaries. Differentiating Richmond Gardens or Richview is an endless and futile debate.

Realtors love to extend these boundaries or add new terms rather than deal with reality..... Stonegate has bad connotations as low status rental, so they call my hood Kingsway South, Sunnylea East, etc.

I agree that transit naming has to be discerning, and not build on the less substantive side of place naming, but nothing wrong with bringing a few forgotten terms back to life to add identity to key destinations. Corktown was a forgotten term until recent development, The Distillery District never existed until it was redeveloped.... before that it was just Cabbagetown.... a name which once applied to most of the then-scuzzy territory east of Jarvis and south of Wellesley, but has shrunk as parts gentrified and the name became more exclusive. Lots of places in the burbs do meet this standard. Jane-Finch for instance is now a cultural term and not a street grid reference.

But used appropriately, place names are quite useful for wayfinding and are richer than a grid reference.

- Paul

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

May the 4th be with you...

...in 3 months, it'll be August. Still waiting for the "official" announcement of the announcement for opening of Line 5.