[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???

 

[81-717]

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.

The bottom line is, both spellings officially exist out there, so arguing which one is "wrong" is an impasse. Americans think we're the ones spelling words wrong and in this instance I don't disagree with them, and it has nothing to do with politics. And if you'd terminate someone for using the "wrong" spelling, you might as well also terminate them for using the British accent in Toronto instead of the Toronto accent.

 

[bearcat]

.How is UTM better? How is anyone supposed to figure out what that means???

I've personally never called it anything other than UTM lol.

Also the reason for renaming isn't because of "artificially engineered a crisis out of scores of helpless tourists ending up in the wrong location". It's because we it was decided that Dundas is no longer a name that should be used for anything public. Whether one agree with it or not, the momentum is for everything with Dundas in it in Toronto to be renamed.

If the name of the station has to be changed, might as well do it at the cost of someone other than the TTC, which really doesn't have much money to throw around. Here TMU is agreeing to pay for the name change, and while to some TMU might not be the most optimal name at least there's no cost to this change.

 

[nfitz]

Why is York University, the institution's full name, OK, but using TMU's full name would be ridiculous?

Because one is 20 charachters with the acronym widely-used, and the other is 4 characters and there is no acronym that most people have heard of. What is the acronym that York uses?

How is UTM better? How is anyone supposed to figure out what that means???

Who takes local buses in Mississauga who doesn't know what UTM stands for? What always confused me about Peel is why they call the Mississauga transit agency MiWay, and not call the Brampton agency BiWay? Heck, they could call a Halton agency HiWay!

The bottom line is, both spellings officially exist out there, so arguing which one is "wrong" is an impasse. Americans think we're the ones spelling words wrong and in this instance I don't disagree with them, and it has nothing to do with politics. And if you'd terminate someone for using the "wrong" spelling, you might as well also terminate them for using the British accent in Toronto instead of the Toronto accent.

I 100% disagree. Why not throw in words with French spellings too. This is Canada not the United States of f#*&@(W M@*#&%(s.

The dictionary is very clear which spelling should be used. And it's not the foreign one! Capiche?

 

[T3G]

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.

The bottom line is, both spellings officially exist out there, so arguing which one is "wrong" is an impasse. Americans think we're the ones spelling words wrong and in this instance I don't disagree with them, and it has nothing to do with politics. And if you'd terminate someone for using the "wrong" spelling, you might as well also terminate them for using the British accent in Toronto instead of the Toronto accent.

Both of you are being very silly. On the one hand, it's absurdly stubborn to incorrectly spell the official names of existing stations. Whether you prefer "centre" or "center" (I don't care, and the average member of the public does not strike me as being bright enough to even notice a difference between the two), the station names use Centre. Period. On the other hand, unless you work in some kind of academic writing capacity, I really can't imagine firing someone for utilizing American spelling would hold up to any kind of scrutiny, and would also certainly result in a wrongful termination lawsuit that the employer would have no ability to win. Last I checked, being American was not a crime.

Also the reason for renaming isn't because of "artificially engineered a crisis out of scores of helpless tourists ending up in the wrong location". It's because we it was decided that Dundas is no longer a name that should be used for anything public. Whether one agree with it or not, the momentum is for everything with Dundas in it in Toronto to be renamed.

That was the original casus belli, but even the city backed off on the renaming of Dundas Street. So why, if the name is going to continue to be in use, are we renaming the stations that bear the name?

Because one is 20 charachters with the acronym widely-used, and the other is 4 characters and there is no acronym that most people have heard of. What is the acronym that York uses?

I don't see that the length is materially relevant - using accurate names should be done no matter their length.

According to Wikipedia, they use both YorkU and YU. If the station was called either, I would also think it was very stupid.

York University - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Who takes local buses in Mississauga who doesn't know what UTM stands for?

The first time I saw a MiWay bus using UTM, I had no idea what they were referring to. I was well used to the Toronto convention of U of T, and had to use Google Maps to figure out who or what UTM was.

But then, Google Maps is also a tool that can be used to distinguish between Dundas and Dundas West stations.