Naming Names
Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit
Summer is the time when a lot of families travel. I know when I was growing up, my parents would put my brothers and me in a car and take us all over Wisconsin to see one landmark or another.
It was traveling on these summer journeys where I learned how to read road signs, found out what mile markers were for and how to properly use (and fold) a map. My wife on the other hand has no knack for navigation as she gives me directions like, “make the left turn at Subway and go down until you see the McDonald’s on your right.”
Of course, this isn’t far from the norm. Studies show men are more prone to using signs and street names, while women are more likely to navigate by landmarks. But how do people navigate with transit?
I recently read an article discussing station and line names for transit, comparing names used by London’s Underground versus Toronto’s system. The story noted that London used names for its stations and lines that gave you a flavor of the area, like Notting Hill, Marble Arch, Jubilee and Bakerloo to name a few.
What routes or lines do you travel on regularly? The “C” line? The “Red” line? Route 42?
How about the stations or stops you get on or off at? 60th and Main? 8th Ave. South? Lombard Street?
Wouldn’t it be better if the stops and stations were named after local landmarks? To give you a real feel for the system you’re riding on and how it is part of the city it carries you through?
Some agencies are already doing this. On Sound Transit’s new Central Link light rail line, the stations are named things like SODO, Stadium, Chinatown. And better yet, each station has an icon associated with it that is shown on all the cars and at the stations themselves.
Wouldn’t you rather ride a Central Link line from SODO to Chinatown rather than the Blue line from 8th Ave. South to North West Ave?
Thanks for reading the MT Position, updated every Thursday.
July 19th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I guess my concern with that concept would be, if I’m traveling in an unfamiliar city, and knew that my destination was near 8th street, or Main Street, or Lombard Ave., I’d know where to get off, but if the stations were China Town, or Tower Hill, and I was not familiar with those landmarks, I’d have a difficult time knwoing where to get off.
July 19th, 2007 at 11:29 am
I am a female and can read maps - when I was young I went to DC - and we were lost - the NE & NW of streets were not common - it is from families driving that people learned about maps. I found the London & Paris subways (don’t speak french) easier to travel than NYC. The colors and names do make it much easier. Most locals will tell you the landmark when you ask.
July 19th, 2007 at 11:44 am
I agree with naming landmarks instead of street intersections for stop names. But, if you really want to communicate with everybody, you need simple systems.
I like TriMet’s (Portland, OR) system of using icons, colors and numbers to designate service areas and routes.
You are tested when you try to use transit in a country where you can not speak or read the language. In St. Petersburg, Russia, I found two essential aids to using buses and trams. First, small, double-sided square metal signs are hung on wires across the street that list bus and tram routes serving the street. After confirming the T10 (Tram #10) serves the street, you look around for a bus stop to wait at. The second aid, is that all buses and trams have a right-side sign that lists the major stops on the route. The route number and the sign of stops enables you to confirm you are using the right bus. The sign enables you to see, at a glance, if the bus or tram serves the closet major stop you are going to.
The side-mounted sign, showing a list of major stops, is superior to the scrolling LED side destination signs we use, because it shows all stops at once and enables non-Russian speakers (like me) to find their stop, even if all I’m looking for is Ma——ki.
July 19th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
I don’t think that the different concepts of naming stations makes a bit of difference in the long run. The “natives” quickly learn the names of the stations they are interested in, and quite frankly, the “stranger” or the occasional rider would be “lost” until he knows a little more of the City. Further, it has become common that a big map of the line is posted over the windows and/or doors. If one of the stops on a line is 55th St (say) and the next stop is Lakeside, what has the “stranger” learned unless he looks at a map or asks someone. Again, I think there’s no difference.
July 19th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Cities like London and Paris, given their more organic street networks, almost inevitably have to name stations after neighbourhoods and landmarks as, in many cases, there isn’t an obvious cross-street to derive a name from (though there are exceptions!) A number of systems have adopted hybrid names for some stations, combining both streets and landmarks, which can provide the best of both worlds. New York has many good exmaples: 42 St - Times Square, 47-50 Sts Rockefeller Ctr, W 4th St Washington Square, etc. In Vancouver, the Joyce (Street) SkyTrain station was renamed Joyce-Collingwood, after the neighbourhood that grew up around it. Several stations on the Canada Line now under construction will also have hybrid names, such as Broadway - City Hall. This is all good provided the names don’t get unwieldy, as illustrated by “U Street/African-American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo” on the Washington Metro.
July 20th, 2007 at 7:48 am
I agree with you that males and females don’t have the same vision of space ; This is prooven scientificaly by A. Berthoz (Académie des sciences): females are using front parietal part of their brain that is an egocentric system : they describe the journey : “go straight, turn left at this landmark, etc…”. On the reverse, males are using an allocentric process that enphases the map vision of the journey. The active parts of the brain are not the same. It is strange but it is. Europeen jobs are studying this, taking into account the periodic physiologic variations of ladies and variation of weather conditions for gentlemen (they are hunters !). The way we have to design signaling systems of our public networks must consider the difference between young and old people but also difference between ladies and gentlemen.
July 27th, 2007 at 2:42 am
It seems to me that, over time, people are getting dumber and dumber despite having more access to information! Here in New York - maybe 25% of the country’s public transport is here - most people know exactly one way to work and one way back. In Manhattan, at least, there is always an alternative route. If something happens to that one way — say, if a train gets rerouted - then the passengers (especially women!) go nuts!