The City is currently seeking confirmation for their suggested new names of Stations along the Confederation LRT line. See www.OCTranspo.com.
The only one that really bugs me is the Tunney’s Pasture renaming. It might be more accurate to call it Tunney’s Desolate Wasteland. But to simply shorten it to Tunney’s strikes me as wrong for several reasons.
First, the historic reference (presumably to an early settler) is obscure.
Second, Tunney’s has an apostrophe, which runs into issues with our other official language. Remember Eaton? Or Tim Hortons? Let’s just avoid apostrophes completely.
Third, OC transpo claims their first choice is to name the station after the major cross street; and only secondarily after a district. So name it Holland. It is a well known street.
Fourth, Holland will be the route of one or more feeder buses to the Station.
Fifth, Holland was the country liberated by Canadian troops in WW2, their Queen was exiled here, we have ongoing connections to Holland as evidenced by tulips. So stick up a Liberation of Holland plaque and educate riders that we do have a past that is worth knowing.
And sixth, the station serves more than just cubicle farmers in the pasture. It serves adjacent residential and commercial areas too. Somehow naming it after a single workplace seems a bit exclusionary, too much focus on one particular type of rush hour commuter, fine as they may be as individuals.
You can tell OC Transpo pooh-bahs what names you like on a simple poll at their web site.
I did not find a reference there to renaming the routes. But I gather Confederation Line is only the constructor’s project name and not necessarily the name we want to keep. I like the red colour of the current OTrain sets but I don’t know what colour the new sets are.
I think it is pretty common, and easy to remember and orient oneself to routes named after colours. So make one the red line and the other the green line. Red-Rouge. Green-Vert.
Unfortunately, those aren’t words that are the same in English and French … but then we would probably end up with bureaucratic sticklers repeating the name twice anyhow.
We are accustomed to referring to the O-Train, so it might happen that people begin calling the Confederation Line the C-Train. (Yes, sounds like Calgary, but then again ‘Roughriders’ and ‘GO’ Train come to mind). For consistency, we could give the O-Train a formal name, the “Ottawa Line” once converted to LRT. The Southwest extension beyond Baseline could be called the “Algonquin Line” (A-Train).
Letters, colours or numbers – that’s usually the most logical system cities adopt.
Anyway, Confederation Line…. I like it; why change it?
Your third and fourth point are the strongest arguments against ‘Tunney’s and for Holland. A naming convention should be followed for consistency sake; but then what to make of the possible renaming of Downtown East to ‘Parliament’?
A minor quibble: Holland is a province of The Netherlands and not the country.
I thought Confereration Line was here to stay as the official name? The newest line in Vancouver has the same name.
I think each line needs its own color scheme. If you look at the metro map in Shanghai, you will see each line has a color and a number (no name). All the trains/stations/signs etc match the numbers and color so you know what you’re on without having to think about it.
http://www.shmetro.com/zbdt/overall/english_large.jpg
Close, but Vancouver’s is the CANADA Line, not Confederation (and they are currently constructing the Evergreen Line)
Holland Ave is named after George Holland and has nothing to do with the region in the Netherlands. Making that connection might be nice though.
I was about to ask the question that you answered. Thanks!
To add to your concern about the apostrophe in your second point: if the name is shortened to Tunney’s, the apostrophe ‘-s’ becomes superfluous. As in Tunney’s “what”, what exactly is Tunney in possession of? If “Pasture” is removed, to me it would sound better to name it either ‘Tunney’ or ‘Tunney Station’ or even ‘Tunney’s Station’ (though it appears ‘Station’ is not wanted in the names). I also agree it is perhaps too much of an honour for an obscure farmer, and West Wellington or Holland would be more evocative and useful.