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Why does Toronto settle for bad names?

ShonTron

ShonTron

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Why does this city seem to like bad names? I see it all the time here, and it applies as much to public-sector things as private-sector developments.

Recent examples:

Yonge-Dundas Square. I hate it, it was, and should be Dundas Square. Reading Kyle Rae's defense of his pet project to build the square and shopping complex, he keeps saying it. Damn the Downtown Yonge BIA for making a simple name so cumbersome.

The Toronto Rocket. Believe it or not, this won a "contest" for a new name for a subway car, by some woman from Mississauga. It's such a meaningless word. The TTC should have stuck with its current identifiers, and called it the B-1, for Bombardier, or chose something more imaginative. Hopefully a better name will come with time.

Metrolinx. I hate seeing this name in print so often these days. It is such an outdated, faux-hip, undescriptive name probably designed just to satisfy not paying much for a web domain name and keep those politicans in Hamilton and Mississauga happy by not mentioning the name of this city region in the title.

Then there's publicly-funded private projects with bad names. Bell Lightbox is a great example. I'm not going into corportatized names, because often the US can be much worse. Quicken Loans Arena, anyone?

/Rant
 
I agree, it's happening throughout the US and Canada but it will only continue so we have to get used to it. Doesn't mean we have to like it though.
Until the day I die I'll never get over Rogers renaming Skydome to Rogers Centre but enough has been written about that here.
Bell Lightbox is just plain ridiculous, it's almost laughable.
Fairmount Hotels should be acknowledged for keeping "Royal York" after the re-branding uproar. I do like The Fairmount Royal York, it sounds classy. Staples Center doesn't.
 
SkyDome

We can never write too much about the SkyDome.

SkyDome

SkyDome

SkyDome

The Rogers SkyDome would have been a perfectly cromulent name.
 
scarberiankhatru said:
SkyDome

We can never write too much about the SkyDome.

SkyDome

SkyDome

SkyDome

The Rogers SkyDome would have been a perfectly cromulent name.
Click to expand...


there's always a chance that SKY network television could buy the rogers center. then they can call it the sky dome.
 
The Toronto Rocket. Believe it or not, this won a "contest" for a new name for a subway car, by some woman from Mississauga. It's such a meaningless word. The TTC should have stuck with its current identifiers, and called it the B-1, for Bombardier, or chose something more imaginative. Hopefully a better name will come with time.
Click to expand...

I thought it was a silly suggestion since they've always used it for the TTC, but overall it's not a bad name. The TTC has been using it for ages, so it makes sense. I like "Ride the Rocket" a lot better than "Ride the B-1".
 
I could care less about Corporate names, since they seem to change with great frequency now anyways, and since across N America it's more or less the same. I don't think ours are worse than anybody else's, really.

But Yonge-Dundas Square? I really hate that. It irritates the heck out of me. I have to agree on that one.
 
Yonge-Dundas Square?
Click to expand...

Maybe I'm complete out of the loop, but when did the name change to Yonge-Dundas Square? I have always called it Dundas Square, and have never heard the term Yonge-Dundas Square used.
 
Well, "Dundas Square" makes better sense as a diminutive than "Life Square"...
 
The Rocket is a quality name. It's traditional and it isn't groundbreaking. In the context of a naming contest for a groundbreaking new design, it is perhaps anticlimactic, but at least it makes a connection to a local transit culture.
 
Sean Marshall really doesn't like this name:

December 3rd, 2007
The GTTA is Now Metrolinx

Posted by Sean Marshall

The Greater Toronto Transportation Authority (or GTTA) has come up with a new marketing name and a new website. The new name is Metrolinx. The name and website are scheduled to be launched tomorrow, December 4, but the site is already live. The news release for tomorrow’s launch says that the GTTA will also release a “a discussion paper on transportation trends and outlooks†as well as public consultations on regional transit planning.

Note that Metrolinx is not to be confused with Metrolink (Los Angeles, Manchester, St. Louis or Halifax) nor is it to be confused with the various “Lynx†transit systems such as those in Charlotte or Orlando.

While I think the GTTA made the correct decision to create a new identity (I sometimes get confused between the GTTA and the GTAA, the airport authority), I find the name forced and unimaginative, and very 1995. Metrolinx still lacks a logo. One example that I like is Vancouver’s regional transportation agency, Translink, which has a simple, yet elegant name and logo. I also find the banner image of the website a bit funny, as apparently, the GTA has annexed English villages along with Mississauga and Scarborough City Halls the website developers used Google image searches for Pickering and Brampton, but got pictures of the English villages of the same names instead of the 905 suburban cities.

Bad websites and names aside, the GTAA GTTA has begun some work, including the identification of “quick-win†projects for regional transit, such as signal upgrades for the Yonge-University-Spadina subway, GO Transit rail corridor improvements, and bus services in the suburban 905 municipalities. It has also developed the Presto card, which so far will not offer many of the potential benefits of a transit Smart Card or a new fare structure.

Regional transit planning and coordination is necessary for a growing urban region with increasing congestion and little yet in the way of major infrastructure improvments. To its credit, the GTTA just published an interesting document called Towards Sustainable Transportation [PDF] that discusses goals for the agency, sets out an extensive consultation plan, and has some interesting transit statistics and ideas from other cities that could be adapted to the GTA. Particuarly interesting is a graph on page 13 of the report that shows the few kilometres of expansion of rail-based transit in the past two decades.

It has yet to be seen if a new flashy name and transit plan will bring about any real gains in building a proper regional transit network from the multitude of agencies and fare systems we have now. But with the promise of major capital spending by the province, including Transit City, the GTA may be finally be turning a corner.

But I still don’t like the new name.

SOURCE​
 
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