Spotted: TTC Referring To Subway Lines By Color!

TTC sign outside St. George Station in Toronto

I just got into the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) subway station called St. George Station on my way from the Rogers RedBoard 1st Birthday Party to my friend Kelly’s Birthday Celebration. In fact, I began writing this post on my phone while the subway was underground and I had no reception.

More importantly, on the way into the station, a little bit north of the intersection of Bedford Rd. and Bloor St. on the west side of Bedford Rd. I saw the sign you see pictured above. You can see how the sign refers to the two subway lines that intersect at St. George Station – a yellow shield with a 1 inside it labeled “Yellow” underneath and a green shield with a 2 inside it labeled “Green” underneath.

I do not recall if I have mentioned this in this blog before but for a while I have been saying that the TTC should augment the names of their subway/RT lines by referring to them by color as well. The Yonge-University-Spadina (YUS) line on subway maps is yellow, the Bloor line is green, the Scarborough RT line is blue, and the Sheppard line is purple. This is coloring is consistent across all TTC subway and TTC bus/streetcar route maps I have ever seen. If they did this I feel that it would make directions easier for tourists who don’t know street names in this city and therefore a name like the Bloor Line means next to nothing and is easy to forget. I also think that when/if the TTC does this they should split the coloring of the YUS line from a solid yellow to 2 colors. This would be to reflect the fact that it is actually in the shape of a “U” and that it can be easily seen as 2 lines running parallel to each other meeting at their southern ends.

HOWEVER I have never seen anywhere where the TTC maps or any other TTC signage identify the subway lines by color. I also have definitely never seen anywhere where the TTC (or anyone else) identifies subway lines by number. Why then, would they put this sign outside St George station which doesn’t identify the lines inside it by name and instead does it by color and number?

Although the color identification is sort of odd it makes a certain amount of sense as the subway lines are all colored the same on every map. This means that although most people do not refer to them by color, the color of each line is attached in our brains to the lines. But the numbers just make absolutely no sense. This has yet to happen to me but if a tourist (or someone new to the city) was ever to walk over to me – before I saw this sign and wrote a blog post about it – and asked me where they can find a subway station on the “Number One Line” I’d probably feel bad for them and just look at them confused. I would probably assume someone had given them REALLY bad directions or was playing a prank on them and ask them for the address/venue they were trying to reach and hope I could help them that way.

Have you ever seen anywhere else in Toronto where the subway lines are OFFICIALLY referred to this way (by color or by number)?

Do you like my naming of the subway lines augmented OFFICIALLY by designated them by colors idea? Do you like my idea to split the coloring of the YUS Line into 2 separate colors meeting at the bottom? Do you agree with me that it would probably make the transit system easier to navigate for tourists and people who’ve newly moved to the city?

Let me know what you think!

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.