Better MBTA Station Names

[Teban54]

Using street names as stop names: A slightly different perspective

My hunch is that this convention (insofar as it exists in North America) emerged from originating practices in New York and Chicago, and to a lesser extent Philadelphia and Boston. I've always been baffled how it can work to have, for example, six stations named "Western", including two on the same line! But Chicago and Manhattan (and to decreasing extents, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens) all feature extremely strong street grids and rapid transit routes that hew to major arterials. Particularly in earlier days, when it was more common to refer to "Eighth Avenue Locals" etc, the line itself provided the second half of the x, y coordinates. In that context, a street name is sufficiently disambiguating.

Well, the "convention" of naming transit stations after cross streets certainly isn't unique to North America. I'm far from a worldwide transit expert, but I know that plenty of Chinese cities are also using street names.

A key reason why cross streets worked for NYC and Chicago was that their transit routes often followed a single road, as you mentioned. But there may be another contributing factor: Back then, most transit maps were still geographical, rather than diagrammatic. If transit lines are drawn on a real-world map that also contains major roads and their names -- most crucially, the roads on which the transit lines run -- one can infer the "coordinate names" more easily.

AFAIK, the worldwide trend towards schematic transit maps started with Harry Beck's London Tube map in 1931. These modern maps, together with the modern naming of transit lines themselves, eliminate an implicit assumption that makes "cross street names" work: Riders are easily aware of the road that they're on. This explains my impression (if not a common one) that cross street names "feel" outdated.

In the case of Boston, I'd argue that the use of cross street names is correlated with whether the transit route follows a single road:

• Most of the notable cross street names are on the Green Line B/C/E branches, SL 4/5, and the former Orange Line stations (Dover, Northampton). They clearly satisfy the criteria of "running on a single road", and were also once known by the street's name, most notably the Washington St El.
• In contrast, the D branch and the Red and Blue lines use much fewer cross street names. Not only do they not follow the street grid extensively, but considering their former names (the Cambridge-Dorchester Subway and the East Boston Tunnel), there were little expectations of riders knowing which street they're on.

There are outliers of course, with OL's Massachusetts Ave and RL's Broadway being the most notable. But I think they fall under a separate category: when there are no "good" names otherwise (at least when the stations were first named). This is a situation where I actually support using street names.


Aside: How Chinese cities name their subway stations

Interestingly, the two biggest rapid transit systems in China -- Beijing and Shanghai -- followed completely different naming strategies:

• Beijing typically avoids using street names as subway names, despite both the road and the subway networks having a well-defined grid structure (albeit not as much as NYC's). The way that Beijing avoids using street names is by naming after places, such as villages, bridges, and historical city gates.
  • What's particularly interesting is that they often use names of historical villages, even when the villages themselves are long gone.
• Shanghai absolutely loves using street names, and does so for the vast majority of their subway stations (pretty much unless there's a notable landmark). But while downtown Shanghai's streets and newer subway lines have some resemblance of a grid network, they're not nearly as structured.
  • Amazingly, they managed to avoid duplicate station names.

Both systems run contrary to my theoretical beliefs from above: I would have expected street names to make much more sense for Beijing instead. I have to attribute this to local preferences.

Most other systems in China are somewhere in-between. You often see a chunk of street names on a subway map, but there are also names of villages that are lost in excessive urban renewals (often triggered by subway extensions themselves).

Given that they face the issue of "no good names" more often than US cities do, there are two common "last resort" measures of dealing with them in Chinese systems:

1. Falling back to street names. This is sometimes used even by cities that are averse to street names otherwise.
2. "Place name + direction name". For example, our Boston Landing would be named "Allston West" in this scenario, and Oak Grove may become "Malden North", even if neither are names of actual neighborhoods (unlike North Quincy and West Medford). This is another common theme, and likely not limited to China either.

 

[Teban54]

(Even more) comments on specific stations

In general, I really prefer this name (least of all because it's short and easy to fit on a map). That being said, Cambridge City Hall is quite close to Central, Chelsea City Hall is quite close to Bellingham Square station (arguably closer than the square), and Somerville City Hall is basically at Gilman Square station. Calling it "Boston City Hall" or "City Hall Plaza" feels like a mouthful and not that much better than Gov't Center, which at least is unique.

"Court" could work, but it would be annoying to transit historians. (Hardly a dealbreaker.) "Pemberton" could also work, but the square is literally not visible from the station. (Plus it's a longer name.)

You may have just tilted my preference back to "Government Center" again. The elephant in the room is that the MBTA transit map covers many cities and municipalities in the region, not just Boston. A Chelsea resident somehow mistaking "City Hall" for Chelsea City Hall may be less common than someone mistaking "Central" to be the central parts of Boston (when it's actually Cambridge), but it still shows that "City Hall" is too generic.

One may argue that "Government Center" doesn't solve the fundamental problem either, though.

"Court" is a great name as the counterpart of "State". Just like the latter's close association with both State St the Old State House, "Court" can refer to:

• Court Street
• The (old) Boston Courthouse (which I'm sure is how Court St got its name to begin with), and its adjacent Court Square which still exists as a street name today
• The John Adams Courthouse that's a short walk away, currently houses the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and is arguably a hidden gem

What's slightly less ideal is that the old courthouse is nowhere near as famous as the Old State House, and neither is Court St compared to State St.

I wouldn't even be opposed to restoring the original name "Scollay Square" again, even though the square no longer exists: as I mentioned above, Chinese systems do this all the time. If this results in a place-making effect where the area is retronymically known as "Scollay Square" again, it may not be a bad thing.

The irony is that the name "Broadway" has actually become less ambiguous over the years: Broadway used to extend all the way to Washington St, roughly where Marginal Road is now.

The issue is not so much with how long or how ambiguous Boston's Broadway is, but rather, with almost every city in MBTA's service area having its own Broadway, many of which are locally important. Many Broadways have MBTA bus routes (sometimes even important routes): Cambridge, Somerville-Medford-Arlington, Chelsea-Revere, Everett-Malden. I'd argue that Boston’s Broadway is less well-known and important in the region than some of these other Broadways.

(This is a very different situation from "Mass Ave". It's a bit more comparable to "Washington St", where the only MBTA stop named after it is for a different Washington St than the most notable one regionwide, albeit that's still not a perfect analogy.)

Re Mass Ave (and the other stations): I like the idea of expanding on the laconic name of "Symphony" (which drops "Hall", as did "Mechanics"), and renaming Hynes to "Conservatory" and Mass Ave to "Arena". (No success yet coming up with a music-related name for the Silver Line's stop, although obviously we can always use Northampton there.)

Wow, Conservatory-Symphony-Arena is one of the most brilliant ideas that I've seen in a while. (It reminds me heavily of the proposals naming Grand Junction stations after scientists.)

Perhaps the stations could be "subtitled" with those names? On the map, it would still be "Arlington" but in the station there would be the subtitle in black-and-white below the green stripped "Arlington", and announced on the intercom as "Arlington/Public Garden." Something similar is done toward with World Trade Center, which is announced as "World Trade Center/Boston Exhibition & Convention Center".

I'm skeptical of "subtitles". Other than the ones that are made obvious everywhere, such as Kendall/MIT and Medford/Tufts, most of them make no practical difference.

How many of you are familiar with these subtitles?

While most of them differ from what you suggested, which is to also announce the subtitle onboard the train, I don't think that's sufficient either. For one, there are already such cases today: the audio announcement for "Kendall/MIT" is followed by "MIT Cambridge Center" (and IIRC the same is done at Davis). But there's a deeper reason:

Let's also not forget the reason why Arlington could use a rename in the first place (at least for me): not because Public Garden is necessarily better, but to resolve the ambiguity between Arlington Street and Arlington Town, especially with RLX. The most important objective is thus for someone heading to Arlington Town to not look at the map, then mistakenly think that he should take the Green Line to Arlington station. Announcing "Public Garden" when the train approaches Arlington won't help them.

• "But the RLX station will probably be named Arlington Center!" No, I don't think that's convincing enough. If the Silver Line (or a future Green Line branch) had a stop named "Malden", which is actually named after Malden St in South End, would that be sufficiently clear on a map even if "Malden Center" is also on it?

Actually, it occurs to me that Boylston could be renamed "Boston Common". It's certainly not necessary to do, but theoretically "Boylston" is confusing because the street continues for over a mile west of the station.

That remind me that Boylston does have some arguments for a rename. The Green Line runs on Boylston St for a while, with several stations not named "Boylston", and then finally arrives at "Boylston" station that's not on Boylston St. (Same scenario as Shanghai's Line 13 and its Jinshajiang Road situation.) This argument is a lot weaker than most of the other cases, for sure.

"Theatre District" would also be a good alternative, as it's already the "subtitle" as shown above.

 

[Teban54]

Not a whole lot more for me to add here, other than agreeing that it's a frustrating issue. When I was trying to create a map for a BRT-ified 111, I tried to arbitrarily group stops into imaginary "stations" like this:

View attachment 63636

Under this ^ model, "Chelsea" for the mainline station would end up overlapping with "Chelsea Square." In that case, I think it would be fine just to call it "Chelsea Mystic Mall". Alternatively, could go with "Chelsea Transfer". (I agree that "Depot" is now too synonymous with "Station," but I don't think "Transfer" has arrived at that point yet.)

It belatedly occurs to me that "Eastern Ave" could be renamed the slightly-inaccurate-but-poetic "Chelsea Bridge".

I've largely settled on the following for my internal stuff:

• Chelsea Square: Anything at the actual Chelsea Square, near 2nd St / Cross St
• Bellingham Square: Anything around Chelsea City Hall, or the Washington Ave & Broadway intersection
• Chelsea Market: Today's commuter rail/SL3 station at Mystic Mall
  • I think this was suggested by someone else last time?
  • Keeps the name "Chelsea" for CR, while indicating that it's primarily a market and not the center of Chelsea
  • Also hints at Market Basket, which is probably better known than Mystic Mall
• Box District: Today's SL3 station, as well as anything along Broadway (including a possible future CR refill, or if the SL3 station is moved further west for a better transfer to the 116)
• Unsure how to replace SL3's Bellingham Square (and any stop on Washington Ave if necessary)
  • Heard St? 6th St?
• Chelsea Bridge: Today's Eastern Ave station

• State -> Post Office Square: the square itself is farther away from the Orange Line station (though the Blue Line station is close), but the name could be used to broaden the name of the square into the name of a microneighborhood. Not a priority, but fun to think about. ("Old State House" would also sound pleasant.)

I'm fine with "State" myself (even without considering any possible future stations closer to Post Office Sq). The word "state" is quite broad and may not seem intuitive at first; but between State St and Old State House, I'd argue that it has a decently specific meaning in Boston, and is beautiful for anyone (including tourists) that gets the connection. Walking into the Old State House to take the subway at a station named State -- how cool is that?

• North Station -> TD Garden:when it was the Boston Garden, I would've been onboard with renaming it, but now I wouldn't want to do it unless TD paid a lot of money for it (and even then, I'd be lukewarm). However, renaming it simply to "Garden" would be peak Boston (in bad ways):
  • People still just call it "The Garden"
  • Without context, it would make no sense to outsiders
  • Without context, it would be incredibly confusing with the Public Garden, probably exceeding Fenway/Kenmore in this respect
  • All of which seem like "peak Boston" to me

As long as the mainline rail station is still there (i.e., before NSRL), I'm fine with keeping North Station as it is. But in the NSRL alternatives that move the station to State-Haymarket and close the existing North Station for passenger operations, I can see reasons to rename it.

• Roxbury Crossing -> Hyde Square: this one doesn't really make sense to me -- I could see Jackson Square receiving that name though

There's only one station that I think deserves the name "Hyde Square": A future E branch extension, say around S Huntinton Ave @ Perkins St. While the boundaries of the Hyde Square neighborhood also borders today's Jackson Square, Stony Brook and Heath St stations, its main commercial area is closest to the E branch extension.

• Central Ave (Milton) -> Pine Tree Brook: I've used this one before, and I like how evocative it is. It's one of the few that I would actually place a little bit of real priority on changing, since there's already Central station elsewhere on the Red Line

Good point on "Central Ave" also being too general.

• Of these, I would probably only advocate for Brighton Music Hall, to avoid confusion around "Harvard Ave", but they're all quite nice

I can see the rationale for renaming Harvard Ave, but Brighton Music Hall isn't an ideal name for it. The question also heavily depends on how many other stops in Allston you expect on a transit map: A branch restoration? New stop on the B&A (between West Station and Boston Landing)? Lots of confounding factors here.

"Allston Village" is what I would prefer on the current MBTA map, or if there's nothing closer to the Brighton Ave/Harvard Ave intersection. The name is also used officially (purple):

 

[Teban54]

As a side note, some renames mentioned above could set up interesting contrasts between the Green and Orange lines stations:

• Court (Gov't Center) vs. State: Former sites of governmental facilities, and streets that are named after them
• Park St vs. Downtown Crossing: Activities supported in the city center -- work (downtown) vs. recreation (park)
• Theatre District (Boylston) vs. Chinatown: Cultural districts

This is just an observation and does not necessarily call for renamed by itself, of course.

 

[ScollayUnder]

I think the main aspect of what I'd like to see improved is ensuring that station names are still providing important wayfinding information as to the surrounding streets outside of the faregates. Landmark-based station names are great for knowing how to get to said landmark, but it doesn't really provide any information about where it is in the city. The four stations on Mass Ave definitely have this issue, and the other big one that jumps out to me are Copley and Back Bay. Copley-Back Bay are probably most harmful example of the map and naming scheme failing people who might not yet have the local knowledge of the area - they are two blocks apart from each other and aligned on the same street, but the names don't give you any clue as to that fact.

If the station names had a second line to them with the most relevant nearby cross streets, I think it would help a lot. The name of the station can still be just mononymous "Symphony" or "Hynes", but I think it would be a lot better if the announcements and the station signs treated them more as something like:
"Hynes Convention Center — Mass Ave & Newbury",
"Symphony — Mass Ave & Huntington",
the Orange station gets "Mass Ave & Southwest Corridor" I guess?
and the Silver station gets "Mass Ave & Washington" (admittedly the "surface disorientation" problem I'm talking about is a lot less likely to happen to people traveling on surface streets, so this is one is less necessary than the other three)

Copley would become "Copley — Dartmouth & Boylston".
Back Bay is a bit harder to pin down as to what street to pair Dartmouth with... I guess "Back Bay — Dartmouth & Columbus"? "Back Bay — Dartmouth & Southwest Corridor"? Maybe it would be more useful just given as a grouping, like "Back Bay — Dartmouth, Clarendon, and Columbus Streets" since it's easy to end up on the Clarendon side of the station complex without ever seeing Dartmouth.

It doesn't fix every pitfall by any means, but it would help people who aren't "in the know" about these things get a bit of a breadcrumb trail to realizing "Oh, these stations are right next to each other", rather than being stuck in "I only know how to get to my destination from the Back Bay station, resulting in using that route even when it would be way easier to get there via Copley"..... which was a mistake I myself made for multiple years as a teenager getting around the city by myself for the first time, during the pre-smartphone era of navigation, I'm ashamed to say. If the station names both mentioned their cross streets and both involved Dartmouth — even if you don't know Dartmouth St, if you know it's half of the cross street for both of them, then you would only need a vague recollection of Boylston St, Columbus Ave and/or SW Corridor Park being roughly in the same vicinity to figure out that Copley and Back Bay are eminently walkable from each other. ...or that after getting out of a concert at Symphony Hall, the Orange Line is barely 2 blocks away so it's very easy to not subject yourself to a miserable ride on a single-car inbound E, crush-loaded with concertgoers.

Changing the "next stop:/this is:" announcements on the trains to include the cross-streets after the 'name' of the station would probably be the most helpful, moreso than signs would be. On signs, I'm imagining the cross-streets part being in a smaller font below the real name of the station on the in-station signage, it wouldn't be included on the signs outside the station, or on the station name in map applications, etc. I would also hope that approaching "extended" station names delicately like this would avoid changes in how people refer to the stations in conversation — the only time you'd hear the full "Landmark + [Street] & [Street]" form of the station said would be in the announcements. And it seems like in Chicago, on the CTA where they have a fairly unrestrained practice of double-barreled station names, people don't use the full version much anyway - sure, "Harold Washington Library - State & Van Buren" is a mouthful, but I've only heard people talk about it as either "Harold Washington Library" or "State and Van Buren", so the 'full name' being long-winded doesn't seem to matter anyhow.

Definitely not an approach that is useful everywhere, but in certain places like Mass Ave and Copley-Back Bay where stations are a lot more co-located than the station names alone let on, I think it could be quite useful.

 

[Smuttynose]

CR stops should be named for municipalities where they are unique but rapid transit and bus stops should be named for

It’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine when a CR station is named after a municipality when it is located miles away from the Downtown/Town Center. I think people should have a reasonable expectation they can easily get to the place the station is named after from the station itself. This is the case for most of the system - Haverhill, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Salem, Beverly, Attleboro, Stoughton, etc. etc. - they’re all located in good central locations. But the Cohasset MBTA station is located in the middle-of-nowhere far from the Downtown. Same for Westborough, and I’m sure plenty of others. Plymouth station, when it was functioning, was located no where near Downtown Plymouth and the associated tourist attractions.

This is less of an issue in towns without a downtown or some sort of central congregating place - i.e. Rowley or Halifax - but it is annoying for larger communities.

Less of an issue, but the T should standardize the Town v. Town Center naming protocol. Winchester and Haverhill are both located smack in the middle of their downtowns and both have other CR stations in their borders. So why is Winchester’s downtown station Winchester Center v. the simplified Haverhill?

 

[Teban54]

I think the main aspect of what I'd like to see improved is ensuring that station names are still providing important wayfinding information as to the surrounding streets outside of the faregates. Landmark-based station names are great for knowing how to get to said landmark, but it doesn't really provide any information about where it is in the city. The four stations on Mass Ave definitely have this issue, and the other big one that jumps out to me are Copley and Back Bay. Copley-Back Bay are probably most harmful example of the map and naming scheme failing people who might not yet have the local knowledge of the area - they are two blocks apart from each other and aligned on the same street, but the names don't give you any clue as to that fact. [...]

It sounds like you're talking about two issues, which are related but still separate:

1. Different stations that are close to each other: e.g. Copley - Back Bay, Symphony - Mass Ave, Kenmore - Lansdowne
2. Indicating station location (My St @ Cross St) in some capacity: rapid transit map, announcements onboard, signs within the station, or something else

For issue #1:

• This can still occur even without similarities in station "coordinates". Northeastern University vs. Ruggles is a notable example (both serve NEU campus), and so is Brookline Village vs. Riverway.
• It's not clear that indicating coordinates (#2) is the best solution to #1, because for an uninformed audience, street names may not mean much. If you know that Mass Ave station (OL) is at "Mass Ave @ Southwest Corridor" and Newmarket station (Fairmount) is at "Mass Ave @ Newmarket Square", does this information help you if you want to go to "Mass Ave @ Albany St"? You'll need some spatial understanding of where Albany St is relative to Southwest Corridor and Newmarket Square, and that's not the job of rapid transit signage -- it's the job of maps.
  • One particular irony in this case is that there are two "Mass Ave @ Albany St" intersections, one in Boston and one in Cambridge. Even better, both are served by the 1 bus, and both are heavily used bus stops.
• The most common fan-made solution for #1 is to indicate "walking connections" with dashed lines on the rapid transit map.
• However, even that doesn't fully cover all destinations, or even all major ones. For example, Cambridge Crossing (a pretty notable development) is served by Lechmere and Community College stations at opposite corners, but I don't think it's worth explicitly noting this on the schematic map. The same applies to NEU campus, hospitals in Longwood Medical Area, etc.
• Ultimately, aside from the "walking connections" when the stations are really close, I think it's the responsibility of the rider to find alternative stations to their destination if the stations are not close enough for general purposes.

For issue #2:

• AFAIK, very, very few subway systems worldwide indicate station "coordinates" on the schematic rapid transit maps (if any). Probably for a good reason: Coordinates for every stop would clutter the map too much.
• If the goal of showing station coordinates is not to solve #1, their value is greatly diminished. Knowing that a place is on "Mass Ave" could mean it's either in Arlington or Dorchester. Knowing that a place is on "Broadway" could mean it's on one of the five major Broadways in metro Boston. (The additional information of cross streets makes it better, but not by much, especially if the cross streets are not well-known.)
• Including coordinates in signage within the station is generally a good idea. However:
  • Most stations on the T already include street names for arrows pointing to exits, such as "<- Dartmouth St".
  • Some stations have exits at very different "coordinates". For example, Tufts Medical Center has exits on opposite corners of a block: Washington St @ Stuart St, and Tremont St @ Oak St W.
  • Ultimately, I think the crux is to clarify locations of the exits, not just the entire station. (See comment below.)
• Including coordinates in onboard announcements falls between the two extremes (map vs. station signage). It makes some sense, but I'm worried that it would make the announcements too long.

TL;DR: I'd prefer tackling the main issue directly by indicating stations within close proximity. While other solutions can be valuable in solving other issues, they aren't particularly helpful here, and their cons may outweigh the pros.

 

[Teban54]

Improving wayfinding of station exits

I propose the following improvements for station exits:

• Give an explicit label (letter or number) for each exit
• Any signage within the station should include: Exit label, street coordinates, and the side of the street (or corner of the intersection) that the exit is on
• For selected signage (e.g. large information boards and signs with multiple rows), also include key destinations, reachable major streets, and bus transfers
• Platforms should always have neighborhood maps that indicate all exits, especially for stations with multiple disconnected unpaid areas -- so that passengers can decide which exit they need beforehand

Using Tufts Medical Center as an example:

• Exit A: Washington St @ Tufts Medical Center (West Side)
  • Exit here for: Tufts Medical Center, Stuart St, Kneeland St, Chinatown, transfers to bus routes SL4, SL5 and 11
• Exit B: Tremont St @ Oak St W (NE Corner)
  • Exit here for: Eliot Norton Park, Wang YMCA, Shawmut Ave, Charles St S, transfer to bus route 43
• On the platform, opposite arrows show "<- Exit A, Washington St" and "-> Exit B, Tremont St"

Another example, South Station:

• Exit A: Summer St @ Atlantic Ave (NW Corner)
  • Exit here for: Dewey Square, the Greenway (north), Purchase St, High St
• Exit B: Summer St @ Atlantic Ave (NE Corner)
  • Exit here for: Federal Reserve Bank Tower, Atlantic Wharf, Seaport, transfer to bus routes 4 and 7 (westbound)
• Exit C: Summer St @ Atlantic Ave (SE Corner)
  • Exit here for: South Station (ground level), USPS, Seaport, transfer to bus routes 4, 7 and 11 (eastbound)
• Exit D: South Station (via underpass)
  • Exit here for: South Station, Commuter Rail, Amtrak, intercity buses
• Exit E: Summer St @ Atlantic Ave (SW Corner)
  • Exit here for: One Financial Center, the Greenway (south), Essex St, Surface Rd, Chinatown, transfer to bus route SL4
• At the mezzanine level, arrows point to the two fare gates: "<- Exits A, E" and "-> Exits B, C, D"
• (This was my motivation to begin with -- without labels for which corner the exit is at, wayfinding is tedious unless you're very familiar with the station)

Downtown Crossing (just to illustrate different exit labels when there are multiple station concourses):

• Exit A: Washington St @ Summer St (NE Corner)
• Exit B: Washington St @ Summer St (SW Corner)
• Exit C: Washington St @ Franklin St (SE Corner)
• Exit D: Temple Pl @ Washington St (SW Corner)
• Exit E: Chauncy St @ Summer St (SW Corner)
• Signage on the Orange Line platform should list Exit E (which is only accessible from the Red Line mezzanine) alongside any arrows pointing to Red Line transfers. Likewise, Red Line signage should also list Exits C/D (only accessible from specific Orange Line platforms) alongside Orange Line transfers of corresponding directions.

 

[Riverside]

@Teban54, yeah, lots of agreement with what you wrote. To add some particular comments of emphasis:

In the case of Boston, I'd argue that the use of cross street names is correlated with whether the transit route follows a single road:

• Most of the notable cross street names are on the Green Line B/C/E branches, SL 4/5, and the former Orange Line stations (Dover, Northampton). They clearly satisfy the criteria of "running on a single road", and were also once known by the street's name, most notably the Washington St El.
• In contrast, the D branch and the Red and Blue lines use much fewer cross street names. Not only do they not follow the street grid extensively, but considering their former names (the Cambridge-Dorchester Subway and the East Boston Tunnel), there were little expectations of riders knowing which street they're on.

Yeah, once you start looking for the pattern, you see it everywhere.

Beijing typically avoids using street names as subway names, despite both the road and the subway networks having a well-defined grid structure (albeit not as much as NYC's). The way that Beijing avoids using street names is by naming after places, such as villages, bridges, and historical city gates.

• What's particularly interesting is that they often use names of historical villages, even when the villages themselves are long gone.

Really interesing perspective on both Beijing and Shanghai. In terms of Beijing, do those village names live on in the names of the present neighborhoods? Or are the station names truly just pulled from a history book?

"Court" is a great name as the counterpart of "State". Just like the latter's close association with both State St the Old State House, "Court" can refer to:

• Court Street
• The (old) Boston Courthouse (which I'm sure is how Court St got its name to begin with), and its adjacent Court Square which still exists as a street name today
• The John Adams Courthouse that's a short walk away, currently houses the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and is arguably a hidden gem

What's slightly less ideal is that the old courthouse is nowhere near as famous as the Old State House, and neither is Court St compared to State St.

That's actually a very compelling case. It's not a name change I would advocate for, but I definitely like it. (If I'm ever working on a crayon diagram where I'm short on space, I might lean on it.)

I'd argue that Boston’s Broadway is less well-known and important in the region than some of these other Broadways.

That's a good point, and one that becomes more important if, for example, rapid transit service is brought to either Everett's or Chelsea/Revere's Broadways. In that case, I think I'd go with "Traveler" myself.

Wow, Conservatory-Symphony-Arena is one of the most brilliant ideas that I've seen in a while. (It reminds me heavily of the proposals naming Grand Junction stations after scientists.)

It was actually on my Transportation Dreams submission! In addition to trying to think of a name for Washington & Mass Ave, I also tried to think of something for Mass Ave & Beacon St. It would be "cute" if that station could be something related to "practice" or "rehearsal"... "First you go to Practice, then Conservatory, then Symphony and maybe all the way to Arena." But, short of just retronymically creating "Rehearsal Square", I couldn't come up with a good excuse, alas.

How many of you are familiar with these subtitles?

Well, I'm not your target audience, but I was familiar with all of them except Belle Isle A few of those were actually officially advertised on maps at various points.

Back Bay/South End (1988):

Boylston/Theater (1979):

Of course, the fact that most of them fell out of use is a good argument as to their inutility.

 

[Teban54]

It’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine when a CR station is named after a municipality when it is located miles away from the Downtown/Town Center. [...]

Less of an issue, but the T should standardize the Town v. Town Center naming protocol. Winchester and Haverhill are both located smack in the middle of their downtowns and both have other CR stations in their borders. So why is Winchester’s downtown station Winchester Center v. the simplified Haverhill?

A few other aspects of standardization that I would like to see:

1. Stations named after squares: Whether the station's name includes "Square", "Sq", or nothing at all

• Stations without "Square": Kendall, Central, Porter, Davis, Andrew, Bowdoin, Maverick, Copley, Kenmore, Nubian
• Stations with "Square": Sullivan Square, Jackson Square, Washington Square, Worcester Square, Bellingham Square, Union Square, Gilman Square, Magoun Square, Ball Square)
• GLX arguably makes this trickier: Most squares prior to GLX didn't have "Square" in their names, but now, it sounds really awkward if GLX stations are suddenly named Union, Gilman, Magoun, and (especially) Ball
• But "Kenmore Square", "Nubian Square" and "Andrew Square" also sound awkward, although it might be because we've gotten used to their named without "Square"

2. Squares with duplicate names in different municipalities that receive MBTA service

• Central -> Central Square Cambridge (to differentiate from Central Square Lynn, and also avoid any misunderstanding that this is Central Boston)
• Union Square -> Union Square Somerville (to differentiate from Union Square Allston)

3. Stations named after streets: Whether the station's name includes "Street", "St", or nothing at all. The same applies to roads, avenues, etc.

• Most stations include "Street" in their names, largely thanks to the Green Line surface stops
• Technically, these are the exceptions: (credits to The EGE's station etymology piece)
  • Red Line and Mattapan Line: Charles, Ashmont, Butler
  • Orange Line: State, Ruggles
  • Green Line: Boylston, Arlington
• There's a higher degree of complexity here than the squares:
  • Ambiguities: "Charles" could have been after either Charles St or Charles River, and "State" could have been after either State St or the Old State House. In both cases, the ambiguity may be interesting enough to be kept intentionally.
  • Placemaking effects: Ruggles and Ashmont are now much better known as the transit center themselves, than as the streets that they (may) have been named after.
• Boylston, Arlington and Butler are probably worth adding the Street/Road suffix, though

 

[Riverside]

Chelsea Market: Today's commuter rail/SL3 station at Mystic Mall

• I think this was suggested by someone else last time?
• Keeps the name "Chelsea" for CR, while indicating that it's primarily a market and not the center of Chelsea
• Also hints at Market Basket, which is probably better known than Mystic Mall

I actually find this quite charming. It also evokes the nearby New England Produce Center. It actually reminds me of what you said about State and a hypothetical "Court" station -- names that are specific enough to be associated with a general area, but vague enough to not be strictly tied down to any particular street or institution.

And that's definitely a theme among MBTA station names, once you start looking for them:

• War Memorial Auditorium or John B. Hynes Memorial Auditorium
• Bunker Hill Community College
• Moakley Courthouse
• JFK Library/UMass Boston
• Museum of Fine Arts
  • Check out the 1988 map above
• Prudential Center or Tower
• Chestnut Hill Reservoir
• Science Park, obviously pulling from the Museum of Science, but evoking the larger (nonexistent) microneighborhood that might surround a Museum of Science, called "Science Park"
• Symphony Hall
• Wonderland Greyound Park

(Airport and Aquarium are stylistically similar, though they're pretty unambiguous even in their abbreviated form.)

In that sense, I suppose we should count ourselves lucky that the Green/Blue transfer station formerly known as "Scollay Square" didn't get called "Government."

I can see the rationale for renaming Harvard Ave, but Brighton Music Hall isn't an ideal name for it. The question also heavily depends on how many other stops in Allston you expect on a transit map: A branch restoration? New stop on the B&A (between West Station and Boston Landing)? Lots of confounding factors here.

"Allston Village" is what I would prefer on the current MBTA map, or if there's nothing closer to the Brighton Ave/Harvard Ave intersection.

Well, station names can change when needed, but I do take your point. "Allston Village" sounds reasonable enough to me. (Lengthy write-up I happened to find. And it looks like there are others, which is interesting.)

As a side note, some renames mentioned above could set up interesting contrasts between the Green and Orange lines stations:

• Court (Gov't Center) vs. State: Former sites of governmental facilities, and streets that are named after them
• Park St vs. Downtown Crossing: Activities supported in the city center -- work (downtown) vs. recreation (park)
• Theatre District (Boylston) vs. Chinatown: Cultural districts

This is just an observation and does not necessarily call for renamed by itself, of course.

Yeah, I think it's most elegant for "Court" and "State", but it's a good point! I keep wondering if something creative could be done with the fact that you've got Park Street leading into Winter Street leading into Summer Street... like, it feels like something is there, but I can't come up with it.

Renaming Park St to "Winter" and DTX to "Summer" would be charming as hell, but I don't think anyone is ever going to want to rename Park Street. And "Summer Street" isn't a great name for DTX on its own, since that street continues over the Red Line and a long distance into Southie.

 

[Teban54]

I keep wondering if something creative could be done with the fact that you've got Park Street leading into Winter Street leading into Summer Street... like, it feels like something is there, but I can't come up with it.

"Fall" for the station leading into Winter, and "Spring" for the station from Winter to Summer?

(Not a serious proposal. The name "Fall" in particular has too many issues to be used for one of the most important stations in the system.)

 

[Riverside]

A few other aspects of standardization that I would like to see:

1. Stations named after squares: Whether the station's name includes "Square", "Sq", or nothing at all

• Stations without "Square": Kendall, Central, Porter, Davis, Andrew, Bowdoin, Maverick, Copley, Kenmore, Nubian
• Stations with "Square": Sullivan Square, Jackson Square, Washington Square, Worcester Square, Bellingham Square, Union Square, Gilman Square, Magoun Square, Ball Square)
• GLX arguably makes this trickier: Most squares prior to GLX didn't have "Square" in their names, but now, it sounds really awkward if GLX stations are suddenly named Union, Gilman, Magoun, and (especially) Ball
• But "Kenmore Square", "Nubian Square" and "Andrew Square" also sound awkward, although it might be because we've gotten used to their named without "Square"

2. Squares with duplicate names in different municipalities that receive MBTA service

• Central -> Central Square Cambridge (to differentiate from Central Square Lynn, and also avoid any misunderstanding that this is Central Boston)
• Union Square -> Union Square Somerville (to differentiate from Union Square Allston)

3. Stations named after streets: Whether the station's name includes "Street", "St", or nothing at all. The same applies to roads, avenues, etc.

• Most stations include "Street" in their names, largely thanks to the Green Line surface stops
• Technically, these are the exceptions: (credits to The EGE's station etymology piece)
  • Red Line and Mattapan Line: Charles, Ashmont, Butler
  • Orange Line: State, Ruggles
  • Green Line: Boylston, Arlington
• There's a higher degree of complexity here than the squares:
  • Ambiguities: "Charles" could have been after either Charles St or Charles River, and "State" could have been after either State St or the Old State House. In both cases, the ambiguity may be interesting enough to be kept intentionally.
  • Placemaking effects: Ruggles and Ashmont are now much better known as the transit center themselves, than as the streets that they (may) have been named after.
• Boylston, Arlington and Butler are probably worth adding the Street/Road suffix, though

Oh, you've stumbled into something I have a Philosophy on If I had a magic wand I could wave and change all signs and wayfinding devices, I would:

1. Exclude "Square" and "Street" (and "Road," etc) from all station names, with four exceptions:
   1. Park Street, for historical reasons
   2. Permit "Square" when needed to disambiguate from a street of the same name and there is no other suitable alternative
   3. Permit "Square" when needed to disambiguate from municipality names and there is no suitable alternative
   4. Permit "Street" if the street is numbered or lettered
2. Include "Street" (and "Road", etc) and "Square" only in the names of surface transit stops (i.e. B/C/E, SL5)
3. Exclude "Station" from station names, except for:
   • North Station and South Station and hypothetical Central Station and West Station (though I would avoid those names if possible)
   • when announcing arrival at a rapid transit station onboard a surface transit vehicle (e.g. "next stop, Harvard Station, change here for the Red Line")
4. Append the municipality or neighborhood or nearby street name to disambiguate duplicate names
   • With the exception of Central, whose name I would keep unchanged for historical reasons
     • (and because "Central Cambridge" is a mouthful and inaccurate on its own, and "Central Prospect" or "Central Western" et al pose their own problems)
5. Prepend municipality or neighborhood names if a station must be named after a street that is too generic
6. Keep station names as short as possible
7. Choose station names based on the following decreasing priorities
   1. Small neighborhoods where the extent of the neighborhood matches the extent of the walkshed
   2. Squares
   3. Cultural institutions
   4. Street names (if sufficiently unambiguous per above discussion)
   5. Historical station names

So, to some of your ambiguous cases (and a couple of others):

• Union Somerville or Union Prospect
• Union Allston
• Lynn
• Worcester Square
• Chelsea 2nd St
• Everett Square
• Everett City Hall
• Chelsea Square
• Chelsea City Hall
• Fay (for a grade-separated station at the current Bellingham Square stop)
• Bay Village

 

[Riverside]

"Fall" for the station leading into Winter, and "Spring" for the station from Winter to Summer?

(Not a serious proposal. The name "Fall" in particular has too many issues to be used for one of the most important stations in the system.)

Oh believe me, I went down that rabbit hole. To some extent, the question is really "what's a better name for the square at the intersection of Winter, Washington, and Summer?" I wouldn't go with "Fall", but "Autumn Square" has a nice ring to it ("next stop Autumn, change here for the Orange Line"), as does "Spring Square".

But in general it seems like "Downtown Crossing" remains a good brand, so it won't get renamed anytime soon. And, per my rule above, "Downtown Crossing" as a (micro)neighborhood maps basically perfectly on to Downtown Crossing station's primary walkshed, so that really should be the name.

 

[Teban54]

In terms of Beijing, do those village names live on in the names of the present neighborhoods? Or are the station names truly just pulled from a history book?

I don't have enough local knowledge of Beijing or any Chinese city with subways, so I'll do as much as I can based on quick looks at present-day maps.

In theory, you can have the following scenarios, depending on both the timelines of subway planning and urban renewals:

1. The village first goes through urban renewal independent of the subway. Later, the subway is planned with a stop in the built-up neighborhood.
2. During initial planning of the subway, the village that still existed and was used to name the station (typically as a tentative engineering name as we've seen with GLX). Urban renewal and TOD happen in conjunction with the planning and construction of the subway. By the time the subway opens, the station is surrounded by new housing, or new street grids and construction sites for TOD.
3. The subway opened even when the village still existed and was undeveloped. (The most extreme cases resulted in "rural subways".) Urban renewal and TOD follow a few years later.

#2 is the most prevalent overall, especially for outlying areas further away from downtown. It's the main form of TOD and a key technique for cities to profit from real estate, part of which pay for the cost of subway construction. But #1 is still fairly common for regions closer to downtown that were already well-developed, especially for "overdue" subway systems and lines. #3 is the rarest, but can still happen at intermediate stations if the line is built for an important connection further outbound.

To see how each scenario translates to association with the village's name, it's helpful to explain what types of association exist in the first place -- which relates to how housing in China works:

• Today, most urban residences in China are analogous to condos in the US, but generally as large-scale projects like apartment complexes (sometimes also known as "gated communities"). Such projects can have a few or dozens of buildings, sometimes even 100+; all buildings are at least 6 stories tall, often 10-20, sometimes 30+.
• For commercial properties, developers generally pick a name for each complex.
• Often, there are also "replacement homes" that house displaced village residents, typically built at or near the original sites. Sometimes, this can be a dedicated housing project that generally receives a less catchy name (as the goal is not to sell the units), often heavily associated with the village's original name. But they can also be incorporated as part of an otherwise commercial housing project.

This means that while a (modern) neighborhood's name can of course be reflected through more traditional means such as parks, schools and commercial buildings, in practice, any association is more often demonstrated through the names of housing complexes. Even commercial projects may use the neighborhood's name and a suffix (similar to "Kendall Crossing Apartments"), or a name that's thematically related to that of the neighborhood (more easily done in the Chinese language than English). But the majority of property names unrelated to the neighborhood.

So we can finally go back to your question: Are the neighborhood names associated with the original village names?

• For #1 (developments before subway), it's essentially a coin flip depending on how the redevelopment originally went. It also heavily depends on how prominent the village's and region's name was even before development.
  • There are plenty of examples for both. I've seen present-day subway stations next to parks and facilities sharing the same village name, likely built before the subway. But I've also seen some new subway stations in much older urban neighborhoods, where nothing (not even the condo names) reflect the station's name.
  • Generally, it seems that the older the developments are, the more strongly they are associated with the village name. My guess is that older urban developments happened somewhat "organically" and in regions that were already notable.
  • In contrast, China's housing boom of 2010-20 happened so rapidly that urban renewal often took place even in places without subways planned. It seems like in these places, not enough time had passed for the village's name to "sink in", and it got lost over time. When the subway came, the village name feels like it was pulled out of a history book.
  • Having a dedicated replacement homes project may help, but often not by much: there are cases where only a single complex, presumably the replacement project, references the original village.
• For #2 and #3 (developments during our after the subway), the association seems slightly stronger -- because the subway station itself is now the selling point. Developers now try to name their projects in ways that imply proximity to the station, and thus the village (which may jolly well be gone).
  • However, any "placemaking effect" often stops at the level of the subway station. This is the most evident in location names of chain stores and banks: they're often named as "XXX subway station branch" instead of just the village name alone.
  • Thus, it seems like the "neighborhood" is named after the subway station, not the original village. Sometimes, I'm not sure whether they can be considered neighborhoods at all: they feel more like "a bunch of houses identified by the name of their nearest subway station". It wouldn't have been much different if the station was named after a street instead.

 

[Teban54]

Oh, you've stumbled into something I have a Philosophy on If I had a magic wand I could wave and change all signs and wayfinding devices, I would: [...]

While it's impressive for you to lay out a detailed naming protocol, I actually disagree with a large number of them:

Exclude "Square" and "Street" (and "Road," etc) from all stationnames, with four exceptions:

There are a couple of cases where I really don't think this works well. Among current stations, I think the worst offenders are: Park St, South St, Central (Sq), Green St, Union Sq, Ball Sq, Valley Rd, and Eastern Ave.

To me (admittedly a non-native English speaker), a large part of what makes the names of most streets and squares work is that they're specific nouns, most often human last names. This immediately makes them (almost) unambiguous. In the context of wayfinding, they also make it immediately clear that it's the name of a place, not something else (since it's unlikely that a human of the same name is relevant in such contexts).

The street and square names that aren't human names, or at least seem plausible to have another meaning, do not have this property. "Restaurant St" already sounds more awkward than "Lenox St", but is at least still clear with the "Street" suffix (perhaps it's a street with many restaurants). But to have a rapid transit station named "Restaurant" seems much worse than "Lenox".

Imagine someone saying... "I'll take the T to Restaurant."

A more practical example is Market Place Dr in Waltham. "Market Place" wouldn't be a good subway name, and there's a reason why the 70 bus signs its destination as the full "Market Place Dr".

While nothing in my list above is as bad as "Restaurant" or "Market Place", they all have one thing in common: The name of the street/square is not a clear-cut specific noun, and can be seen as commonly used English words. Even though some were named after people (Ball, Green), the issue still exists.

• Is someone referring to "Green" as the line or the station?
• Which "Park" are they going to?
• Are they going "South" as a general direction on the Green Line trunk, or specifically to "South Station" on the B branch?

("State" technically suffers from the same problem, but its double meaning and unique tie-in with Boston's history makes it worthwhile.)

You could have added a fifth exception for "disambiguating from another interpretation of the same name", but at that point there are too many exceptions for the naming rule to be convincing. (The likes of Harvard Ave and Silver Line Way complicate things even further.)

Using "Square", "Street" etc. naturally offers the most specific and unambiguous wayfinding label. That should be the primary purpose of naming rapid transit stations IMO; any "placemaking" effects should be secondary. At this point, I'm leaning towards doing that for all stations.

Include "Street" (and "Road", etc) and "Square" only in the names of surface transit stops (i.e. B/C/E, SL5)

In addition to further demonstrating the inconsistencies with the proposed "rule", I don't think this is justified on its own. Why should surface stops be treated any differently from, say, elevated and underground stops? There are no inherent differences with wayfinding for any of these services.

• If the difference is grade separation, then how about grade-separated surface lines like GLX, the D branch, or the RL Braintree branch? (GLX even has the same "ring bell for stop" policy as the westside branches.)
• If the difference is stop spacing, why can't a grade-separated route have closely spaced stops? The E branch has similar stop density as the downtown Green and Orange line trunks. Moreover, stops being further apart doesn't diminish the need for clarifying where each stop is, even if they may become representative of a larger area. (If anything, it matters even more, because picking the wrong stop moves you further away from your destination.)

After all, would it be justifiable to rename the B branch's "South St" station to "South" if the entire branch is replaced with a subway, with the station still being the same 2500' apart from Boston College?

Exclude "Station" from station names, except for:

• North Station and South Station and hypothetical Central Station and West Station (though I would avoid those names if possible)
• when announcing arrival at a rapid transit station onboard a surface transit vehicle (e.g. "next stop, Harvard Station, change here for the Red Line")

"North Station" and "South Station" are the only two cases of "Station" being included in the name in the entire system, anyway, even including commuter rail. I don't think any automated onboard announcements use the word "station".

Append the municipality or neighborhood or nearby street name to disambiguate duplicate names

• With the exception of Central, whose name I would keep unchanged for historical reasons
  • (and because "Central Cambridge" is a mouthful and inaccurate on its own, and "Central Prospect" or "Central Western" et al pose their own problems)

I know that I've mentioned this several times, but "Central" is actually the main reason for my dissatisfaction with naming of squares in the first place. Not so much because of Central Square Lynn (which I agree should be named Lynn as a transit station), but primarily to avoid any misinterpretation that it's "Central Boston".

The fact that MBTA's service area (and "metro Boston" as a whole) contain many different municipalities not named Boston, some of which are even just outside Downtown Boston, may be unintuitive to many first-time users. I'd think that most people outside the region would think that Harvard and MIT are in Boston, not Cambridge. Likewise, a first-time transit rider may think that anything on the transit map, or at least the ones closer to the center, are in (the City of) Boston. This is different from most other metropolises and subway systems, both in North America and worldwide.

While "Central" makes perfect sense as the center of Cambridge, someone without this understanding of municipalities could have mistaken it as the center of Boston. The chance is small (the stop wouldn't look like the city center on the transit map), but it still exists nevertheless.

Also, if historical naming is the concern, FWIW the automated announcements on the 1800s cars still say "Central Square". (Although it also says "Square" for a few other stations further north that had the name "Square" removed.)

Prepend municipality or neighborhood names if a station must be named after a street that is too generic

• Chelsea 2nd St

Wouldn't "2nd St Chelsea" be more in line with how addresses are written? (Of course, "Chelsea City Hall" is another matter.)

 

[JeffDowntown]

While it's impressive for you to lay out a detailed naming protocol, I actually disagree with a large number of them:


There are a couple of cases where I really don't think this works well. Among current stations, I think the worst offenders are: Park St, South St, Central (Sq), Green St, Union Sq, Ball Sq, Valley Rd, and Eastern Ave.

To me (admittedly a non-native English speaker), a large part of what makes the names of most streets and squares work is that they're specific nouns, most often human last names. This immediately makes them (almost) unambiguous. In the context of wayfinding, they also make it immediately clear that it's the name of a place, not something else (since it's unlikely that a human of the same name is relevant in such contexts).

The street and square names that aren't human names, or at least seem plausible to have another meaning, do not have this property. "Restaurant St" already sounds more awkward than "Lenox St", but is at least still clear with the "Street" suffix (perhaps it's a street with many restaurants). But to have a rapid transit station named "Restaurant" seems much worse than "Lenox".

Imagine someone saying... "I'll take the T to Restaurant."

A more practical example is Market Place Dr in Waltham. "Market Place" wouldn't be a good subway name, and there's a reason why the 70 bus signs its destination as the full "Market Place Dr".

While nothing in my list above is as bad as "Restaurant" or "Market Place", they all have one thing in common: The name of the street/square is not a clear-cut specific noun, and can be seen as commonly used English words. Even though some were named after people (Ball, Green), the issue still exists.

• Is someone referring to "Green" as the line or the station?
• Which "Park" are they going to?
• Are they going "South" as a general direction on the Green Line trunk, or specifically to "South Station" on the B branch?

("State" technically suffers from the same problem, but its double meaning and unique tie-in with Boston's history makes it worthwhile.)

You could have added a fifth exception for "disambiguating from another interpretation of the same name", but at that point there are too many exceptions for the naming rule to be convincing. (The likes of Harvard Ave and Silver Line Way complicate things even further.)

Using "Square", "Street" etc. naturally offers the most specific and unambiguous wayfinding label. That should be the primary purpose of naming rapid transit stations IMO; any "placemaking" effects should be secondary. At this point, I'm leaning towards doing that for all stations.


In addition to further demonstrating the inconsistencies with the proposed "rule", I don't think this is justified on its own. Why should surface stops be treated any differently from, say, elevated and underground stops? There are no inherent differences with wayfinding for any of these services.

• If the difference is grade separation, then how about grade-separated surface lines like GLX, the D branch, or the RL Braintree branch? (GLX even has the same "ring bell for stop" policy as the westside branches.)
• If the difference is stop spacing, why can't a grade-separated route have closely spaced stops? The E branch has similar stop density as the downtown Green and Orange line trunks. Moreover, stops being further apart doesn't diminish the need for clarifying where each stop is, even if they may become representative of a larger area. (If anything, it matters even more, because picking the wrong stop moves you further away from your destination.)

After all, would it be justifiable to rename the B branch's "South St" station to "South" if the entire branch is replaced with a subway, with the station still being the same 2500' apart from Boston College?


"North Station" and "South Station" are the only two cases of "Station" being included in the name in the entire system, anyway, even including commuter rail. I don't think any automated onboard announcements use the word "station".


I know that I've mentioned this several times, but "Central" is actually the main reason for my dissatisfaction with naming of squares in the first place. Not so much because of Central Square Lynn (which I agree should be named Lynn as a transit station), but primarily to avoid any misinterpretation that it's "Central Boston".

The fact that MBTA's service area (and "metro Boston" as a whole) contain many different municipalities not named Boston, some of which are even just outside Downtown Boston, may be unintuitive to many first-time users. I'd think that most people outside the region would think that Harvard and MIT are in Boston, not Cambridge. Likewise, a first-time transit rider may think that anything on the transit map, or at least the ones closer to the center, are in (the City of) Boston. This is different from most other metropolises and subway systems, both in North America and worldwide.

While "Central" makes perfect sense as the center of Cambridge, someone without this understanding of municipalities could have mistaken it as the center of Boston. The chance is small (the stop wouldn't look like the city center on the transit map), but it still exists nevertheless.

Also, if historical naming is the concern, FWIW the automated announcements on the 1800s cars still say "Central Square". (Although it also says "Square" for a few other stations further north that had the name "Square" removed.)


Wouldn't "2nd St Chelsea" be more in line with how addresses are written? (Of course, "Chelsea City Hall" is another matter.)

If you want to see how it is done around the globe, here is a good review article.

The process is pretty much "it depends" -- and largely is based on how the street and area geography of the city plays out and is best understood.

I will also say that in more transit centric cities, the station names themselves become place-makers, and outlive the original reason for the name.

 

[The EGE]

It’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine when a CR station is named after a municipality when it is located miles away from the Downtown/Town Center. I think people should have a reasonable expectation they can easily get to the place the station is named after from the station itself. This is the case for most of the system - Haverhill, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Salem, Beverly, Attleboro, Stoughton, etc. etc. - they’re all located in good central locations. But the Cohasset MBTA station is located in the middle-of-nowhere far from the Downtown. Same for Westborough, and I’m sure plenty of others. Plymouth station, when it was functioning, was located no where near Downtown Plymouth and the associated tourist attractions.

This is less of an issue in towns without a downtown or some sort of central congregating place - i.e. Rowley or Halifax - but it is annoying for larger communities.

Less of an issue, but the T should standardize the Town v. Town Center naming protocol. Winchester and Haverhill are both located smack in the middle of their downtowns and both have other CR stations in their borders. So why is Winchester’s downtown station Winchester Center v. the simplified Haverhill?

There's not that many that are really outside the town centers. Those I can think of are:

• Greenbush Line: Cohasset
• Kingston Line: Kingston, Plymouth**, Halifax*, Hanson**, South Weymouth
• Fall River/New Bedford Line: Freetown***, East Taunton
• Providence/Stoughton Line: South Attleboro
• Worcester Line: Grafton, Westborough, Southborough**, Ashland
• Fitchburg Line: Wachusett, Littleton/Route 495****, Lincoln*
• Newburyport/Rockport Line: Rowley*
  

* There was never a closer station to these town centers; the stations have always had these names.
**Hanson is at the former site of South Hanson station. Southborough is at the former site of Cordaville station. Plymouth is at the former site of Cordage station.
***Freetown has never had a real central village; Assonet is the closest thing.
****Arguable whether this counts with the highway name added

Winchester Center, Needham Center, and some similar ones were renamed around 1977. As far as I can tell, it was primarily locations where there were multiple stations in the same town.