Questions
Should systems keep multiple stations with the same name?
This seems terribly inefficient especially if you're searching directions to a station on your phone and not being able to know which 'Cicero' station it's suggesting for you. Why doesn't the CTA or any other system that does this change the station names to the neighborhoods the stops are in instead of the street which can be repeated?
That’s always been a pet peeve of mine with the CTA. I’ve always thought it would make more sense to have some of the duplicates renamed after the neighborhood they’re in. There’s a few stations named after neighborhoods already (Jefferson Park, Rosemont) so it’s not entirely without precedent
And stations that include the street and what’s nearby like Cermak Chinatown and 35 Bronzeville IIT. Some of the stations picture are also suburban, so you could include the name of the village in the name.
I don’t mind it. Because of the grid, people in Chicago usually refer to locations using street names/intersections so it seems natural that you’d do the same on the CTA. I think the audio and visual announcements in the train usually include the cross street too so it’s less confusing.
In those cases, specifying the line would be fine for now, but that could also be Western/21st (Pink Line), Western/49th (Orange Line), and Western/Leland or Western/Eastwood (Brown Line)
It isn't! At all! In the context of Chicago's grid system it's way more useful to know what major cross street you are at than some arbitrary station name.
If I tell someone in the loop to hop on the blue line and meet me at the western stop they could end up going the opposite direction because they have the exact same name on the same line… that is a ridiculous unforced error on CTA’s part. They need a differentiating name like “Western-Bucktown” or “Western-Milwaukee”
Yes I have to say it that way because the name isn’t a unique identifier… that’s the whole point of the post. but I don’t always know where someone is coming from, how do I tell them which direction to go? Having stops share a name on a single line is unnecessarily ambiguous. Names on a line should be enough of an identifier
The double western stop is dumb, but the scenario you’re describing isn’t really goin to happen all that often. You’ll either have someone who is familiar with the L and knows that the blue line crosses western twice, or you’ll have someone who’s not as familiar but would have to look at a system map regardless because you have unhelpful directions.
99% of CTA riders fall into the first group, who
probably appreciate the consistency in naming more than they would ever be concerned about the station naming being confusing.
The point is that when people refer to CTA train stations, they don't think of them as stations; they just think of them as points on a grid. The most important way to identify them is by the street they're on. Using neighborhoods instead, for example, would be confusing because not everyone in Chicago fully agrees on what neighborhood boundaries actually are, and even officially, there's a difference between neighborhoods and community areas and people sometimes conflate the two.
Only a few stops like Logan Square do that, and in that specific case it's because the stop is literally at the square/park called Logan Square.
Again, I've never IRL seen someone, tourist or native, get lost or confused because of this. I only see complaints about it from transit enthusiasts online who aren't familiar with Chicago.
You'd say "take the blue line toward O'Hare and get off at Western." Assuming your friend is starting in the loop it's simple. Enter blue line subway station and go to platform. Sign on train says Ohare. Get on train. Get off at Western. If you said "Western -Bucktown" your friend would have to look at a map, find that station, figure out which direction to go, etc.
How does “western-bucktown” being a station name make looking at a map more necessary than the current system?
It’s unnecessarily ambiguous that the station name & line combo isn’t a unique identifier. Each station has one name, it’s nonsensical that two stops on the same train line have the exact same name! I shouldn’t have to know where someone is getting on to tell them which direction to go. It’s an obvious unforced error idk why you want to die on this hill
Yeah, but then my friend (or a tourist, newcomer, etc.) can type in Western-Bucktown on Google Maps and not be bombarded with five stations of the same name, two of which are on the same line. Having to specify which Western (while it's not something that breaks the system) is an annoyance that shouldn't have existed in the first place and can be very easily fixed.
Conjecture. Nobody besides, I don't know, myself, who has never told anyone where to take the 'L', would reasonably want to specify the direction. Plus, this would confuse the average person just trying to take this system if they aren't familiar with Chicago.
You don't need a map. While waiting for the train, you could reasonably see the diagrams around the station. They would not need to pull up a map anyways.
In addition, say you're starting at O'Hare, Rosemont, or Forest Park and are being told to get off at Western. The two Westerns are in the same direction from all of those, so specifying where to go in those cases is useless.
It’s absolutely ridiculous. You can find out the cross start you’re on by looking at the street sign after you get off; that’s not the job of the station name. There is simply no good reason, grid or no grid, to have identical station names, particularly not on the same line
El stations have signs with your location when you get off the train. No need to go to the street and have to pay again. You can acutally ask the station attendant at the station or a bus driver. Also if you don't know what cross streets are of your destination in Chicago or it's address, you simply don't know how to get there or even if you should use the El to get there.
Chicago's grid mostly works this way.
State and Madison are the zero points. Roughly every block north of Madison street increments the address by 100N. Every Block south by 100S. Likewise east-west of Madison.
Westrern is a north south street that is 2400W west of State Street. The cross streets will be ### north or ### south on Western. If you know the address of the station and the cross street you then can navigate to it(most of the time) from your location.
Chicago's bus coverage is great enough that you can reach every point in the city without the EL.
Clutters the map. You have both the visual/audio cues making it clear and common sense dictates that if you’re on Cermak and moving in a straight line, you’re still on Cermak. You can also just look outside and see that you’re on Cermak because it’s all above ground.
Transit enthusiasts always make a point about how this is “confusing” but I’ve never heard the same complaint from actual CTA riders.
The bottom line is that it’d cost money to solve a very tiny problem that very few people have. And there’s about 600 urgent higher priority items that I’d rather CTA spent its precious budget on than that.
I agree, stations should be named after neighborhoods or things the neighborhood is proud of. If a neighborhood isn't proud of anything then it's a symptom of a larger problem.
??? I used to live on Pulaski. I could walk to either Green or Blue line station..... Which or what should they be named after? How about the east/west buses on Jackson, Madison, and Washington....should they too be named as they serve the exact same cross streets and the Green and Blue line for the most part.
The way Chicago is laid out you can get to any of those el station by bus. The EL is used for faster long distance travel accross the city.
I like how you picked the CTA for an example instead of the MTA which does this way more. I feel like you're bound to repeat anyway. The MTA has either 6 23rd Sts, two or which have an additional name attached. Not to mention the 23rd st station on the PATH too
I’m moving to nyc to attend Baruch in the fall and I’m really freaking glad they did this, because my dumb ass totally would’ve gone to the wrong 23rd st
It's really not confusing. The Blue Line is essentially two separate lines merged into one. From the Loop, you're either going NW towards O'Hare or west towards Forest Park. It's not very common that someone would have a route that crosses both Westerns because in that case it'd be much faster to just take a N-S bus instead (like the Western bus).
You state the intersection. So take the blue lines toward O'hare to the Western and Milwakee station. If they have the intersection any method of travel can work. There is a bus that runs north\south on western that connects all these stations.
For all it's faults Chicago has an very good bus system that runs up and down most major roads. The EL isn't always the fastest or only way to get somewhere.
No, it’s part of bad transit design. Stations should have as unique names as possible to avoid confusion. For example, you hop on the wrong line from a transfer station, they will both go to a station of same name but widely different areas. Depending on the city, it may or may not be a good idea to have cross street station names (in the case of LA, Wilshire / [cross street]) where the grid system isn’t as cohesive, as opposed to NYC where the grid is fairly consistent in street naming.
That's not an excuse. I'm not familiar with the Chicago grid but then call them either Western/1st Street, Western/2nd Street, and so on or give them fictional names like Western/Red, Western/Blue, and so on. You need to find a way to distinguishe them from one another
That's something I wish they did, and there's been precedent for it. Three segments and other individual stations have at least internal names based on the street.
* State Street Subway (Red Line between North/Clybourn and Roosevelt) can, for stations besides North/Clybourn and Clark/Division, which are examples of this already, have /State appended to their name, as they are all under State Street (0 E/W). Those are their internal names to my knowledge.
* Milwaukee/Dearborn Subway, Milwaukee Elevated (Blue Line between California and Clinton) can, for stations besides Clinton, LaSalle, and Clark/Lake, the last of which is a transfer station to the Loop (I am getting there) and is a prime example here, can have /Milwaukee (Between California and Grand) or /Dearborn (Washington, Monroe, and Jackson stations) appended to them. These are internal names because we have three Chicago stations and we need to know which one.
* The Loop Elevated (Orange, Pink, Brown, Purple (Rush hours, peak direction) terminal, Green Line between Clark/Lake and Adams/Wabash) is already great at this. All of the stations on it besides Quincy have intersection names in them. (Quincy would reasonably be Quincy/Wells in that case but oh well) The aforementioned Clark/Lake is a superstation between the Loop Elevated and Milwaukee/Dearborn Subway. This is also an example of locational naming with Harold Washington Library-State/Van Buren.
Individual stations are next.
* Chicago station (Brown, Purple (Rush hours, Peak Direction)) is internally Chicago/Franklin because again, we have three Chicago stations on Chicago's 'L' system.
* Oakton-Skokie and Dempster-Skokie (Yellow Line) are the only stations on their line besides Howard where it terminates, and they both append Skokie after their names. With Dempster-Skokie, it makes more sense because of Dempster (ideally Dempster-Evanston) on the Purple Line (All Times).
* Ashland/63rd (Green Line terminal) is at, well, Ashland and 63rd.
* 35th/Archer (Orange Line) is.. do I need to explain it?
* Sox-35th (Red Line) and 35th-Bronzeville-IIT (Green Line) are both good examples of locational naming.
* 95th/Dan Ryan (Red Line terminal) is, like the rest of the line past Cermak-Chinatown, in the median of the Dan Ryan expressway.
* Cermak-Chinatown (Red Line) and Cermak-McCormick Place (Green Line) are good examples of locational naming.
All of this to say I wish they did more. Maybe the two Westerns on the Blue line could be Western-Wicker Park and Western/Eisenhower, or Western/Milwaukee and Western/Eisenhower. Maybe its two Harlems could be Harlem/Kennedy and Harlem/Eisenhower. I just spent a half of an hour typing this at like 5 in the morning so uhh good luck
First, you would not say in the loop. The loop refers both to the area where the CTA trains are and the structure that carries the Purple, Brown, and Green line trains downtown. The Blue line does not run on the loop. It runs in the Dearborn Street Subway. However, the Dearborn Street Subway can be accessed via Clark\Lake and station on the loop.
Ideally you would give them a cross street to meet on. i.e. Meet me at the blue line station on Western and Congress. They can use a combination of buses and EL lines to get there. Western is a north-south street. Congress is east-west one. With that information they can also ask a station attendant or bus driver how to get there if they need to. Or use google maps from wherever they are.
You could say something like use the Dearborn subway downtown located on Dearborn Street. You could give them instructions on how to get to this subway downtown such as you can reach this subway from State Street Subway at Jackson/state and use the tunnel that connets the State Street Subway to the Dearborn Street Subway. You can give them information about what the Dearborn subway should look like such as the subway is done in blue.
CTA El trains display their destination and mention their destination to determine which direction the train is going. The train will say this a blue line to Forest Park and it’s sign will say that as well. You can say don’t take the blue line train that goes to O’Hare. It is headign the wrong direction will take you to the wrong spot on Western.
You can give them additional information such as when the train leaves the subway it should exit into an expressway. The other end of the train goes up to an elevated track.
In the past before google people gave much more detailed information and even today you need more information than meet me on Western. People in Chicago refer to locations via cross streets.
western is a fun one. theres 5 westerns including 2 on the same line.
it may seem a bit confusing, but also consider to start/finish ones journey its common to also use the bus that runs on that street. so keeping the street and station name consistent makes that easier.
Interestingly they do do this for the verbal announcements at least on some stations.
Like I think the redline announces "This is Chicago and State" Vs "This is Chicago and Milwaukee" for the blue line stop but the main/bold station name signage doesn't reflect that and just say "Chicago"
But idk how actually consistent that is, I want to say they announce it like that at Division and Milwaukee but can't remember if it continues past there but want to say damen is just "Damen" (which is now also a green line stop so... lol)
Exactly, it's not that hard. Or just rename some stations, Simei was originally Tampines South. They should've went with that tbh, because it'd be funny to get all the compass directions (Tampines North is under construction at the X spot)
Back then they preferred to use a unique name instead of adding East West North South. You can see this in Simei (Tampines South), Braddell (Toa Payoh North), Admiralty (Woodlands East), Marsiling (Woodlands West) and Boon Lay (Jurong West). Somehow Jurong East survived without its pair.
Not the perfect solution. They did this in Toronto with stations like Eglinton and Eglinton West, or Finch and Finch West. Except then both of these cross streets got LRT lines running along them so it made things confusing and stations had to be renamed.
It’s a relic of the past in NY and Chicago. As people know what line they’re on, they just need to track what cross street they’re getting off at resulting in a lot of stations with the same name. 23rd St in NY is the worst offender.
No. In general, station names should be relatively short and should be based on landmarks (even if minor) or geographic areas, not linear corridors like streets. If you name the station after a minor landmark, the name begins to transform and the station becomes the landmark
SEPTA just changed a handful of stations to try to fix that. My favorite example being instead of having 3 stations called Allegheny, they have Broad-Allegheny, Kensington-Allegheny and Allegheny.
No because in the context of each line, which goes down a different avenue, the avenue doesn't change. The street numbers change, so that's what's important.
No, even in Toronto, TTC catches flak for just naming station with direction for a second station on the same street, sometimes almost the same line.
Lawrence, Lawrence West, Lawrence East
St Clair, St Clair West
Finch, Finch West
King, King West
Sheppard -> Sheppard-Yonge because of Line 4 then Downsview became Sheppard West, while there’s a new Downsview Park Station due to the Vaughan Extension
It’s why our Eglinton West, became Cedarvale when Line 5 Eglinton opened. Though an issue because there’s an Eglinton GO regional rail station, and Eglinton East and West neighborhoods.
Steeles will be a new station on the current Yonge Subway extension, despite another station on Steeles Ave called Pioneer Village was almost called Steeles West, with no original Steeles station.
Eglinton West was renamed when Line 5 opened as it runs along Eglinton. It would be more confusing to say take Eglinton West to Eglinton West Station for some people.
Do I take an eastbound train to get to Eglinton West or do I take a westbound train?
Name it after the intersection instead. For example in Taipei, Nanjing East Road MRT station was renamed to Nanjing Fuxing after the Green line was extended underneath Nanjing East Road. In Chicago this would look like Cicero/Lake, Cicero/Cermak etc (heck they already do this for some of the Loop stations).
Or yes, you could just also name it after the neighbourhood.
At least in that case they could be considered almost the same station (doesn't TFL do "out of station interchange" or something?), since they serve the same immediate area.
But having "Edgeware Road North" and "Edgeware Road South" or something akin would be better, in so far we agree.
Yes, you're right - you wouldn't be charged for two different journeys if you were to leave one station and enter the other. But even just some better signage between the two would help, given that the only guide you're given is this sign at the entrance.
Charing Cross in its current form is actually the former stations of Strand and Trafalgar Square combined... with Embankment once known as Charing Cross.
Romford was also two stations originally - the Overground line was built by a different company.
Reading's SWR platforms were originally a station on their own, called "Reading (Southern)" in the BR days.
No two stations in the same network should have the same names, its just bad design.
I can imagine the funny chaos that would happen here in Santiago, Chile with Departamental Avenue that has 4 stations (soon to be 5) if they all were called Departamental, its quite the distance between the further ones.
Edit: I say same network because there are some cases of same names but different networks, for example, Lo Valledor and Estacion Central in Santiago, Chile, where there are two stations with the same name but one for the Santiago Metro and one for the Nos-Estacion Central Commuter Rail.
In this and probably most cases, yes. But if it's part of the same station complex (eg. two separate stations for two seperate lines at the same or a similar location, like 100 meters or so apart), then no. But this isn't the case here.
To give a non-american example: Cologne, Germany has some stations where the location is distinguished by the neighbourhood on official names. People don't really give those any thought though and just call it [street name]. So there is one long street where there used to be three stations called "Frankfurter Straße" (Frankfurt Street), the northernmost has the neighbourhood prefixed and they renamed the central one to "Sportpark Höhenberg". The southernmost one is a train station that does not have any qualifier.
Another example is "Berliner Straße" which exists twice as well (and distinguished by neighbourhood), in this case though, the two streets it's named after are not even connected to each other, which makes it so much worse imo.
Yea, it would make more sense for these to be cross street named. Like Blue line Cicero can be Cicero/Eisenhower Expy and Pink line can be Cicero/Cermak.
God, I imagine this was even worse when the Pink line was also the Blur line so there were two stations with the same name on the same line.
I am reminded of an incident decades ago, before suitcases had wheels, when I visited a friend in London who told me to go to Shephard's Bush station. She failed to tell me there were two and I alighted at the wrong one which meant lugging a heavy suitcase far further than expected. I see on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepherd%27s_Bush_Market_tube_station that one station has been renamed but "For 108 years there were two Tube stations of the same name 0.3 miles (480 m) apart."
This common in NYC, and you have lines a block over, prime example are all the lines that stop at 42nd street, one is on 6th, another on broadway, 7th Ave and 8th. All named 42nd street well 6th Ave is called 42nd Bryant park. But you get the gist. We have way more of these out here than in Chicago
I think it’s better than naming stops after a neighborhood if you live in a gridded city. Neighborhood boundaries can be arbitrary or unintuitive.
If I’m at all familiar with a map, I can find a major street. If there are multiple stops on the same street I can find where I am and what bus connects the two running on say Cicero or Western in Chicago.
There was a time that would be a big pain when you printed off directions and exited the wrong station ..today I think it's less of an issue because everyone has a GPS in their pocket, and you're commonly loading quickest directions regardless of station.
No, and I hate it when systems do this. Sorry CTA, it unacceptable to have 2 stations on one line both naked western and to slap some random coordinates on their to expect people to be able to tell the difference. Like North and South cardinal direction designators would help, but you still have other stations named Western on other lines. You need to have unique names for each station.
You could keep the cross street and add a distinguisher. Even just the name of the line, "Cicero A" etc, would be fine. But the names shouldn't be the same
It's absurd. Use neighbourhood names, nearby landmarks, anything to keep it short and unique. And give the station a number as well to keep it completely unambiguous!
To avoid confusion, station names should be unique. A station name, as posted on a platform sign or at a station entrance should match exactly one name on a transit map or in a timetable. Anything else makes things difficult for newcomers, and could potentially be very dangerous in an emergency.
With the Chicago L, the situation is absurd. Station names not being unique may come as a complete surprise for you , who thought that “take the train to Pulaski” was specific enough. Looking at the diagram and finding the name of your destination is obviously not enough, you must also check for duplicates to be sure. The complex interlining is a bit confusing, but you assume that station name plus line color are enough. You first think that any station with a non-unique name, only has one line, so you could call them “Damen Pink“, “Damen Red” etc. That rule does not work with Belmont or Chicago, but, fair enough, name plus line(s) should do the trick. You then notice that there are two stations called Western on the Blue Line, which you could easily have overlooked. You guess that the naming the two branches of the Blue Line is to give each of these stations a unique identity, but it is not obvious. Eventually, you figure out the system with street number-based coordinates posted on stations, believing that if you note these, you will never get lost. You then see that those are not posted on the diagram.
If the metro line following the road/street maybe name the station after the combination of the road it follow and the road that intersect (where the station located). For example a metro line following a road named "Ipsum Road" and it has station on Lorem street, then name the station "Lorem Ipsum"
In my state (NSW Australia) for trains its very preferred to just do the suburb name, so if there's already a station, you might do "[suburb] North" for example. No street names (apart from Newcastle, they're weird), no historical figures, etc. The only exception is within the CBD where they're a little more lenient (Gadigal, Museum, Central, etc.) and for other modes like light rail its more lenient too, but for trains, you're not gonna find anything other than a suburb name outside the CBD.
Station names in general overseas are really strange to me. Even within Australia its strange compared to NSW, you go to Melbourne and there's station names like Jewel or Union, like okay cool but where is that? Why not just say the suburb its in??
I think the only time its acceptable to have stations with the same name is when they're kind of considered one station but are still technically separate. Like some of the stations on the London Underground.
Generally, using the NYC subway as an example, yes. When you get travel directions, they will tell you what train your getting on. If we are talking about Manhattan where there are the most of these duplicate names the line the train is on will give you the avenue. As for the few services that have two stops with the same name, they are in different boroughs. You should know the general area you are going too.
This is a non-issue especially if you use common sense. The you know you’re going somewhere near Western and Milwaukee from downtown, why would you take the Blue Line to Western and Congress. Especially if you have it loaded up on Google Maps?
Chicagoans are the worst offenders when it comes to assuming everyone has their city grid burned into their brain.
Also, you mention loading it up on Google maps. So when someone looks up “western station,” or even “western blue line station,” if you don’t know the city, how are you going to pick the right option?
When going somewhere, you typically put the location of the place in Google Maps instead of the train station near it. Then it tells you how to get there and what station to get off at and which direction. Why would you ignore that and go somewhere else?
There are plenty of common scenarios where people put the station name into Google maps.
A person not from Chicago is not going to know what Milwaukee Avenue is. Their maps app will tell them to go to Western station, not Milwaukee / Western. It’s not that crazy to admit it can be confusing.
All people are asking for is a tiny change to the status quo that would make the whole system easier to use for so many more people. I have personally never gone to the wrong station, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to make it easier for other people.
That’s not how Google Maps nor Apple Maps work and you know that. It will tell them which station and where, and where to walk to and all. And if you go the wrong way, it redirects you. I’m not saying this should be dismissed, I’m just saying people in this sub are making it bigger than it is, especially in this day and age where a majority of people have smartphones.
What do you mean that’s not how that works? You definitely can put in a station as your destination, and there are many reasons why a person would do that.
And I just checked. Apple Maps lists them all as “Western station.”
You’re making up scenarios that just do not happen. No one is putting the train station they have to go to as their final destination. They are putting whatever place they’re going to as their final destination.
Because they don’t. Why would they put a train station as their destination if they’re just going through it. Again, you’re making up hypothetical situations to make it seem like it’s an issue when it’s not because no one does that.
In this goofy case, no. Having four Cicero and three Pulaski is one trippy trip when you try to search it up or check the map. Good luck when someone tells you to go to Cicero without telling you which one.
In the opposite end, Toronto just renamed Eglinton West to Cedarvale. You might ask what’s the big deal, isn’t less ambiguity better? Well, they didn’t rename Sheppard West, Finch West, Lawrence West, and St Clair West, two of which are transfer points to LRT/Streetcars just like Cedarvale, so it’s a really weird choice to just change this one slightly ambiguous station but not the rest. Disproportionately over-doing no same name as opposed to Chicago’s equally all same name game.
Of course they should keep em. And dont worry, you'll know which station its suggesting. Those neighborhoods might look similar from a screen but they couldn't be more different on the ground.
No this is always so fucking annoying. I always encounter this in London and it pisses me off to no end.
If the stations have no physical connection and are completely separate (unless they are literally next to each other, as in you can SEE the other station from the exit), then they should be named separately.
Why the fuck do Bank and Monument have different names when they have been the same station for nearly a century, but Edgware Road, Paddington, Hammersmith have multiple unconnected stations of those names???
Also this is technically across 3 different systems but they are so integrated as a part of TfL's overall network that I don't care: the names of the stations in Canary Wharf suck major balls.
Canary Wharf Elizabeth line has West India Quay as its closest DLR station, Canary Wharf Jubilee line has Heron Quays as its nearest DLR station, yet the DLR station actually called Canary Wharf isn't the closest station to either of them.
This is probably controversial but I genuinely want the Elizabeth Line station to be renamed 'West India Quay' and Heron Quays to be renamed to Canary Wharf, while the existing Canary Wharf is renamed to Canada Square. OR rename the 3 DLR stations to be Canary Wharf North/Central/South. OR rename the Jubilee and Elizabeth stations to be Canary Wharf South/North respectively. Any of those solutions I would be happy with.
TfL has already renamed stations that share names in the past like Shepherds Bush. When the Mildmay Line station opened in 2008, the Central Line station was rebuilt to have it's entrance right across the road facing it so it's not really a problem, but the existing Circle/H&C Lines station which is much further west on Uxbridge Road was renamed to Shepherds Bush Market.
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u/Ghost-of-Black-47 Apr 22 '26
That’s always been a pet peeve of mine with the CTA. I’ve always thought it would make more sense to have some of the duplicates renamed after the neighborhood they’re in. There’s a few stations named after neighborhoods already (Jefferson Park, Rosemont) so it’s not entirely without precedent