Comments on Last chance to weigh in on Silver Line station names - Greater Greater Washington

Comment by C. R.

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 02:40:06 EDT

Wiehle - We-UH-lee

Working just of exit 10 from the toll road, I can say first hand that there are few, if any, points of solace to this area. This area is a mecca of sorts to low-density, FAR < .1, exurban, "Fringeville" as you can get in some areas. There may be some hope for the Reston Town Center proposed station, but the others, it will be a long time before any of them truly embrace urban habitability principles. I shudder to think that I could theoretically drive past Branch Avenue Metro Station, and an hour later drive almost to work and see another failure that resembles it.

By the way, Coppermine is the name of a road. The poor originality of the naming convention is on the same order of magnitude as the maintenance shortfall of the existing roads just in the northern part of Virginia alone.

Please forgive my biting criticism. That just comes from being a realist who understands how massive the exodus will soon be from northern Virginia for the working class - which ironically is just close enough to be considered local with its 40+ minute commutes, but far enough away that there is still an almost tangible "class gap" - and moving into many a more apartment and affordable housing unit closer to the actual city.

The first full year of ridership data may ultimately determine the effectiveness of Metro (aside from weekend and Friday night uses) for the Silver Line.

To end up back on track, the station names are slightly less than original. I came up with a few creative ones, but I didn't jot them down, unfortunately.

Comment by rogerwilco

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:14:55 EDT

I attended one of the FCDOT meetings about the Silver Line. It was mostly about how Phase II is going to be funded, but they did speak about the station naming (and even had computers set up so people could vote in the survey). They said that over 13k people had responded to the survey (and about half of those were from Fairfax County).

Everyone I spoke to at FCDOT "got it" that names should be brief (and that prepending a number of stations with the same word -- "Tysons" or "Reston" -- was insane). Two supervisors (and the chairwoman) were there to hear. So, I think we'll see something much reasonable out of the board this time.

I also sent an email to my supervisor describing my frustration in Florence last year where all of the city stations were prepended with Firenze. I wanted to go to the "downtown"/main/whatever station... Is that Firenze Campo di Marte or Firenze SMN? (And, what the hell is SMN?? Oops, SMN is a saint... maybe I shouldn't have said "hell"?) Frustrating!

Comment by Rich

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:26:51 EDT

Most people say it "wheelie," although according to a friend of mine who's lived in Reston since the 1970s the man after whom the road is named pronounced it like "wiley" (like Wile E. Coyote).

I'm not a fan of the "Westpark" suggestion because Westpark Drive is a fairly long road by Tysons standards and a large part of the corporate park along Westpark Drive is not within walking distance of any of the proposed stops. The new Beltway Express Lane exit now under construction that will connect to the bridge between Tysons I & II is being called the "Westpark Connector," for example, although I think the signs will say "Westpark Drive."

I understand why they don't want to refer to commercial entities in the station names, but the stop located between the two malls seems like a prime location for an exception to that policy. Even just "Tysons (Malls)" would work.

Comment by Tim

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:19:28 EDT

Thanks. I hadn't even considered that pronunciation.

Comment by dcseain

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 11:39:34 EDT

@Tim and @Matt Johnson:

I live near Wiehle Ave, and "wheelie" is correct, though mat is right -- it'll end up like Grosvenor and L'Enfant and Judiciary, any way the announce wants.

Comment by Matt Johnson

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 11:05:29 EDT

@Tim:
I believe it's supposed to be pronounced "wheelie".

In practice it will be pronounced like Grosvenor and L'Enfant: Any way the speaker wants to pronounce it.

Comment by Gray

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:41:36 EDT

@Tim: No, it's not.

Comment by Tim

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:34:37 EDT

Is Wiehle pronounced 'wheel' or 'while'

Comment by Gray

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 09:57:12 EDT

@Crickey7: "What's the point, since they will all sound the same over the subway car's intercom."

It's too bad they won't also be written anywhere, isn't it?

Comment by Crickey7

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 09:53:09 EDT

What's the point, since they will all sound the same over the subway car's intercom.

Comment by Francis

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 08:39:32 EDT

I like your picks. They're much more iconic.

Comment by Goety

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 08:34:31 EDT

The stations names should be imagined as coming through a crummy public address system in a crowded train where you can't quite see the sign. That is, they should sound distinctive. The Fairfax Board's proposed repetition of Tyson's, Reston, and Herndon will all sound alike.

Comment by Matt Glazewski

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 07:51:25 EDT

You're all wrong, this convention is better:

West Ronald Reagan McLean
Tysons Corner Center
Tysons Westpark
Spring Hill Road
Ronald Reagan Wiehle Avenue
Reston Town Center
Herndon-Monroe
Ronald Reagan's Coppermine
Ronald Reagan Washington Dulles Airport

Comment by John Muller

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 03:31:20 EDT

Not an authority here as I dont't ride the Metro into VA very often, but the Fairfax Board picks are awful. They probably paid a consultant a couple hundred thousand to come up with the dumb and dumber station names, too.

Comment by Omar

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 21:52:01 EDT

So, to summarize:

Tysons-McLean
Tysons Corner Center
Tysons-Westpark
Spring Hill Road
Wiehle Avenue
Reston Town Center
Herndon-Monroe
Innovation Drive
Dulles Airport

… now that's a subway line with brief, useful, familiar, unique names and relatively consistent naming conventions! Let's not be too creative with this. It's easy to get carried away.

Comment by Omar

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 21:48:49 EDT

I can deal with boring or overly artistic names, but no way the Westpark station should be called "Tysons Central." With Tysons Corner Center at the other station, you're asking for eternal confusion, for tourists and locals alike.

I really think the station at Tysons Corner Center should be called "Tysons Corner Center," regardless of the fact that there's a Galleria there too. It's the commercial center of Tysons Corner, if not geographical.

Tysons-McLean because it's the closest station to McLean (à la Vienna/Fairfax). And the highway signs for the off-ramp to that part of Tysons say "McLean." Some consistency in labeling is good for orientation purposes.

Spring Hill Road and Wiehle Avenue should just be named after the street names (I'd be okay with Westpark Drive as well, but it sounds boring, so I went with Tysons-Westpark, which is also what the bus destination signs already say). This is also what the highway off ramps say.

Reston Town Center is great--just like Tysons Corner Center it is named after the nearest, biggest commercial attraction.

Herndon-Monroe after the park-and-ride lot that's already there, as well as the street (why fix what isn't broken?).

And why not call the last station before Dulles "Innovation Drive"? That's what kind of companies are there, and there's no need to label it Dulles when it's not the airport station.

That's my take. If I were king this would all be so easy. :) (Too many cooks …)

Comment by Kolohe

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:51:23 EDT

"What did you pick?"
Nobody, because somebody in accounts receivable with no real knowledge of transportation policy always seems to win with their brackets.

Comment by dcseain

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 16:28:30 EDT

My picks:
1 - Scotts Run
2 - Tysons Galleria
3 - Greensboro Park
4 - Spring Hill
5 - Wiehle Avenue
6 - Reston Town Center
7 - Herndon-Monroe, because that's what we already call that place.
8 - Coppermine

Comment by Sand Box John

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 16:07:12 EDT

After this survey closes I would like to see the count for the names selected or written in for each station.

Comment by Falls Church

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 16:05:23 EDT

The survey seems to be flawed in that the non-hyphenated, non-street station names are going to split the vote and possibly the bad names will end up winning. A better survey would ask people to rank the options instead of just picking one. I realize that this added burden would reduce survey participation but better to have fewer participants who's opinions are accurately captured than a wider survey capturing crummy data.

Comment by Clark

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:51:02 EDT

For the three Tysons Corner stations (not counting the outer-McLean station which seems ill-located), I went with "Tysons East", "Tysons Central" and "Tysons West". Would have added "Corner" to all of them, but that breaks the 19 character rule. I do better with cardinal directions than proximate street names, but maybe that's just me.

Comment by Bossi

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:24:38 EDT

Excess station naming, you say:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thisisbossi/6586394201/

Comment by Gray

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:21:15 EDT

Maybe we're overlooking something here. Are there any minor campuses of colleges or universities in the vague vicinity of any of these stations?

After all, this is a system that is encouraged to include all such institutions in metro names (by my count, 11 out of the 86 when SEU is removed). And since we have to include them no matter whether they're minor satellite campuses (see: West Falls Church), of exceptionally low quality (SEU), or not particularly close to the station (UMd, Marymount), we'd obviously have to add them to the names. After a hyphen, of course.

Comment by Bossi

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 14:48:58 EDT

Agreed: tildes for all!

U Street~African~Amer Civil War Memorial~Cardozo

Comment by aaa

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 14:46:14 EDT

Stop with the g-ddamn hyphens and metro station names. It makes it look like some old society Stamford bride is in charge.

Comment by Bossi

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 14:28:18 EDT

I had Westpark as Tysons Corner, except I couldn't figure out what to call Tysons 123 / Tysons I&II, so I'd ultimately resigned to also calling the malls' stop Tysons Corner and going with Westpark.

I had Coppermine as Hutchison, simply because the school beside the station has that name. I was tempted to call it Herndon and rename your Herndon as Hattontown, but I don't know that area well enough to know if that's intuitive for folk who live out there.

Otherwise all my station names were the same as yours, verbatim.

Comment by Joey

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 13:59:52 EDT

For the first station, I wrote in "West McLean", which approximates the situation at West Falls Church and East Falls Church (1) not really giving great access to the central node in that city (the intersection of Broad and Washington Streets), (2) but still adjacent and descriptive.

Comment by Transport.

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 13:31:25 EDT

My picks:
1 - McLean
2 - Tysons Corner
3 - Greensboro Park
4 - Spring Hill
5 - Wiehle Avenue (I think just "Wiehle" alone would be weird since it can be difficult for some to properly pronounce as Wheel-EE).
6 - Reston Town Center
7 - Herndon
8 - Innovation Avenue

Comment by Gray

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 13:00:21 EDT

@selxic: Expanding on my last comment, there are clearly existing communities being connected here. Tysons (i.e. the "I&II" station), Reston, and Herndon are all existing places and should be named as such. Same with Dulles.

The problem there was that the stupid recommended names muddied everything by creating four Tysons stations, two Reston stations, and two Herndon stations--plus a place that doesn't exist, Dulles East. The stations that aren't in existing recognizable communities should have names that help to establish that identity.

And yeah...if the line ran through McLean, it would need a McLean station.

Comment by dan reed!

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:58:21 EDT

But if we stick to "recognized" names, you end up with stations like Vienna-Fairfax-GMU, which is neither in Vienna or Fairfax or near George Mason University. It's better that we be honest about where stations are actually located, even if it means using a name not everyone's familiar with, much as Maryland did when it named one its exits on the ICC after a village that ceased to exist 100 years ago. It may sound foreign now, but eventually everyone will recognize that name as actually belonging to a real place. And no one will get off at McLean station and end up walking two miles to the actual town center.

Comment by Gray

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:51:58 EDT

@sexlic: McLean exists, but the station isn't actually in it.

Comment by selxic

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:45:57 EDT

I understand recognizing a feature (a somewhat obscure river that has a road and a park named after it), but I'd argue they aren't creating a place with most of the stations. The place exists and has existed for over 100 years. It's McLean. The Fairfax board picks were boring and need changing and tweaks for various reasons, but too many here often miss something the board did observe' these aren't new places. Metro rail service is connecting communities that have existed for years and are continuing to grow to face the future.

Comment by Gray

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:29:48 EDT

@Michael Perkins: I think that's a good point. The "Herndon-Dulles East" station seems similar to me. It's not Herndon, and Dulles East is meaningless, but Coppermine could be a distinctive name for the area in the future.

Comment by Michael Perkins

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:19:11 EDT

I picked Scott run because not only are we recognizing a feature that aready existed, but we are creating the name of a place for at least a few decades.

Comment by selxic

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:18:43 EDT

[This comment has been deleted for violating the comment policy.]

Comment by Gray

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:05:54 EDT

I'm pretty indifferent to the selections for the "Tysons I&II" station, which don't include any hyphenated options (unlike all of the others, I think). But I'm not sure why this one can't just be Tysons.

The survey seems to be admitting that the long, hyphenated names aren't a great idea: almost all of the suggested options are short, and most eliminate hyphens. The best ones also eliminate road, drive, etc. For some reason, though, Westpark isn't an option--only Westpark Drive. Independently of the suggestion above, I had also written in Westpark.

I'm also okay with the one kind of near McLean being called McLean. Scotts Run sounds nice, but it's not like it's a recognizable landmark or even a street name people would know independently.

Most importantly, by far the best system would be to have only one station containing Tysons, one containing Reston, and one containing Herndon. Anything else is just confusing for no good reason.