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Post by masonite on Jan 10, 2013 22:10:04 GMT -8
I cannot agree that 17th Street is THAT long a walk to Santa Monica College. But then I've lived in NYC and London where I was used to walking such distances from rail stations. But do rail stations in NY or London attach names of destinations more than a half mile to its station? It's not a matter of distance, it's more a discussion of relevance. I am not going to get into the station naming thing, because I think we have beat it to death and everyone has pretty much agreed to disagree. On SMC, I would argue it is relevant, because SMC has a massive parking problem that affects that entire area of Santa Monica and many of its students do not drive or can barely afford to. It is a major reason why SM wanted Expo in the first place.
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Post by Philip on Jan 11, 2013 9:23:11 GMT -8
When I was a student at Temple University, I commuted into the city via train. The SEPTA Regional Rail (Philly's equivalent of Metrolink service) station was located just on the edge of the University proper. The walk up to the actual University entrance? 0.2 miles.
The Broad Street Line, one of Philly's subway lines, also has a stop for the University. It's at Cecil B. Moore Ave., basically right on campus.
You see where I'm going with this. If the Cecil B. Moore stop didn't exist and was located 0.6 miles south of that area, it would be just past the next real subway stop (Girard Ave.) in an area that no one would even consider naming for the campus. It's too far, not to mention that the area isn't very safe.
Santa Monica is a much different beast than Philly obviously, with it being safer and more open to walk through. Nevertheless, including SMC in the station name would send the wrong message to students and visitors: that the campus is basically a short (less than 5 minutes) walk away, which it's not.
Playing devil's advocate though, this will be the only rail stop in the vicinity of the campus, possibly forever. With that in mind, it's understandable why they're pushing for SMC to be part of the name.
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Post by bzcat on Jan 11, 2013 12:13:17 GMT -8
We are never going to get everyone to agree on a naming convention so I'll just say that it should be case by case. But the problem is we DO have a default naming convention, and it is not a good one. The strictly street grid based station name is geographically correct but a lot of time, not all that useful.
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Post by JerardWright on Jan 11, 2013 14:31:35 GMT -8
But do rail stations in NY or London attach names of destinations more than a half mile to its station? It's not a matter of distance, it's more a discussion of relevance. I am not going to get into the station naming thing, because I think we have beat it to death and everyone has pretty much agreed to disagree. On SMC, I would argue it is relevant, because SMC has a massive parking problem that affects that entire area of Santa Monica and many of its students do not drive or can barely afford to. It is a major reason why SM wanted Expo in the first place. But given that SMC has satellite campuses within Santa Monica much like USC and UCLA does and whats to say that this station here maybe the right at the 17th Street Expo station in the future due to campus expansion.
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Post by masonite on Jan 11, 2013 14:36:59 GMT -8
I am not going to get into the station naming thing, because I think we have beat it to death and everyone has pretty much agreed to disagree. On SMC, I would argue it is relevant, because SMC has a massive parking problem that affects that entire area of Santa Monica and many of its students do not drive or can barely afford to. It is a major reason why SM wanted Expo in the first place. But given that SMC has satellite campuses within Santa Monica much like USC and UCLA does and whats to say that this station here maybe the right at the 17th Street Expo station in the future due to campus expansion. Good point. I don't necessarily think that the station should be named SMC, although I would probably lean in that direction. I did just want to state the fact why SM thinks it is important to promote transit to SMC. Right now, I believe they buy every student a BBB pass.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Jan 11, 2013 18:37:45 GMT -8
Boston doesn't have a street grid like we do. For us naming stations after intersections is enormously useful to riders that need to make bus connections and travel to unfamiliar places. Our buses travel on grids too after all. Do any of the people here that favor neighborhood and destination names for relatively obscure locations ever ride buses? I honestly can't understand sacrificing something that is very useful in way finding for an idealistic vision of community building through train station names. Lets use Mariachi Plaza as an example. It defines a community and now more people in LA are familiar with a Mariachi Plaza in East LA giving the area a sense of pride. It sounds way better and more useful than 1st/Boyle Station. Mariachi Plaza is a home, a place, and community............not an intersection. Greater people in LA now associates mariachis with Mariachi Plaza station and helps make LA a cooler city. That's a good example. It works well and I can't fault that name.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Jan 11, 2013 18:41:05 GMT -8
Excellent point. When I know my destination is off a Western, and that I need to take a bus that runs on Western, seeing "Expo/Western" makes it easy to figure out where I should get off to make the transfer. Yeah, that's it exactly.
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Post by LAofAnaheim on Jan 12, 2013 20:10:53 GMT -8
Isn't the Westside Pavilion closer to the future Expo/Westwood station than Santa Monica College to 17 Street/Colorado/SMC station?
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Post by RMoses on Jan 15, 2013 10:50:08 GMT -8
Isn't the Westside Pavilion closer to the future Expo/Westwood station than Santa Monica College to 17 Street/Colorado/SMC station? WP is about .6 of the distance, in addition UCLA and St. John's are closer to 17th St. than SMC. A good place to leave some comments regarding walking in SM is here: pedplan.santamonicatownhall.org/
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Post by Philip on Apr 25, 2013 12:11:51 GMT -8
Well, the Metro Board just approved all the station names for Phase 2.
Here they are:
Official Station Names
Palms Westwood/Rancho Park Exposition/Sepulveda Exposition/Bundy 26th Street/Bergamot 17th Street/Santa Monica College Downtown Santa Monica
Overall, I'm happy with these. Palms is better than Palms/National. Westwood/Rancho Park gets the best of both "Expo/Westwood" & "Rancho Park" - ditto for 26th/Bergamot losing the Olympic designation.
The only one that still bugs me is 17th/SMC, as it's the only one that's only half-accurate to the location.
I like Downtown Santa Monica, although I would have preferred it be saved for 4th/Wilshire (whenever the Purple Line finally makes it to Santa Monica). Nevertheless, it's still lightyears better than "4th/Colorado."
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 25, 2013 13:36:00 GMT -8
I cannot agree that 17th Street is THAT long a walk to Santa Monica College. But then I've lived in NYC and London where I was used to walking such distances from rail stations. No, it isn't. It's only 0.6 miles -- about 11 minutes with a slow pace or 9 minutes with a fast pace.
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