Culver City Station Name

[Adrian Auer-Hudson]

What should the Elevated Station just before Venice Blvd be named. I guess "Venice/Robertson" is the obvious choice.

My preference would be "Culver City". That give a far better sense of the locale.

If bus pull ins are built off Washington and Venice, perhaps something like "Culver City Transit Center" would be a good choice.

What do folks think?

[darrell]

"Culver Junction" was a popular name for the immediate area during the public workshops on planning new TOD around the station.

I suppose the most comprehensive would be "Venice-Robertson / Culver City".

If they sold naming rights it could be "Sony Pictures / Culver City".

[kenalpern]

I'm torn, personally, between "Culver Junction" because it might have several Rapid Buses or even trains reaching that station, or just "Venice/Robertson" because that's what it is!

Furthermore, "Venice/Robertson" has played such an important role as the "junction" between the Mid-City and Westside phases of the line that it's hard to distinguish between the two names.

[LAofAnaheim]

We really need to start moving away from naming stations after intersections and go toward a "district" station. It would give the area more pride over a station, and would help somebody not use to our rail system to know where they are really going. I didn't realize Sunset/Vermont was in Los Feliz until I went there. Wish I knew....Why isn't Del Mar called "Old Town Pasadena" instead of Del Mar? How about "Los Angeles City College" for Santa Monica/Vermont? Then, you'll feel the LA metro system is hitting DESTINATIONS and not INTERSECTIONS (which, you can drive to with a car).

I highly recommend this Venice/Robertson station to be called "Culver Junction". Then, when we move forward with Expo Phase II, hopefully we can have a station called "Palms" or "Santa Monica pier".....

[Gokhan]

I prefer Culver Junction. This area is still widely known as Culver Junction; so, it makes sense. Another even more widely known rail junction in LA is the Sunset Junction (Sunset and Santa Monica) and they have a Web site and a large, well-attended street fair every late August. That junction, too, would greatly benefit from the return of rail service if the Metro Silver Light-Rail Line was built.

[Adrian Auer-Hudson]

Culver Junction, or Culver City, works for me. Culver Junction would probably mean more to rail/transit enthusiasts. Culver City would strike a positive chord with local folk.

Either would be a good choice and preferable to the names of the intersecting streets. IMHO Metro really needs to rename their "Anaheim" station. It is an awful long way from Anaheim.

[metrocenter]

I definitely agree that place names that describe the neighborhood, city, or a local landmark are preferable to intersection names. A meaningful name can elicit positive memories for visitors and can form a sense of ownership among locals.

Culver City makes sense to me, unless there are plans for another station within Culver City. Culver Junction is less well-known.

Similarly, I prefer Beverly Center to 3rd/San Vicente, and Staples Center to Pico. Thankfully, Metro seems to be learning: on (M) Gold extension, we have Mariachi Plaza instead of First/Boyle, and Little Tokyo instead of First/Alameda.

[kenalpern]

Considering that this lies more on the edge, not the center, of Culver City, and that there might be several large Busway or Rapid Bus projects (perhaps the latter, but specially-titled) on Venice and Culver Blvds. in the future, I favor "Culver Junction" over "Culver City".

But I'm just one person in the big mix of opinions...

[Gokhan]

Nov 19, 2009 7:06:37 GMT -8 kenalpern said:

Considering that this lies more on the edge, not the center, of Culver City, and that there might be several large Busway or Rapid Bus projects (perhaps the latter, but specially-titled) on Venice and Culver Blvds. in the future, I favor "Culver Junction" over "Culver City".

But I'm just one person in the big mix of opinions...

I agree with Ken as well -- it's better to teach people new things some times. Culver Junction is the accurate name and it will easily stick to people's minds once they hear it. In fact the shopping mall there is already known as the Culver Junction Mall. I had never known about the Sunset Junction before I met people who live in Silverlake, and it turned out to be the biggest thing there.

[antonio]

I definitely think it should be Culver Junction. The Culver in the name makes it fairly obvious that the station is in Culver City and parts of the area still retain the Culver Junction name. In addition that is the historical name, not just from a railfan perspective. I also think that there will be other stations in Culver City in the future (along a 405 parallel line) and most of the city lies to the southwest of the station

[antonio]

Culver Junction also conveys the transit center concept with its many bus interfaces. I would settle for Culver City Transit Center as a name but not Culver City by itself, its on the edge.

[wad]

Nov 19, 2009 9:43:45 GMT -8 antonio said:

I would settle for Culver City Transit Center as a name but not Culver City by itself, its on the edge.

Culver City has one of those already. It's at the Fox Hills Mall.

[antonio]

All the more reason to call it Culver Junction

[metrocenter]

Nov 19, 2009 9:17:57 GMT -8 Gokhan said:

In fact the shopping mall there is already known as the Culver Junction Mall.

Where is that located? I can't find anything online about any mall with that name.

I'm not sold on "Culver Junction". If locals call that area "Culver Junction", then fine. But I'm not convinced that they do. Seems like "Culver City North" or "Culver City Downtown" would be more accurate.

While I find such historical names interesting, I have little interest in reviving names long forgotten. Nobody's suggesting "Sentous" for the La Cienega station, are they?

But to paraphrase Ken, I'm just one vote.

[jeisenberg]

If Culver Junction is used locally, it would be best. Culver City should be avoided for now. I believe the real heart of Culver City is another 1/2 mile south-west, at Hughes and Culver. Let's keep that name for a future rapid transit station in that location, perhaps on a Venice Blvd rail line.

[Gokhan]

People who actually live on or familiar with the Westside are actually familiar with the name Culver Junction, at least those who leave near the Culver Junction, like me. The first time I saw the name Culver Junction was on a piece of junkmail advertising something in the Albertsons mall area there. That was before I even knew about the Expo Line.

I think calling this station Culver City would be same as calling 7th/St Metro Center "Los Angeles" etc.

And calling this station Downtown Culver City would be the same as calling the Little Tokyo Station "Downtown Los Angeles," as both are adjacent to their Downtowns but not quite Downtowns themselves. See the official map of Downtown Culver City below. The Culver Junction Station is about 0.2 miles from the east virtual border of Downtown Culver City.



But it turns out that we are not the only people who bother to think about the name for this station:



This slide is from the presentation for the Culver Junction Transit-Oriented Development EIR. Out of all these proposed names, Culver Junction is my favorite.

In the same presentation, there is a great historical aerial from 1930. Note that Ballona Creek is still natural. Now how great that is, isn't it?!



And City-Data gives the detailed profile of the Culver Junction district of the City of Culver City, down to the length of the railroad that crosses it (the Expo Line that is).

[jeisenbe]

Thanks, Gokkan. Your research proves that Culver City should NOT be the name of this station.
Out of the names on that slide, I also like Culver Crossroads, Washington Crossing, and Washington Junction. Having Culver in the name would be best for those of us out of the area.

If the city calls the neighborhood Culver Junction, then that should be the name.

On a side note, Long Beach has renamed the section of Anaheim Boulevard east of the the Blue line as "Cambodia Town." Perhaps the confusing "Anaheim" station name could be changed to Cambodia Town.
I wouldn't mind renaming Hollywood/Western as "Thai Town" while we are at it.

[jeisenbe]

Renaming the Long Beach stations:
"Artesia", "Del Amo", "Wardlow" probably do not need to be changed.
"Willow" is okay for now, but "Wrigley" would be better; this is the historic name of the district to the west of Long Beach Blvd.
"Pacific Coast Highway" isn't bad, but "Poly High" would be great (most in the neighborhood refer to the school as the local focal point). I have always thought that there should be a "Midtown" between downtown Long Beach and the "Uptown" area of Bixby Knolls / California Heights, but that name would require community buy-in.
"Anaheim" should be "Cambodia Town"
The downtown stations are rather closely spaced. Perhaps if the Blue Line is every grade-separated, we can have just two subway stations here, 1/2 mile apart (at 6th/7th and Long Beach, and at 1st/Long Beach).

"Transit Center" is okay. "1st street" and "5th street" are confusing but I have no, better options. "Pacific" can be renamed "Willmore", the area in the north-west quadrant of Downtown Long Beach.

[wad]

I would suggest changing Artesia station to Compton College, which is just past the hotel.

I second your suggestions for renaming Willow and Anaheim. Both stations are also sited near major medical centers (Memorial and St. Mary).

I don't think Poly High would be a good name for the PCH station. Poly doesn't send a lot of students onto the trains. Also, you set the precedent that any school near a station would want to claim a station as its own. Hollywood/Highland would have to honor Hollywood High, which does supply student ridership to the Red Line.

[bobdavis]

One of the problems in naming a station after an ethnic enclave is that neighborhoods change. Back in the 50's one of the landmarks of "South LA" was Dolphin's Record Shop, which specialized in music of interest to the mostly (what we would now call) African-American area and to adventurous Anglo music fans. I never did visit the place, and by the time a railway museum project took me into the area in the mid 70's, the shop was still there, but it was a clothing store with signs in Spanish. The Boyle Heights area now served by the Gold Line was once a center of LA's Jewish community. The VTA light rail system in San Jose has a station named "Japan Town/Ayer"; one wonders how many people of Japanese ancestry still live there.
On the original Gold Line, I have long thought that "Sierra Madre Villa" leads those unfamiliar with the area to thinking that the tracks go through the City of Sierra Madre, which did have PE rail service, but it quit in 1950. "East Pasadena" or even "Hastings Ranch" would be more accurate. Similarly, I question calling the only station in South Pasadena "Mission". Why not just call it "South Pasadena"? Oh, well, nobody asked me, and I don't have a degree in urban planning.

[stuckintraffic]

Regarding the map of downtown Culver City above -- I had no idea the LA/Culver City border was right in the middle of that block south of Venice. That explains why, after all of Culver City's rejuvenation in recent years, Venice Blvd. still is in terrible shape...

What's the deal with no LA involvement in the rejuvenation of that area? Someone needs to give the city a swift kick...

[James Fujita]

Nov 24, 2009 13:02:45 GMT -8 bobdavis said:

One of the problems in naming a station after an ethnic enclave is that neighborhoods change. Back in the 50's one of the landmarks of "South LA" was Dolphin's Record Shop, which specialized in music of interest to the mostly (what we would now call) African-American area and to adventurous Anglo music fans. I never did visit the place, and by the time a railway museum project took me into the area in the mid 70's, the shop was still there, but it was a clothing store with signs in Spanish. The Boyle Heights area now served by the Gold Line was once a center of LA's Jewish community. The VTA light rail system in San Jose has a station named "Japan Town/Ayer"; one wonders how many people of Japanese ancestry still live there.

Whether or not a neighborhood retains its ethnic flavor or not depends greatly upon the efforts of the people who live, work or shop there fighting to keep that cultural flavor vibrant.

Little Tokyo's leaders have fought long and hard to keep the area Japanese. The Nikkei Center is a perfect example of this. There were three proposals for the "Mangrove property"; the community spoke out loudly for the one that was Japanese-American in design and ownership, and the community won.

Getting official recognition helps as well. There were plenty of Cambodians in that part of Long Beach before the area became officially recognized; now the community has something solid they can add to and cement together a place of their own.

I haven't had the pleasure of visiting San Jose's Japantown, but they evidently have made efforts as well.

For some odd reason, this impulse seems to be stronger among Asians than with other immigrant groups — perhaps because these communities are smaller than the African-American or Latino communities, perhaps also because the language barrier is greater. African-Americans and Latinos do not have their own alphabets, while Japanese, Chinese, Koreans and Cambodians do.

If a community has gone so far as to have their cultural heritage recognized on street signs, I see no reason why rail transit should not honor those attempts to keep a neighborhood whole.

[bluelineshawn]

Nov 24, 2009 16:04:18 GMT -8 James Fujita said:

Whether or not a neighborhood retains its ethnic flavor or not depends greatly upon the efforts of the people who live, work or shop there fighting to keep that cultural flavor vibrant.

Little Tokyo's leaders have fought long and hard to keep the area Japanese...For some odd reason, this impulse seems to be stronger among Asians than with other immigrant groups — perhaps because these communities are smaller than the African-American or Latino communities, perhaps also because the language barrier is greater.

Asian community designations are more acceptable to many. Advocating that a community remain black would be called racist, as was seen on these forums a few days ago. Saying the same thing regarding keeping a community white would be even worse, although there are ethnic white communities around LA and other cities (Little Italy, Greektown, Little Armenia, etc). There are a couple of Little Ethiopia's and Little Haiti's, but that's not African American.

[James Fujita]

It might be less racist than one may think. After all, you have NYC's Harlem, which is still a very prominent African-American history and earned its place in American history as the birthplace of the Harlem Renaissance cultural movement.

These ethnic communities help preserve the history of their communities. This is all part of the historic story of American immigration.

And if a historic ethnic neighborhood can have a vibrant future, all the better for the community and the city as a whole...

[bluelineshawn]

I don't have a problem with people of any ethnic group, race, religion, or whatever wanting their own communities, but others obviously do. Like I said, people complained here a few days ago about a blogger being racist when she complained about gentrification in Leimert Park. She never even said race IIRC.

Harlem is still largely black, but look what happened to Nagin when he said that he hoped that New Orleans would remain a "chocolate city". He was called a racist. The same would happen if anyone expressed a preference that Harlem should stay black.

And look out if a Culver City homeowners group mentioned race. The level to which ethnic communities are acceptable varies depending on the ethnic group and how it's phrased I guess.

[James Fujita]

Some people, especially the ones who call themselves "color-blind" or "race neutral" but also including those who demand tighter immigration controls, seem to have a problem with any mention of race or ethnicity, whether it be in a positive or a negative light.

Personally, I have a problem with those kinds of people. Because, I see nothing wrong with celebrating one's own heritage or America's cultural diversity in general. It seems much less racist to me to acknowledge that these differences exist than to pretend like they don't.


(* I make no assumptions about the people on this message board, I just know that these attitudes are out there.)

[masonite]

Nov 24, 2009 13:02:45 GMT -8 bobdavis said:

On the original Gold Line, I have long thought that "Sierra Madre Villa" leads those unfamiliar with the area to thinking that the tracks go through the City of Sierra Madre, which did have PE rail service, but it quit in 1950. "East Pasadena" or even "Hastings Ranch" would be more accurate. Similarly, I question calling the only station in South Pasadena "Mission". Why not just call it "South Pasadena"? Oh, well, nobody asked me, and I don't have a degree in urban planning.

I think we are getting a bit off topic with the race based aspects of station naming. As I have said before I much prefer neighborhood or landmark based names over streets as do most systems throughout the world.

Bob's suggestions above are good. On the Gold Line, I'd def. throw Memorial Park to Old Town Pasadena into that equation as well. Also, if Little Cambodia is a recognized neighborhood lets go with that. Anaheim confuses as many people as it helps. Also, I'd prefer Thai Town over Western/Hollywood and Los Feliz over Sunset/Vermont as well.

The Get LA Moving Map has a pretty good outline for this. I might tinker with a couple names here as others would on any map, but other than that I think it is right on. If people are so attached to the street names, just put a few signs in the station (visible from the trains showing that Anaheim street exit is there. Even better, why not have an audible voice recording announcing station stops with the additional cross street info as well on board the trains.

At some point, the MTA is going to get smart about these and do an overall change to the names as a few of the current ones just don't make any sense. They'll have to do all at once rather than piecemeal, because it is more cost-effective that way.

[bluelineshawn]

The problems with using Little Cambodia for Anaheim are that:

1) The official name is Cambodia Town
2) The station isn't in Cambodia Town
3) Nobody except maybe Cambodians call that area Cambodia Town, although some do say Little Cambodia

They should just call it Anaheim/Long Beach.

Street names and especially intersections are much more useful than neighborhood/landmark names. I can't comment on the romantic qualities of using neighborhood names that many support, but if you're using trains to travel around town it's better to use the convention that was invented to make that easier, which are street names. Everything else unless it's a major destination that is more well known than the street (LACMA, Universal Studios, Staples Center, the Grove, etc) is inferior. Even then such landmarks may change over time.

[masonite]

Nov 25, 2009 18:43:51 GMT -8 bluelineshawn said:

The problems with using Little Cambodia for Anaheim are that:

1) The official name is Cambodia Town
2) The station isn't in Cambodia Town
3) Nobody except maybe Cambodians call that area Cambodia Town, although some do say Little Cambodia

They should just call it Anaheim/Long Beach.

Street names and especially intersections are much more useful than neighborhood/landmark names. I can't comment on the romantic qualities of using neighborhood names that many support, but if you're using trains to travel around town it's better to use the convention that was invented to make that easier, which are street names. Everything else unless it's a major destination that is more well known than the street (LACMA, Universal Studios, Staples Center, the Grove, etc) is inferior. Even then such landmarks may change over time.

I know they have been working on getting a designation for the neighborhood there and calling it Cambodia Town or Little Cambodia. If Long Beach recognizes it, I don't see why it would be much different than Little Tokyo or Chinatown. However, if the current station isn't in the neighborhood, I agree it isn't appropriate.

The Old Pacific Electric system used neighborhoods or the towns they stopped in for the most part so using the street names is relatively new even in Los Angeles.

It depends if you see the city as a set of neighborhoods or destinations or just a bunch of streets and intersections. I used to stay with my Dad in Northern Virginia for a couple weeks out of the year and ride the Orange Line into DC. There isn't one station with a street or intersection name and if there was it wouldn't have meant much of anything to me because I didn't drive and the subway was my way around town.

I knew how to get to RFK Stadium, because it had a station named after it. Here if I didn't just happen to know that Pico was relatively close to the Convention Center and Staples Center I would have to spend time to research how to get there if I wanted to put the effort into it.

There is no standard naming convention here. Sometimes we use the streets, sometimes the neighborhood or the city or sometimes the nearest park. This is what creates the confusion. Also, people don't like saying long names. Hollywood-Western is a handful and so is Suset-Vermont so people just often informally say Thai Town station or Los Feliz station.

Also, when we start naming stations after minor places or streets like Memorial Park or Maravilla, people use alternative names like Old Town Pasadena or even the King Taco station (not that I advocate naming it the King Taco station).

[bluelineshawn]

Heh. It will never be the official name, but "King Taco station" has to easily be among the most identifiable station "names" for anyone that's seen/used it. It's so visible and there's really not much else there.