Improving Wayfinding in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Part 2: Stops

This is the second in a three-part series.

The most important piece of transit infrastructure is the bus stop. I've talked at length about bus stops, and what can be done to make them better. Here, I will discuss how many bus stops make wayfinding difficult, particularly due to naming conventions that do not cross municipal boundaries. (I forewarn, this piece is kind of boring and technical, so apologies.)

What is the best format for naming stops?

I think Ottawa has the best format in Ontario for transit stops. It follows a simple pattern: X street or destination/Y street or destination. When the bus calls out "on Hunt Club at Uplands" you know the stop is physically on Hunt Club, at Uplands, the cross street. When in destinations, there is also a consistent format: "Queensway Carleton Hospital at Emergency" lets you know which stop within the destination you are at. The one issue is when there are stops on both sides of the street. The 90, for example, says "Uplands at Hunt Club" for both sides. This works for the first stop, but the second stop could be more clear "Uplands south of Hunt Club."

For me, I like using the Ottawa system, but adding in the aforementioned note when there are stops on either side of the street. 

Issues with Numbered Stops

Nearly every bus route will have stops at addresses. While this is inevitable, different agencies take different approaches to resolving this. I will give four different examples from the GGH, and provide my opinion on them.

Durham Region Transit and TTC are similar, in that they put the address immediately. This works pretty well, especially when the address is an otherwise insignificant building. This communicates a lot of information: the stop on Oshawa named "944 Colonel Sam" tells you what street it is on, and a rough idea of whereabouts on that street. If you're looking for 950 Colonel Sam, you know you're close. 

That said, TTC loves using addresses even when the buildings are significant: "2239 Lawrence Avenue East" seems insignificant, but the stop is immediately in front of Sir Winston Churchill CI. "192 Roywood Drive" serves Lynedock Park, and "2980 Don Mills Road" serves Oriole Community Centre. These are important destinations that do not read on the bus because TTC pushes addresses.

York Region Transit does not use addresses even when they make sense, as they prefer to use the physical stop number. "Cochrane Drive Stop #3230" tells you the stop is on Cochrane, but does not tell you where on the street you are: the adjacent address is 400 Cochrane. While this scheme means that there will never be issues of the bus saying one thing, and online another, it does not allow one to place oneself.

MiWay does use some address stops, but it has experimented with another system. The stop on Dundas and Wharton will be called that, and the next addressed stop will be "Dundas Street west of Wharton Way". I think this system works okay. While it doesn't allow for placement within addresses, it doesn't use otherwise internal information like YRT does. This works fine, until you take a trip on the 42 Derry: "fourth stop east of Derry" is a bit overkill. 

In general, adding the suffix, like street or road, is unnecessary unless there is some confusion. Yonge Street can just say Yonge, but Yonge Blvd remains unchanged.

Other Toronto Issues

Aside the above issues with addresses, TTC has an issue with inconsistent naming between online resources and what is actually called out. This happens in a number of ways. Firstly, while the stop may read online as "Lawrence Avenue East at Carnforth Rd east side", the bus only calls out "Carnforth Road". Most customers would get this, but surely not all. The 'east side' leaves the impression there is a stop on the west side, which there isn't. I think this would be easily resolved by just reducing the number of public facing information. Naming the stop simply "Lawrence/Carnforth" would work wonders. The next stop is Victoria Park, and the next is on the east side of that street, so then using the 'east side' information makes sense.

The other is that stops change names. On the 123 Sherway bus, the last stop on Browns' Line always used to call out "Coules Court", with online information reading "Browns' Line at Coules Court north side". Now, while the online information is unchanged, the stop calls out "785 Browns' Line". Why?? What was the purpose of this change, especially when not followed through across all media? This is a huge issue in Scarborough, where a number of stops mentioned, both on the bus and online, "walkway to x Street," when now the bus just calls out an address that may not even correspond to a building! It's peculiar, and makes it difficult to find information.

Other Issues

Although minor, I find it interesting when different agencies refer to the same place by different names. For example, while Barrie Transit calls it 'Downtown Barrie Terminal', GO calls it 'Barrie Transit Terminal', for no real reason. Making sure that things are named similar makes wayfinding easy, and makes local terminology (calling the terminal DBT) functional on a grander scale.

What should be done?

I think I consistent ruling format should be adopted, with the following points, in the following order:

1. Street/cross street
2. If there are stops on both sides of the street, add 'north/south/east/west side' to the far side stop.
3. If there is no cross street, use an important destination: school, community center, park, mall.
4. If no important destination, say "north/south/east/west of x street", but for the first stop only.
5. Addresses for all successive stops. 

Noting the above, consider the below example travelling west on Sheppard between Morningside.

What is listed online

• Sheppard Avenue East at Morningside Avenue west side
• Sheppard Avenue East at opposite walkway to Murison Blvd
• Sheppard Avenue East at Brenyon Way west side
• Sheppard Avenue East at walkway to Winstanly Cres
• Sheppard Avenue East at Murison Blvd west side
• Sheppard Avenue East at Neilson Road

What is called out on the bus

• Morningside Avenue
• 7600 Sheppard Avenue East
• Brenyon Way
• 7400 Sheppard Avenue East
• Murison Blvd
• Neilson Road

What I propose, using the rules above, for both online and on the bus

• Sheppard/Morningside
• Sheppard/walkway to Murison
• Sheppard/Brenyon
• Sheppard/walkway to Winstanly
• Sheppard/Murison
• Sheppard/Neilson

I think my proposal, while not perfect, is clear about information, consistent for each stop, keeps it simple, and is consistent whether on the bus or online.

Conclusion

Wayfinding in the GTA needs a lot of work, but we can start by making sure that stops are legible and consistent across agencies, so that customers have an easy time understanding where they are, and where they want to go.