There’s a letter to the editor that I wholly agree with and applaud this morning. It takes Metro, the Washington subway system, to task for it’s continual re-naming of subway stations to suit neighborhood and business interests. As far as I know, the New York subway never renames stations — they just give a name that designates the location. Oh, ho… not in Washington. Here, in the compromise and politicized capital of the nation, the right wing Reagan fanatics forced Metro to rename the “National Airport” station to “Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport” station. A community group eager for recognition forced a name change for the Woodley Park-Zoo station, which is now called “Woodley Park-Zoo-Adams Morgan”, despite the fact that it’s quite a hike to either Adams Morgan or the Zoo from this station. Our subway maps are becoming a bit muddled. Take a look at the subway map to see the name creep, and read this letter to the Washington Post. And later, I’ll tackle the racist and classist design of the subway (if I haven’t already somewhere in the archives)…
Back when Congress was intimidating Metro into renaming the National Airport station to reflect the airport’s new official name, I thought it was ridiculous. How can you give such a long name to a transit station? It won’t fit on signs, and people won’t remember it. I thought that was a perfect, nonpolitical rationale for Metro to refuse the change.
Then I learned that the name of U Street-Cardozo station had already been changed to U Street-African American Civil War Museum-Cardozo. And I sighed.
Now I see that Metro is opening the New York Avenue-Florida Avenue-Gallaudet University station [Metro in Brief, Jan. 9]. What would have been so wrong with Eckington? Or Eckington-Gallaudet? And “Penn Quarter” is being added to the Archives station name, which already had been renamed Archives-Navy Memorial. Why not go all the way and call it the Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter-National Gallery-Shakespeare Theatre Station? Then the Smithsonian station can be called Smithsonian-Mall-Holocaust Museum-Washington Monument-Jefferson Memorial-Printing and Engraving-Agriculture.
Why does the name of a Metro station have to be a comprehensive visitors guide? Can’t people just ask for directions like they do in every other city?
HARLAN MESSINGER
Arlington
And out here in the burbs, the end of the Orange line went from Vienna to Vienna-Fairfax to Vienna-Fairfax-GMU. That last addition confuses people for two reasons: you can’t possibly walk to GMU from the station (it’s much farther than Woodley to Adams-Morgan) and an earlier stop on the Orange line is also called GMU (for the law school campus in Arlington).