Until last week, I had only heard the rapid-transit line from Commercial to Broadway referred to as the Millennium Line extension. TransLink seems to be calling it now either the Broadway Line or the UBC Line.
We know those names will be replaced at some point with something more brand-y. How about suggestions? And we might really need two names if there is one that runs along the Arbutus tracks to the north of Broadway, as well as the Broadway line.
I was thinking Creme de La Creme Line, to capitalize on that famous phrase used by a Kerrisdale resident arguing at a city hall public hearing many moons ago against the city’s decision to designate the Arbutus line as a transportation corridor. But that should probably be reserved for any future rapid-transit line that runs south from Broadway on Arbutus.
The names we’ve had so far are so … I don’t know, like something dreamed up by an advertising company that’s never set foot in Vancouver. Expo Line, Millennium Line, Canada Line, Evergreen Line.
Los Angeles is no help. They’ve named their lines boring things like Orange and Red. I kind of like London’s names, because at least they evoke places or images: Circle Line, Picadilly Line, Hammersmith & City Line. New York? Well, they’re so world class they can name a train the D Line and it still sounds exotic. Paris is not that because they go by colours and then the names of the stations at either end of a line — geographically evocative, once more, but it only works because they have great names. So French-sounding! (La Defense-Chateau de Vincennes; Porte des Lilas-Gambetta) The sound of Commercial-UBC just does not make my heart race.
We need something with romance, something that evokes Vancouver, something people could write a song about.