Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
Photos of signage on yet another recycled hoarding at York Mills station taken by Jonathan Goldsbie.
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It's as though they do it on purpose. Is it possible?
Could the TTC workforce be so demoralized that they deliberately undermine the function of the system?
Maybe they *know* that running the utility as though it is still the 1950's is not realistic. Familiar, perhaps, but something that hasn't been working, is not working, and cannot work moving into our/their future.
These inexplicable situations, found *throughout* the system, could be muted cries for help. As in:
"HELP! Someone rescue from the only culture I know"
"It is killing me"
(just wondering)
To be fair, I should point out that the sign wasn't intended as wayfinding, at least not at the time the photo was taken. It had been a crummy piece of wayfinding (albeit the right way up) when it was originally affixed to the hoarding during the repair of one of the escalators. But the hoardings were taken down when the repairs were finished and then re-erected (with the sign still attached) a couple of weeks later when work began on the other escalator. That's when this picture was taken. The sign stayed that way for about a month before they (or someone) finally tore it off.
With all do respect to Mr. Clark, I can't be the only person who thinks he is far too worked up about irrelevant details of TTC siganage, am I?
There certainly are some issues with the TTC's current signage. Many of the signs in use are confusing and not entirely obvious to somebody not familiar with the system.
However, ranting at length about mixing Arial and Helvetica in the same station just makes you look like a bit of a lunatic. The point is to communicate information; the nitty-gritty of which of a variety of near-identical fonts in the same family is used is hardly the most important factor to consider.
furthermore I don't think Joe Clark's loving praise of Paul Arthur's redsign is deserved. While I was not around for the days when the signage was actually in use, the photos I see of it are nothing but blatantly confusing and completely out-of-line with the conventions in use by the public (i.e. denoting the Bloor-Danforth Subway only as the "green line" will do nothing but confuse a visitor when they are told to take the Bloor-Danforth subway to, say, Dufferin station.).
lolway
iantri - You're not alone.
"There certainly are some issues with the TTC's current signage."
Wayfinding in the TTC is hugely problematic. How often do you see people confused and asking for help in trying to determine which train to board to get to a particular station or on which side of a platform to wait for a train going in a certain direction?
I know that, for me, it's entirely thanks to Joe's excellent advocacy that I recognize this as a systemic issue of inadequate signage and not just isolated incidents of overwhelmed tourists.
Joanathan,
It would be interesting to me to see the TTC invest in actually studying this problem.
It seems to me that the system system is so straightforward (no branches, expresses, or interlinging) that I don't really see what you could do, overall, to improve wayfinding (ignoring the signage issues, speaking as a general concept of navigating the system). A map and simple directionals tell you all there is to say. Pretty much, if you're a tourist at Kipling and you want to go to Christie, I'm not sure how you can make this easier to understand than a clearly marked map and a sign that says "EASTBOUND TRAINS". Color coding, numbering, and all this business simply seems like unnecessary complexity.
Perhaps I have bit of a blind spot on this one due to using the system daily though. You are right though, even if I disagree with the finer points of his arguments Joe Clark does raise an important issue.
One subject that I've never seen anybody mention is streetcar rollsigns.
There are two major flaws with the system in use now.
1) Everywhere else in the TTC, and in most other transit systems, a sign that says "501 LONG BRANCH" means you are on route number 501, name Long Branch. I know the rollsigns are small, but really, that is a flaw that needs to be fixed instead of just poorly cramming information into the space you have. When I first visited Toronto and rode the TTC I wondered what all these different routes were running down Queen St, when I was expecting a Queen car I was interpreting the signs as telling me they were a "Long Branch" car or a "Humber" car.
2) Even if the hypothetical tourist knows about this, without an intimate knowledge of the city there is no way for you to know that the car arriving signed "501 RONCESVALLES" will not take you to Parkside Drive.
This is a point I'm stuck communicating to friends from out of town.. "Grab a '501' streetcar west. One that says Humber or Long Branch. Occassionally it might say 'Kipling' as well. That'll work. But not 'Spadina, Shaw, Dufferin...' ah, forget it, just ask the driver."
Lettered branches like bus routes are much clearer and more obvious solution, and while this doesn't help much with unscheduled short turns it does fix the confusion with scheduled branches.
Ian
Hey, Iantri: Knowing the difference between Arial and Helvetica “makes [me] look like” an expert.
Had the Paul Arthur system been implemented, there would no longer have been a “Bloor-Danforth” line to take. All lines would have been renamed, hence no confusion. If you think I treat his designs “loving[ly],” you must not have read my recent research paper.
Essentially, you and junior designer T-Rex agree there’s a problem, but don’t agree the entire problem should be solved – just your pet corner of it. With that attitude, you might want to apply to work at the TTC; after the current hiring freeze is over, you’ll fit right in.
Tsk tsk tsk. I agree their are signage problems. What I don't agree with is getting worked up about losing the original signs in the process of station improvement. I'm interested to know what exactly my 'pet corner' in this is, though.
Mixing typefaces is a problem only designers see. When signs are too vague, contradictory, absent, or hard to read and understand, there are more important problems than whether using Helvetica here or Arial there goes against the design guidelines. Typeface selection is important (on a completely different scale, mind you) but so basic that 99% of TTC riders won't notice or care as long as they know where they're going.
I've just come in to apologize to Mr. Clark as the tone of some of my words was a bit strong (particularly "lunatic"), but to also say essentially what t-rek just did. I know and recognize the difference between Arial and Helvetica as well. I just see it as amateur mistake rather than something that is actually a wayfinding issue. Both are more-or-less as readable as the other and combining the two does not suddenly make the signage incomprehensible. Given the choice between forking over the $$$ to fix it or just leave it as is I'd go with "leave it as is."
My only other comment would be while I understand that in Paul Arthur's system the Bloor-Danforth line would no longer exist (replaced by the "green line"), but the fact of the matter is to me and 99% of other Torontonians it would still be the Bloor-Danforth and there would be a long and painful transition period which would be more damaging than beneficial.
I can only imagine visitors following what were previously straightforward instructions to "[from Finch] take the subway south to Bloor-Yonge station, then take a Bloor-Danforth train east to Broadview" and suddenly having no idea where to go because the "Bloor-Danforth line" no longer "exists."
Now, if you two are professing enough type knowledge to ID Arial vs. Helvetica, then you know why neither of them (nor any member of their family) is suitable for directional signage. So that’s one problem taken care of: It isn’t an issue of mixing and matching the two, as you state, because neither should be used.
But let me ask you something: If we imagine for a moment that all the enamelled-steel and sandblasted signforms were left in place, since they are part of the historical distinctiveness of the system and, in the latter case, functionally impossible to remove, are you really trying to suggest that the total mismash of other sign types indicates anything but an unplanned, slipshod system that nobody actually cares about?
And don’t you think that, for the hypothetical foreign visitor you mention, after a couple of days they start to distrust every sign they see? (Or every one in those categories?)
It isn’t a question of masses of general riders consciously noting the typography of signage. It’s a question of function, which relies on confidence in the system. That would require us to have one in the first place.
There is still no coherent opposition to the proposition of researching, developing, and testing the ass off a new signage system.