Downsview station to become Sheppard West next month
First formal name change for an existing subway station in TTC history.

thestar.com
By SAMMY HUDES
April 5, 2017

Goodbye, Downsview station. Hello, Sheppard West.

For the first time, a TTC subway station will undergo a name change when Downsview station receives a makeover starting next month.

The station, which until now has been the first/last subway stop on the west side of Line 1, will be renamed Sheppard West.

The move is to coincide with the opening of the Toronto-York Spadina extension later this year.

A new station will exist one stop north of Sheppard West called Downsview Park. As a result, the TTC felt the name change would help avoid confusion.

The name change will be official as of May 7, but you’ll still hear it called Downsview station for a little while.

That’s because the TTC plans to slowly update the station’s name throughout the year to get riders used to the change, spokesperson Brad Ross said.

“It’s quite an undertaking actually. It’s not something you can do overnight,” Ross said. “It’s going to be a staged process, it’s going to transition. There will be some inconsistencies for sure starting in May. There’s a number of things that we’re doing to get people used to the change, get people ready for the change and so when it happens it’s not sort of overnight, and suddenly ‘what happened to Downsview station?’ ”

The name change is costing the TTC $800,000. The bulk of that price tag is to update the announcement system on board subway trains, or what Ross called a “software change.”

“We’re doing it as part of an update to the system change that we have to make for accessibility purposes,” he said.

The material cost of making, printing and installing updated signs and maps inside stations and aboard TTC cars is $150,000, Ross said. By the time the Line 1 extension opens at the end of the year, all maps, signs and next station announcements should be complete.

This is the first formal name change for an existing TTC station in its history, not counting a few minor exceptions.

In 2002, Sheppard became Sheppard-Yonge station to coincide with the opening of Line 4, which intersects the stop.

(Pioneer Village, one of the new stations part of the Line 1 extension opening this year, was originally to be called Steeles West station, but the name was changed a few years ago long before its opening.)

But the Downsview name change won’t be the last.

Eglinton West will become Cedarvale station in 2021 when the Eglinton Crosstown is scheduled for completion. The move is also aimed at minimizing confusion for TTC riders, as the light rail transit line will run along Eglinton Ave. W.