Metro Wants You To Help Name Its Three New Downtown Stations

Work on Metro's Regional Connection has been underway for some time. The project involves a 1.9-mile, underground, light-rail that will connect the Gold Line at the Little Tokyo station to the 7th/Metro Center station, where the Red, Purple, Blue and Expo lines converge. This is meant to save you the headache of jumping on an extra train to traverse L.A. County.

As we'd noted before, Metro had called on the public's help to name the tunnel boring machine that would clear the path for the project (it was lated named "Angeli," thanks to a proposal by an 8th grade student). Now, they're turning to the public again to name the three new train stations that will result from the project, which are slated to be completed in 2021.

The stations in question will be at 1st Street and Central, 2nd Street and Broadway, and 2nd Street and Hope. So far, Metro's proposed names for those stops are fairly boring (if perfectly utilitarian). They are, respectively, "Little Tokyo/Arts District," "Broadway" and "Bunker Hill/Grand Av Arts." The names are useful in that they tell us about the area that the stop will provide access to, but where's the fun in that? How about "Angelyne's Subway Stop Jamboree?" Or the "Vin Scully Station As Brought To You By Farmer John's?" Or maybe that winky-eye, tounge-out emoji? 😜

All signs indicate that, no, you probably can't get too creative with your ideas. On the submission website, you'll be invited to supply some names, and then you'll be asked, "How will these serve to tell the 1.4 million expected daily riders in the county why they should stop at that particular station?" Which is to say that Metro expects your proposals to be, ugh, useful. They'll likely ignore your suggestion of "The Large Hadron Collider Stop."

Metro will be taking public suggestions up till December 15.