Metro released its latest proposal for a new map of its rail network Tuesday, including proposed name changes for several stations, new icons such as H for hospitals, plus lists of nearby cross streets listed below the name of each stop. As part of the plan, the King Street station would become King Street, with “Old Town” written in smaller letters below as a secondary name. Alexandria has agreed to pay to change all necessary signs, according to Metro.
Navy Yard would get “Ball Park” added as a secondary name if D.C. finds money to pay Metro to make the change, said Metro spokesman Dan Stessel.
Waterfront-SEU would lose the “SEU” because its namesake, Southeastern University, no longer exists.
Twelve other stations would have their long names moved into secondary names, such as Mt Vernon Sq having “7th St-Convention Center” reduced to a smaller font. But those stations and the Waterfront stop initially will change on the map only. Station signs will be updated when other changes are made, Stessel said.
The tweaks come as Metro is updating its map to accommodate a large revamp of its Yellow and Blue service slated for June. The change requires Metro to update more than 2,600 station signs, 5,000 maps and 1,200 fare charts. The agency decided to rethink station names at the same time and asked for suggestions earlier this year, but officials rejected some of the six proposed names because they didn’t meet agency guidelines of keeping names shorter than 19 characters. – Kytja Weir
