UAE | Traffic and Transport
Idea 'a waste of time'
Canadian bloggers were furious when Toronto’s Transit commissioner thought Dubai had a great idea of selling naming rights of metro stations and wondered whether Toronto should go down the same route.
- By Mahmood Saberi, Senior Reporter
- Published: 08:16 July 2, 2008
Canadian bloggers were furious when Toronto's Transit commissioner thought Dubai had a great idea of selling naming rights of metro stations and wondered whether Toronto should go down the same route.
“One of the world's wealthiest jurisdictions is selling naming rights. It would be interesting to see what we could do here in Toronto,'' Commissioner Peter Milczyn said, starting a heated debate when he picked up an advertisement in The Economist where Dubai is advertising naming rights for its metro system, and waved it about.
But one of the many bloggers hit back criticising the idea:
“There's a huge difference between naming stations after landmarks that are cultural institutions and selling naming rights to a station after a department store that sells jeans,'' he said.
The Toronto Star newspaper had a tongue-in-cheek headline on the same subject: “Next Stop….Home Depot''? it asked.
It reported that the transit commissioner apparently thought it was a good idea. He was quoted as saying that “beggars can't be choosers'' as the city was struggling to find funds to accelerate an ambitious expansion plan of Toronto's transit system.
A critic within Toronto Transit called the idea “absolutely outrageous,'' and said that the study on the feasibility of selling corporate naming rights to subway stations to raise money, was a waste of time.
The Star quoted vice-chair of the Commission as saying that the idea of corporatising “our important public spaces would die a quick death'' when it comes up for review later in the year.
“The questions Torontonians need to ask themselves are: Do we want a Wal-Mart station? Do we want a McDonald's Station? ….I don't think [the]) want to go there,'' the vice-chair of the Commission was quoted as saying.
In Canada there is no law saying that subway stations must bear street names. French-speaking Montreal for instance names subway stations after its universities.
One blogger said that naming subway stations after corporate sponsors would confuse commuters.
“People in Toronto refer to their intersections by street name, not by some landmark some megcorp built nearby.
“Besides the obvious commercialisation of public spaces, I think maintaining geographical names are essential for tourists and other new arrivals,'' said another critic.
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