Downtown is not a word without meaning: renaming the Largo Town Center to Downtown Largo is without meaning
Prince George's County Maryland wants to rename the Largo Town Center station as Largo, Downtown Largo, or Downtown Prince George's County.
-- Proposed Station Name Charge, Largo Town Center, WMATA
Comments are due by 5pm Monday.
The definition of the word Downtown is
of, in, or characteristic of the central area or main business and commercial area of a town or city.
While PGC is somewhat center-less more generally, the closest it has to a center is New Carrollton, and I've suggested for years that if PGC wants to truly become a "transit oriented development" kind of place, it should re-center its government functions there ("Setting the stage for the Purple Line light rail line to be an overwhelming success: Part 4 | Making over New Carrollton as a transit-centric urban center and Prince George's County's "New Downtown"," 2017, first published 2014).
Instead, it has the belief it is doing so around Largo and the Largo Town Center Metrorail station, and it has moved a bunch of government agencies there, but few that are citizen-facing.
But for the most part, the land uses are de-concentrated, there is a failing retail center ("Redeveloping Largo shopping center aims to be the Pike & Rose of Prince George’s," Washington Business Journal), a new hospital ("University of Maryland could seed a complementary biotechnology and medical education initiative in Prince George's County"), and the FedEx Field stadium is a 1.5 mile walk away.
Rendering for an intensified Largo.
The hospital building is the tallest, but there is nothing that speaks of a concentration of business activity.
Although to be fair, there is a long term plan for intensification, and the reality that such a plan is a couple decades away from realization -- for example, PGC Planning created a transit oriented development plan for the West Hyattsville station that 25 years later, still hasn't been realized.
I suppose from the standpoint of "rename it and they will come," a name change could be justified.
But it seems incredibly premature.
The reality is that renaming the station by including the word "Downtown" diminishes the meaning of the word.
By comparison there are many conurbations in the metropolitan area besides Downtown DC -- Rosslyn, Crystal City, Tysons Corner, Reston, Bethesda, Silver Spring, some parts of Alexandria, even the Southern Towers apartment complex in Fairfax County -- that have the kind of density and concentration that justifies being called a Downtown, but is lacking in Largo.
In order to promote "legibility" and accuracy within the Metrorail system, using the word Downtown to describe station areas which have few if any of the characteristics "of the central area or main business and commercial area of a town or city." should not be countenanced.
Labels: branding-identity, cartography and mapping, city-regional branding, transit wayfinding, wayfinding
posted by Richard Layman @ 3:36 PM&Permanent Link
6 Comments:
Southern Towers isn't in Fairfax County. And look for redevelopment plans coming soon.
Oops. Alexandria. Thanks.
I always thought it was built to its density (like with the office buildings at Prince George's Plaza) on the expectation there would be high frequency rail transit.
https://flic.kr/p/sc49j3
Apparently, WMATA agreed to the change of the station name, even though it makes no sense.
https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2022/01/13/silver-line-mwaa-wmata-dulles.html
"Silver Line opening pushed back again, MWAA says, as new issue arises. But hiring is underway."
In the WMATA survey, only 6% of respondents favored "Downtown Largo."
They changed it anyway.
https://wjla.com/news/local/metro-board-votes-rename-largo-town-center-station-downtown-largo-downtown-pgc-prince-georges-county-wmata-survey
"Despite survey results, Largo Town Center Metro Station will become Downtown Largo Station"
1/27/2022
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Largo is an unincorporated suburban community.
If legibility was really prioritized, the station would have been renamed “Largo” and nothing else before or after.
Shortening the name to just "Largo" was the most obvious, common-sense solution.
All physical PIDS screens across the system and the destination headsigns on eastbound Blue and Silver Line 6k pit 7k series trains already just say "Largo" for brevity.
WMATA already proved they understood this simplistic logic when they shortened "Tysons Corner" to just "Tysons". They didn't call it anything unnecessarily redundant before or after the word Tysons.
This system is called the Washington Metro, not the Largo Metro. When a tourist or outsider sees "Downtown" on a regional transit map, they naturally assume they are heading to the central business district of the primary core (Downtown D.C.). 61% of riders favored "Largo". Meanwhile, only 22% liked the name “Downtown Largo”. 57% stated "Downtown Largo" failed to convey where you are, and 59% said it didn't describe the location well.
Prince George's County executives pointed to an in-person community meeting of just 25 people, where 23 out of 25 voted for "Downtown Largo".
The official record proves that the board completely abandoned independent judgement to protect political relationships. Prince George's County cut a check for $332,000 to fund the sign changes and the board used it as a shield to absolve themselves of making a sound geographic choice.
The quotes from certain board members who pushed this through are an absolute masterclass in bureaucratic people-pleasing:
Paul Smedberg admitted he “had concerns denying PGC their preferred name” simply because the board has historically given "deference to localities." That basically translates too: “We've let other jurisdictions circumvent rules in the past, so we will choose the path of least resistance and move by because saying “no” is uncomfortable.
Maryland Representative Don Drummer defended the motion by saying the county's branding process was "long and thought out." This translates too: “The county executives spent a lot of time on their marketing brochures, so their egos matter more than the of actual commuters who know the term “Downtown” is not an appropriate term for this station.”
I’m sorry bud, but a process cannot be called "thought out" when it deliberately throws out a 61% landslide vote for "Largo" and replaces it with a preference extracted from an echo chamber of just 23 out of a measly 25 people at a county meeting and only 22% of people on the system wide survey participants. Drummer chose to protect the egos of PG county executives rather than defend real geography, clarity and the actual users of the Blue and Silver Lines. These quotes from these individuals are what I mean by people pleasing.
The only people in that room utilizing actual transit logic were Lynn Bowersox (who explicitly flagged that the "Downtown" modifier was driving the strong public dislike) and Dr. Tracy Hadden Loh (who cast the lone, brilliant dissenting "No" vote).
Bowersox specifically stated “Downtown can be in a lot of different places in the region”. Dr. Loh rightly pointed out that "Largo" performed beautifully, captured a true sense of place, and that "Downtown" would cause unnecessary confusion for harried tourists. Her exact quote was “If we look at the results of our own survey… as well as our own common sense tells us that there could be an issue here. Our own survey showed that renaming the station to ‘Largo’ performed much better and I think that it’s a unique name that captures the sense of place.”
Pure geographic model combinations should’ve been WMATA’s decision based out of distinctiveness and evoking imagery in the mind of the patron as their policy says.
Smedberg and Drummer didn't just please local politicians. They actively violated the spirit of their own policy.
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