So I was looking the breakfast links on Greater Greater Washington this morning when I found a hilarious post (including a sarcastic map) by Matt Johnson and David Alpert regarding the new Silver line station names proposed by Fairfax county. Working Station names proposed by WMATA were cited as too boring. Fairfax County's effort churned out an even more boring list of names, all starting with a certain large region then hyphenated into more specific area (table below). I don't know much about Virginia, so I can't speak to the superiority of the names, but I imagine everyone could do better. Maybe I should send Fairfax County the London Underground map hanging above my desk for inspiration? I pull two valuable lessons from this. a) The community may not be the best source for a station names largely because b) the community, in general America, doesn't value the rich resources of history. We should hand over new station names to regional experts and historians. I bet they could draft up meaningful station names fulfilling everyone requirements and maybe give everyone a new perspective of each neighborhoods. If we could start valuing knowledge again we could overcome this fiasco.
| Working name | Fairfax proposal |
| Tysons East | Tysons-McLean |
| Tysons Central 123 | Tysons I&II |
| Tysons Central 7 | Tysons Central |
| Tysons West | Tysons-Spring Hill Road |
| Wiehle Avenue | Reston-Wiehle Avenue |
| Reston Parkway | Reston Town Center |
| Herndon-Monroe | Herndon-Reston West |
| Route 28 | Herndon-Dulles East |
I'm betting , in the end, the strongest power of corporate and developer interests will win this war. Prove me wrong Fairfax County!