Southern Cross Station
Recently I was travelling back to my office from Melbourne’s city centre via a train that circles the inner city—the city loop. Sitting alongside me were a couple of anxious middle-aged English tourists. They were debating whether or not they should get off at the next station—on their map the station was listed as Spencer Street—but the announcement was telling them that the approaching station was Southern Cross. I told them the name had recently changed and they happily hopped off the train and went on their way.
This got me thinking about the new name. Why has it changed from Spencer Street to Southern Cross? Which consultant or spin doctor had this amazing brain-wave? Certainly nobody from the design industry seems to have been consulted, or at least anyone from the design industry that knows anything about signage and way finding systems.
Looking around, its a nice looking station, with confident use of simple modern shapes and materials, unlike Federation Square which could have been so much better with just a little editing. The roof structure is a sight to behold – it seems like the architects have taken their inspiration from either Pamela Andersons‘s breasts or ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle. Unfortunately the station signage is lost amongst the steel supports of this architectural marvel.
The advertising ‘guff’ claims that the Southern Cross Station will provide me with a truly 21st century travel experience. However, changing the station’s name to Southern Cross makes the experience of wayfinding anything but 21st century.
Travelers orientate themselves through a number of ways: memory or familiarity, landmarks, and street/place names being the most common. If I need to catch a train I will read a Met route map, and use a street or place name – including place names that relate to landmarks – to work out what train I need to catch, and when to get off that train.
The name Southern Cross does not help me. I know that if I get off at Flinders Street station I’ll be at Flinders Street in the city. If I get off at Flagstaff Station, I’ll be near Flagstaff Gardens. Parliament is adjacent to Parliament House and the recently renamed Melbourne Central station is smack bang underneath Melbourne Central. Southern Cross however, is only useful in telling me that, yes, I am somewhere in the southern hemisphere. And if you don’t know that, then you really shouldn’t be catching public transport on your own.
The name of a station aids wayfinding by providing travelers with a description of where they are. Spencer Street station was perfectly suited to this. If the name did need to change, then perhaps Docklands Station would have been more apt, given that Spencer Street straddles the new Docklands precinct.
This station is the city’s main terminus for country and interstate trains and buses. Approximately 55,000 people pass through the station on a normal working day, and around 15 million people a year. Such an important station should not have fallen prey to marketing spin. We were told it was all going to be finished in time for the Commonwealth Games. It wasn’t. Lucky for them they didn’t need to get off at this station for too many events.
