Editorial: What’s in a street name

The roadway that will replace the Casey Overpass has been hastily—too hastily—renamed the “Casey Arborway.”

The overpass is a gap in a roadway that already has a name: simply, the Arborway. Indeed, one of the arguments in favor of the surface-street option for the overpass replacement was that it restores and reconnects the Arborway, a historic state parkway.

There already are places with Arborway street addresses. The Arborway should be highlighted to emphasize the continuity between the Arboretum and Franklin Park.

We believe that the Casey name should remain memorialized in the project—possibly with a monument, or with a less congruent name such as Casey Square.

The Forest Hills Station area is already a muddle of tangled streets with confusing names. A map of the area looks like an elaborate military trick to foil GPS navigation by the enemy.

This is a prime chance to fix such insanity as the two parallel Washington Streets that run east and west of the T station.

Whatever the decision, we should seize the chance to make street names there more thoughtful and less confusing.

Corrected version: The original version of this editorial, based on incorrect Gazette reporting, incorrectly stated that the Casey Overpass replacement project had been renamed the “Casey Parkway.” 

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