FAIRFIELD, Conn. — In a move to address a longstanding source of confusion, the Fairfield Metro station on Metro-North’s New Haven Line will be renamed Fairfield-Black Rock, local and Connecticut Department of Transportation officials have announced.
The station in question, which opened in December 2011, is approximately 1.7 miles northeast of the downtown Fairfield station. Commuters have indicated that navigation apps sometimes confuse the two stops. The new name will more clearly delineate the two facilities, and reflect the Black Rock neighborhood adjacent to the renamed facility.
CTDOT also announced planned pedestrian improvements for those walking to the station or its parking, including new concrete ramps and mid-lot sidewalks, as well as a clearly defined pedestrian walkway from the street to the platform area.
“Renaming this station will limit any public confusion about when and where they need to be to catch their train,” CTDOT Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto said in a press release. “… I want to thank Metro-North and the Town of Fairfield for partnering with us on this endeavor.” Said Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi, “Metro-North applauds the Connecticut Dpearment of Transportation’s Choice to include Black Rock in the renamed station name because the change is aligned with the MTA’s own principles for station names in New York to emphasize community names.”
No specific date for the change has been set, with CTDOT saying only that it will happen “in the coming months.”
If they wanted to reduce confusion they should stop referring to it as “Fairfield” anything. Just call it “BLACK ROCK”. No one is confused about where Cos Cob station is even though it’s a Hamlet and it’s citizens all pay taxes to Greenwich. That’s because we don’t call it Greenwich Cos Cob. It has its own identity. This is even more important for BlackRock because although it has its own strong cultural neighborhood identity…. it technically reaches from Fairfield to Bridgeport. It’s quite literally a region within two regions. It’s station should be named according to where people want to go not what taxing district it lies in.
The solution is to not use GPS. People looking for our house following Google GPS end up (literally) in the wrong county.