Downsview station officially becomes Sheppard West

The next time you take a look at a TTC map, you might see a new name on a familiar station.

Downsviewstation officially became Sheppard West on Sunday, and with the change, signs and maps throughout the TTC are being overhauled.

• A sneak peek at TTC's new Downsview Park subway station
• TTC seeks 6 new station names in subway survey

The TTC says more than 7,000 maps on trains and in shelters will be changed and more than 150 signs throughout the subway system will be revised due to the name change.

The station is being renamed due to Line 1's extension into York Region, which is expected to open later this year. Following Sheppard West, the former Downsview station, on the newly extended line will be Downsview Park.

"To keep it simple for our customers, we changed the name to Sheppard West so there weren't two stations with the name Downsview in it," TTC senior communications specialist Heather Brown told CBC Toronto.

Despite that reasoning, there is already another station with Sheppard in the name: Sheppard-Yonge, which is shared between Line 1 and Line 4, but Sheppard West's new name puts it in line with other Line 1 stations, like St. Clair West, Lawrence West and Eglinton West on the same line.

The TTC says the name change will cost approximately $800,000. About $600,000 of that will be used to reprogram the announcement system to include the Sheppard West station and the five other new stations that will make up the Line 1 expansion.