Same name, different station
Some stations that share a name are hundreds of meters apart. Some that look separate are one building. Sorting them out took more work than any other part of the data.
October 1, 2026 · 2 min read
The map of a subway system looks like a list of unique names. It is not. Stations get named for streets, for neighborhoods and for each other, and a name can end up on two places that have nothing to do with each other, or on one place that is split across two entrances. This is the hardest thing to get right in the data, because the right answer is not in the name.
Two names, 600 meters apart
On the 7 train in Queens, 82 St-Jackson Heights and Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue sound like they are next door. They are, more or less. The two stops are about 600 meters apart, and they are not the same station. We keep them separate. The Jackson Heights Post Office, a Colonial Revival building from 1936-37 with a 1940 mural inside, is by the 82 St stop.
Tokyo has the same thing with Shinjuku. The Marunouchi Line station, code M08, and the station used by the Toei Shinjuku and Oedo lines, code E27, are about 470 meters apart. Two lines meet there, and one station is not the other.
One name, two buildings
The opposite happens in London. Edgware Road has two separate station buildings, one for the Bakerloo line and one for the Circle, District and Hammersmith & City lines, and they are about 200 meters apart. Hammersmith has two as well, one for the District and Piccadilly and one for the Circle and Hammersmith & City. Paddington has two. We merge each into a single station in the game, and put the point on the building that more of the lines use. The Lisson Gallery, near Edgware Road, opened in 1967 and helped launch the careers of sculptors including Richard Deacon and Anish Kapoor.
Joined later
Sometimes stations that were separate become one. Fulton Street in New York is the best known: after the Fulton Center rebuild in 2014, several stations that had been separate work as a single complex. Court Square on the 7, E and G lines was three stations that were linked by passages. In Seoul, the Guri station on Line 8 and the Guri station on the Gyeongui-Jungang Line are joined by a 157-meter passage that has counted as an interchange since August 10, 2024, when the Line 8 extension opened.
How we decide
For each pair of stations that share a name, we compare coordinates and then look for a reason: a documented interchange, a passage, a rebuilt complex. A distance of fifty meters is not a reason to merge, and neither is the same name. If we find the stations are really one place, we give them one entry. If they are not, we separate them and add a suffix to the identifier. When two lines have a station of the same name and we are not sure, we keep them apart until we find a source.
Sources
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