Howard Hughes Gets a Light-Rail Station Named After Him

Bring your own urine jars.

That stop will be officially designated the Altic/Howard Hughes stop, the agency announced today.

One stop later will be the Cesar Chavez/67th Street stop, and the Southeast Line has an MLK stop, but those two are tied to streets in the area with those names.

Metro spokesman Jerome Gray tells Hair Balls the Hughes name came from community suggestions. The station's location is near the site of the original Hughes Tool & Die Company plant.

Hughes is the only person to be honored by a station name not directly tied to an already-existing neighborhood or street, although technically the plant could count, we guess.

The transit agency announced the final rulings on the names of stations on the three new light-rail lines being built. Not a lot of surprises on there, really.

The agency received over 500 suggestions from the public. (We gave our own list of proposed names.)

"Submissions had to conform to METRO's board-approved criteria which required simple names (max of 26 characters) that could be easily understood and remembered by the public, both locally and by first-time riders," Metro said. "METRO's staff worked closely with the community in hopes of choosing names that captured the spirit of the neighborhoods but moreover, ensured that customers can easily identify where they are located within the system."

Here are the new names:

North Line
Burnet Transit Center/Casa de Amigos
Quitman/Near Northside
Fulton/North Central
Moody Park
Cavalcade
Lindale Park
Melbourne/North Lindale
Northline Transit Center/HCC

Southeast Line
Theater District
Central Station Main
Central Station Capitol
Central Station Rusk
Convention District
EaDo/Stadium
Leeland/Third Ward
Elgin/Third Ward
Robertson Stadium/UH/TSU
UH South/University Oaks
MacGregor Park/MLK
Palm Center Transit Center

East End Line
Coffee Plant/Second Ward
Lockwood/Eastwood
Altic/Howard Hughes
Cesar Chavez/67th Street
Magnolia Park Transit Center