I voted for Olive but you should call it the 'Expo Line.' Given all the new projects in work and hopefully more after, we're going to run out of meaningful colors as names (if we haven't already now that we started calling buses lines) anyway. Why not start renaming the rest of them now? Red Line -> Hollywood Line, Purple Line -> Wilshire Line, Blue Line-> Central Line, Gold Line-> Eastern Line, Expo Line etc. Take a cue from the London Underground here. They have way too many lines to ever think of using colors as the names. Instead, the maps have different colors for each line, but they're way too slight and abstract to actually name the lines after that so they have lines like the Northern, Central, Victoria, Piccadilly, Circle, etc. This should also help when the Regional connectors go in. It'll just be a different line depending on the train's final destination (just like the current format for the Red/Purple lines in the Downtown sections). I like that construct better than trying to explain to someone that they're looking for the Aqua line. It's also less cumbersome from a translation perspective for foreign visitors (I don't have to worry about what the color red looks like on a train's headsign saying "Red Line." I just need to match "Hollywood Line" from my map to the headsign that says "Hollywood Line."
Matt - 14 years ago
I think that Aqua is the perfect color for this line because of the fact that...
1: Once fully completed, it will be a short walk to the beach, making this color for the line very appropriate.
2: Aqua is a vibrant color that SHOULD get some recognition.
Bronze and Pink are good choices, but they just don't, in my opinion, have that ring to it like Aqua does.
This color deserves a chance. Who knows? It just might work in the end.
Irwin - 14 years ago
I don't care what color it is on the map as long as they call the line Expo. That to me is really the right answer.
The problem here is that this line has been known as Expo for 15 years since the beginning of environmental impact study. What Metro is proposing is actually renaming it (from Expo to Aqua). Everyone that lives along the line calls it Expo line. Every transportation blog and knowledgeable transit user already know it as Expo line. Everyone who will likely ride the line when it opens knows it by the Expo name. Even the haters are organizing against Expo line... not Aqua (or whatever lame ass color name).
Compounding the renaming issue (Expo --> Aqua), it is likely that Metro will need to rename the line again in about 5 years when Downtown connector is completed under 30/10. This is shortsighted planning at its worst! If Metro is going to rename this line, it should be proactive and go directly to the final version of the name when the system is fully build out. Will this be the E train in 5 years? Metro should have an answer for that... anything short of that is an abject failure in planning.
Friends 4 Expo Transit enthusiastically endorsed the "Aqua Line" back in 2006, as a great color for a branch of the Blue Line that goes to the ocean in Santa Monica, passing many aqua-colored landmarks along the way, a vibrant color fitting this diverse and vibrant corridor.
John McNary - 14 years ago
Vermillion Line.
Skin Cancer line.
Tan Don't Burn Line.
Melanonin Line.
Ebony Line.
Skidmark Line.
Poverty Line.
Tip you waiter!
Joel C - 14 years ago
Go with the TAN LINE. Tan for the people of many shades of tan riding the train. And as an added bonus, it'll remind you to mind your tan lines at the beach!
Realistic - 14 years ago
everyone has a vaild point & I luv the Lettering idea, but lets come back to the real world & real ppl who are going to ride the lines on a regular bases & not one day out the month or year. Ok, sure for paperwork sake call them all the colors you want but when it comes down to it, people are going to say in conversations on their cell phones or in person to other ppl that either I'm on the Expo Line Heading xyz or I just getting off The Expo Line going to West Angeles Church. So for this & many other examples I can truly give again " hey I'm just getting on the 405 line heading towards the Sherman Oaks so forth & so on. So as everyone talk about the colors being Aqua/Teal or whatever please know that when ur speaking to an actual person riding these lines at that moment in time b prepared for them to tell you that they are on the Expo line, The Crenshaw Line, The Green Line heading into The South Bay, The Gold Line Heading into Pasadena, Azusa, Chatsworth or East LA
my initial thought was to call it the AQUA line since it'll hopefully reach the ocean before the proposed "subway to the sea", but after looking at the color swatches, i realized people are going to look at it and say "blue". so since people go to the beach to get bronzed, i'm going with BRONZE. besides, it looks like brown, and if they say "brown" instead of "bronze", it sounds close enough... and there's no brown line. yet.
guy - 14 years ago
How 'bout plaid?
Reed - 14 years ago
Metro should quit advertising their harbor transit-way service as "Silver Line" as if it were a rail line (which is definitely is not... take it from someone who has waited over 90 minutes for a bus on that line to arrive). When the Expo Line opens, call it the Silver Line, and use gray/silver on signs and maps (which they already do for the transitway service). The confusion between the old bus service name and the new rail service would only be very brief, and far more new riders would understand the logic behind coloring the rail line instead of misleading visitors by identifying an express bus service as such.
Tobias Parkins - 14 years ago
While in the short run, yes, we're going to end up with a lot of different lines, as those lines hook up to each other, the number is going to drop to a manageable one.
-The Downtown Connector is going to make it easier to keep colors: There will be the Blue line from Pasadena to Long Beach, and the Gold line from Santa Monica to East LA. 2 rather than the 3 we have now.
- If the Pink line hooks up with the Crenshaw line, that can all be one color
- If the 405 line hooks up with the Green line, that can all be one color.
- A line from LAUS to LAX would probably be commuter rail, therefore Metrolink's problem, no color necessary.
If we can manage it, I think colors are preferable to numbers. Letters and numbers are equally as arbitrary and confusing as randomly chosen colors, but at least colors give a route some vibrancy and flavor. Metro may either just have to deal with using some obscure colors for a while, or just temporarily keep the place names (like "the Crenshaw line") until the connections are made and the maps can be simplified.
Sameer Khan - 14 years ago
As others have said after my first comment, we need to transition to letters in the long run. The busways can keep their colors, but the rail lines are running out of options unless we switch to letters, numbers, or names. Assuming this transition takes place after we've built the Downtown Connector, the Crenshaw Line, and other extensions currently proposed by Metro, I would propose...
Existing/under construction:
*H (for Hollywood): Red Line
*W (for Wilshire/Westside): Purple Line
*L (for Long Beach): Blue via Downtown Connector to SGV
*E (for Expo/Eastside): Expo via Downtown Connector to Eastside
*A (for Airport): Green Line, assuming it is extended to LAX
*P (for Pasadena): Gold Line until the Downtown Connector gets built and Lines L and E take over
Proposed:
*C (for Crenshaw): proposed Crenshaw Line to the South Bay
*V (for Vermont): proposed Vermont Avenue subway
*S (for Sunset/Santa Monica Blvds): proposed Pink Line through West Hollywood
*B (for Burbank): proposed Yellow Line to Burbank
*F (for Four-oh-Five): proposed line along the 405 corridor
*X (for LAX eXpress): proposed line along Harbor Subdivision ROW from Union Station to LAX, assuming it is routed directly to LAX
And that still leaves us with another 14 letters to use...
Alika - 14 years ago
I'd like to see Metro resume lettering their rail lines (like they began doing waaaaay back when the Blue and Red lines debuted), since there are only so many colors that can be used before confusion reigns. Plus, let's not forget the needs of those who are color blind; continuing to use colors to identify lines only makes using Metro more difficult for those with color blindness.
Go ahead and use Aqua or Pink on the map and on the signage (a letter would fit nicely in a Gold Line circle!), but a conversion to letters really needs to be in the works, especially considering the potential new lines that will be created once the Regional Connector is completed.
Michael Boucher - 14 years ago
why not brown, gray, white,beige,you know basic color like the existing lines.and aqua would probably confuse some with the blue line.
Chris Meehan - 14 years ago
I agree with the first commenter in that aqua is too similar to blue for lines that are close to each other or overlap. In my opinion, a better choice would be pink, olive, or bronze.
David - 14 years ago
How about Expo? Color it aqua, but call it Expo. That way, it's easily identified from the blue line, while still the aqua line.
I think that Metro should be moving away from color coded lines and eventually work toward numbered train lines, though that will probably have to wait until far in the future. As for the current expo line situation, I don't really have a preference since it will (hopefully) become part of the Gold line in the future.
Sameer Khan - 14 years ago
I used to be a supporter of the "aqua"/"teal" proposal, until I saw how similar it looked to "blue" on the map... and considering the Blue and Expo Lines share the same track and then diverge after Pico, I'm imagining a lot of annoyed riders asking "How is this NOT blue??". If lines intersect or overlap, their colors should be a little more different than "dark blue" and "light blue". The most different color from all the other lines (looking at just the ones proposed) is olive.
Aqua Line... or Black.
I voted for Olive but you should call it the 'Expo Line.' Given all the new projects in work and hopefully more after, we're going to run out of meaningful colors as names (if we haven't already now that we started calling buses lines) anyway. Why not start renaming the rest of them now? Red Line -> Hollywood Line, Purple Line -> Wilshire Line, Blue Line-> Central Line, Gold Line-> Eastern Line, Expo Line etc. Take a cue from the London Underground here. They have way too many lines to ever think of using colors as the names. Instead, the maps have different colors for each line, but they're way too slight and abstract to actually name the lines after that so they have lines like the Northern, Central, Victoria, Piccadilly, Circle, etc. This should also help when the Regional connectors go in. It'll just be a different line depending on the train's final destination (just like the current format for the Red/Purple lines in the Downtown sections). I like that construct better than trying to explain to someone that they're looking for the Aqua line. It's also less cumbersome from a translation perspective for foreign visitors (I don't have to worry about what the color red looks like on a train's headsign saying "Red Line." I just need to match "Hollywood Line" from my map to the headsign that says "Hollywood Line."
I think that Aqua is the perfect color for this line because of the fact that...
1: Once fully completed, it will be a short walk to the beach, making this color for the line very appropriate.
2: Aqua is a vibrant color that SHOULD get some recognition.
Bronze and Pink are good choices, but they just don't, in my opinion, have that ring to it like Aqua does.
This color deserves a chance. Who knows? It just might work in the end.
I don't care what color it is on the map as long as they call the line Expo. That to me is really the right answer.
The problem here is that this line has been known as Expo for 15 years since the beginning of environmental impact study. What Metro is proposing is actually renaming it (from Expo to Aqua). Everyone that lives along the line calls it Expo line. Every transportation blog and knowledgeable transit user already know it as Expo line. Everyone who will likely ride the line when it opens knows it by the Expo name. Even the haters are organizing against Expo line... not Aqua (or whatever lame ass color name).
Compounding the renaming issue (Expo --> Aqua), it is likely that Metro will need to rename the line again in about 5 years when Downtown connector is completed under 30/10. This is shortsighted planning at its worst! If Metro is going to rename this line, it should be proactive and go directly to the final version of the name when the system is fully build out. Will this be the E train in 5 years? Metro should have an answer for that... anything short of that is an abject failure in planning.
Friends 4 Expo Transit enthusiastically endorsed the "Aqua Line" back in 2006, as a great color for a branch of the Blue Line that goes to the ocean in Santa Monica, passing many aqua-colored landmarks along the way, a vibrant color fitting this diverse and vibrant corridor.
Vermillion Line.
Skin Cancer line.
Tan Don't Burn Line.
Melanonin Line.
Ebony Line.
Skidmark Line.
Poverty Line.
Tip you waiter!
Go with the TAN LINE. Tan for the people of many shades of tan riding the train. And as an added bonus, it'll remind you to mind your tan lines at the beach!
everyone has a vaild point & I luv the Lettering idea, but lets come back to the real world & real ppl who are going to ride the lines on a regular bases & not one day out the month or year. Ok, sure for paperwork sake call them all the colors you want but when it comes down to it, people are going to say in conversations on their cell phones or in person to other ppl that either I'm on the Expo Line Heading xyz or I just getting off The Expo Line going to West Angeles Church. So for this & many other examples I can truly give again " hey I'm just getting on the 405 line heading towards the Sherman Oaks so forth & so on. So as everyone talk about the colors being Aqua/Teal or whatever please know that when ur speaking to an actual person riding these lines at that moment in time b prepared for them to tell you that they are on the Expo line, The Crenshaw Line, The Green Line heading into The South Bay, The Gold Line Heading into Pasadena, Azusa, Chatsworth or East LA
my initial thought was to call it the AQUA line since it'll hopefully reach the ocean before the proposed "subway to the sea", but after looking at the color swatches, i realized people are going to look at it and say "blue". so since people go to the beach to get bronzed, i'm going with BRONZE. besides, it looks like brown, and if they say "brown" instead of "bronze", it sounds close enough... and there's no brown line. yet.
How 'bout plaid?
Metro should quit advertising their harbor transit-way service as "Silver Line" as if it were a rail line (which is definitely is not... take it from someone who has waited over 90 minutes for a bus on that line to arrive). When the Expo Line opens, call it the Silver Line, and use gray/silver on signs and maps (which they already do for the transitway service). The confusion between the old bus service name and the new rail service would only be very brief, and far more new riders would understand the logic behind coloring the rail line instead of misleading visitors by identifying an express bus service as such.
While in the short run, yes, we're going to end up with a lot of different lines, as those lines hook up to each other, the number is going to drop to a manageable one.
-The Downtown Connector is going to make it easier to keep colors: There will be the Blue line from Pasadena to Long Beach, and the Gold line from Santa Monica to East LA. 2 rather than the 3 we have now.
- If the Pink line hooks up with the Crenshaw line, that can all be one color
- If the 405 line hooks up with the Green line, that can all be one color.
- A line from LAUS to LAX would probably be commuter rail, therefore Metrolink's problem, no color necessary.
If we can manage it, I think colors are preferable to numbers. Letters and numbers are equally as arbitrary and confusing as randomly chosen colors, but at least colors give a route some vibrancy and flavor. Metro may either just have to deal with using some obscure colors for a while, or just temporarily keep the place names (like "the Crenshaw line") until the connections are made and the maps can be simplified.
As others have said after my first comment, we need to transition to letters in the long run. The busways can keep their colors, but the rail lines are running out of options unless we switch to letters, numbers, or names. Assuming this transition takes place after we've built the Downtown Connector, the Crenshaw Line, and other extensions currently proposed by Metro, I would propose...
Existing/under construction:
*H (for Hollywood): Red Line
*W (for Wilshire/Westside): Purple Line
*L (for Long Beach): Blue via Downtown Connector to SGV
*E (for Expo/Eastside): Expo via Downtown Connector to Eastside
*A (for Airport): Green Line, assuming it is extended to LAX
*P (for Pasadena): Gold Line until the Downtown Connector gets built and Lines L and E take over
Proposed:
*C (for Crenshaw): proposed Crenshaw Line to the South Bay
*V (for Vermont): proposed Vermont Avenue subway
*S (for Sunset/Santa Monica Blvds): proposed Pink Line through West Hollywood
*B (for Burbank): proposed Yellow Line to Burbank
*F (for Four-oh-Five): proposed line along the 405 corridor
*X (for LAX eXpress): proposed line along Harbor Subdivision ROW from Union Station to LAX, assuming it is routed directly to LAX
And that still leaves us with another 14 letters to use...
I'd like to see Metro resume lettering their rail lines (like they began doing waaaaay back when the Blue and Red lines debuted), since there are only so many colors that can be used before confusion reigns. Plus, let's not forget the needs of those who are color blind; continuing to use colors to identify lines only makes using Metro more difficult for those with color blindness.
Go ahead and use Aqua or Pink on the map and on the signage (a letter would fit nicely in a Gold Line circle!), but a conversion to letters really needs to be in the works, especially considering the potential new lines that will be created once the Regional Connector is completed.
why not brown, gray, white,beige,you know basic color like the existing lines.and aqua would probably confuse some with the blue line.
I agree with the first commenter in that aqua is too similar to blue for lines that are close to each other or overlap. In my opinion, a better choice would be pink, olive, or bronze.
How about Expo? Color it aqua, but call it Expo. That way, it's easily identified from the blue line, while still the aqua line.
^ Disregard last comment. Where is Gray?
Where is Black?
I think that Metro should be moving away from color coded lines and eventually work toward numbered train lines, though that will probably have to wait until far in the future. As for the current expo line situation, I don't really have a preference since it will (hopefully) become part of the Gold line in the future.
I used to be a supporter of the "aqua"/"teal" proposal, until I saw how similar it looked to "blue" on the map... and considering the Blue and Expo Lines share the same track and then diverge after Pico, I'm imagining a lot of annoyed riders asking "How is this NOT blue??". If lines intersect or overlap, their colors should be a little more different than "dark blue" and "light blue". The most different color from all the other lines (looking at just the ones proposed) is olive.