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ChineseA Redder Red Line?
[tags]red line, los angeles, lacmta, purple line, subway, transit[/tags]
On my way to Hollywood today I noticed something I hadn’t seen before on the Red Line: solid red stripes lining the subway cars (pictured above). Could it be that Metro is repainting the subway cars to match the new color designations of the lines and in order to ease some of the confusion riders experience when it comes differentiating between the two lines? I didn’t wait around for a Purple Line train to see if its stripes were purple, but I did see one Red Line train in which every car had the new paint job, and another Red Line train in which one or two cars featured the new paint job.
There has been talk in the past about whether or not painting the lines in their respective colors is a good idea or not. I tend to side with those who say it is a good idea, as long as it’s fully followed through (ie. no purple cars mixed in on a Red Line train). Others say that it severly limits the rolling stock since then certain cars can only be used on one line.
A picture of the “old” stripes (which are still in service) can be found after the jump.
The original paint job, a little bit of red and a little bit of grey.
The “new” paint job, super bright red.
Discussion
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I had to be cynical, but… I bet the cars just needed repainting and they went with a simpler scheme because it’s cheaper!
Yeah… if I see the new stripes on a Purple Line train I’ll know that’s the case.
The subway cars have the least intensive paint care of the Metro fleet. The striping is much easier to apply than the current design template for the fleet.
The current painting requirements disregarded why Metro chose to go to the single orange stripe in the mid-1990s: to save costs and to get the fleet out of rebuild in the quickest time possible. The new color scheme is the most labor-intensive arrangement ever.
On the other hand, that was the time when MTA needed as many buses out on the road as possible, due to the Consent Decree. Now that the bus buying program started in 1994 has essentially concluded, the fleet is at a maintenance level and the spare ratio is adequate.
I’ve seen the solid red stripe for a while now, along with the traditional red/black multistrip. What’s newer is the ones with the stripes stripped out and the words “Metro Rail” plastered (in the same manner as how “Metro Liner”, “Metro Rapid” and “Metro Local” are put on buses), but parts of the “M” and “t” cover the bottom of some windows though. This same scheme is also put on some of the light rail cars.
Metro is also implementing automated or prerecorded announcements on some train sets. For now, I don’t thing there will be a purple striped train as it’s better to keep all the trains the same so that they can be shuffled to between the two lines.
I wish they’d do the color-coding. Boston does. In San Francisco, BART has theoretical colors that exist only on the map. You’ll occasionally hear tourists or newcomers ask if the yellow line stops here….
I wouldn’t lose any sleep over this issue. It’s like wondering why the MTA changed the style of the “M” logo awhile back. No doubt some graphics guru up in the “Taj” needed to keep busy…
Why not just use magnetic colored striping? That way it is less expensive and easy to change should they need to change a car over for a different line.
Magnetic striping?
Gee, Tim, that makes sense and might even be cheap. I’ll bet they would be afraid of some vandal switching out the stripes and turning the Red Line into the Purple Line.
This is new? The Militant has not only seen, but ridden these re-striped trains for a while.
Matt Raymond, the chief communications officer of (M), was the genius behind the “re-branding” of the transit system, which included the new logo, the color-coded buses and the ubiquitous “FF Scala Sans Bold” typeface used across the system. Unfortunately they painted themselves into a corner (no pun intended) when it came to a new paint scheme for the trains. They made it default silver so as to avoid painting the subway car fleet, but silver became a horrible color for their LRVs and in the case of the Metro Liner buses, dangerous. The ridership expects the trains to bear their namesake colors, yet (M) has recently purchased the Italian-made Breda P2550 LRVs which were meant to operate on all light rail lines. And having more lines share “trunks” (i.e. the Red/Purple east of Wilshire/Vermont or the Blue/Expo north of Washington Blvd), it wouldn’t be practical to have trains bearing their namesake colors running exclusive to their lines.
Not only that, but the task of duplicating the two-tone color-over-grey pattern the buses bear has been difficult if not awkward. Silver-over-grey is not much of a contrast.
The Militant would like to see all the rail vehicles carry white over grey, with clearly marked color signage on the front and sides of the cars bearing the name of the line.
Militant, there’s a new variant of the rail paint scheme.
A Blue Line car has been painted white, with a black band around the window, and large Metro Rail type. There’s no more gold stripe, though.
They should go with a bit of the past with new flair by combining the California Poppy Orange ‘Local’ and Fire Engine Red ‘Rapid’ and combine them into the trains, with Red Exterior and Orange doors and silver bottoms. (Wait a minute, that looks familiar that almost sounds like the Old Pacific Electric Livery.
Another option could be to simply paint only the train doors Red or Orange like they do in Europe.
A final option is to paint the top portions of the trains Silver with the bottoms being Red.
I usta ride the Red Line before it opened its wee availability to Hollywood/Vine (prior to that, I took the 26 along 7th Street to my post office box at that wonderful Art Deco station on Wilcox at Selma), and I am not surprise that it took the idiots at Metro L.A. EIGHT YEARS to figure out that three terminal points under the same name can be confusing (especially to Angelenos; we former New Yorkers know how to figure it out at a moment’s notice). However, to rename TWO STOPS (what were the end of the original Red Line; I usta ride that on my way to doing Working World magazine in the mid-1990s) as a new name, is outrageous.
Perhaps the cumulative effect of motor vehicle exhaust (how many MTA employees ride that which their agency proclaims is “America’s Best”? And while we are on it, which american metropolis can claim a billionaire mayor who rides the uptown 4th Ave line?) has all but completely destroyed the MTA management’s collective mind? Or do they simply think it a joke to re-name a line when the sensible thing to have done, in 1999, was to name the new line the Purple Line?
http://www.angrythoreauan.com/RockyD.htm
Metro’s actually very good about getting employees to drive to work. One of the most popular benefits Metro offers is free transit passes for employees and family. Many, though, use the fast services (rail or suburban commuter buses).
And, it’s not simply a matter of getting employees on the transit systems they work for. Metro has so many departments (planning, operations, finance, government relations, etc.) and the bureaucrats will only look at the service through their scope of knowledge, not with rider empathy as a paramount concern. They will see the ridership and draw conclusions as professionals, not as bus riders. And their duty to their jobs requires them to look at their jobs as professionals.
If you got some planners to ride local buses in the suburbs, they’d recommend canceling many services.
Wad, that’s not a new paint scheme, that’s “Let’s remove the orange stripe and add new lettering.” It’s still not consistent with their bus schemes.