Colored LEDs in Metro Stations

So I'm sure you've seen the red lights on the station platforms by now. Or perhaps you've spotted the orange ones. Here's my take on it.

The first time I saw it was at Gallery Place/Chinatown on the Red Line. I didn't know why they were doing it, because, as Metro is wont to do, they didn't inform their riders as to what's going on ahead of time. I honestly thought they made it red because it was the Red Line. However, I thought "Gee, I hope they don't keep this change. It's adding a red glow to everything and the blinking red lights are disturbing." It was making me feel uneasy and uncomfortable, which is a bad vibe to be giving off in an area that is prone to crowding at times. (A stampede would be too easy to trigger.)

And then I saw orange lights at a platform with orange & blue line trains. Or perhaps it was yellow lights at a platform with yellow and green line trains. Either way, I found myself wondering if the color would change depending on what train was coming.

And then I found out that, no, the color is the same and they're putting in red lights regardless of the line.

Which I think is stupid. Thank god for the improved signage, because even *I* would get confused as to how to get to what platform for what train. And the improved signage is IMPROVED, not optimal. It's STILL confusing.

So, yeah, if I saw red lights and I was a tourist, I would assume that I was on the red line. Red line, red lights, makes sense, right?

I think either Metro needs to drop the whole colored lights thing (it's not Christmas, you know) and go with clear LEDs (if in fact they are LEDs that they changed to for more efficient lights) or they need to put the color of the line that you're currently on. For platforms that serve more than one color line, put in LEDs of both and have it blink the color of the train that's arriving.

That's what *I'd* do if I was in charge.

Your thoughts?

Transit Meme

(I know what you're thinking... two posts in one day! How did we get to be so lucky!)

I don't know about you, but I'm a... oh, how shall I put it... meme whore? Yes, that's apt. If someone posts a quiz on their LiveJournal, I have to take it.

And then I saw this one. It allows you to put down every subway system you've ever been on. And it has almost every subway across the world.

Below are my results, updated now that I went to Boston (actually Cambridge) the other week and got to ride the T. (It was very exciting. I'll have to blog about it.)

Got at b3co.com!

Are you interested in doing this? Here's the URL for the little app.

http://metro.b3co.com/

(Note: it's a little buggy. If you add a badge and then take it out, it doesn't show up in the list to add it back in again. Just close the page and reopen it and it should show up again. And for the results in HTML, after you add all the badges, select the "put it on your site" link in the upper right hand corner.)

Feel free to post your results as a comment!

(And sometimes I feel more like Transit Fangirl than Doctor Transit. But I promise, I'll have real content one of these days... yeah...)

North American Rail Systems by Size

Thank Collier, a commenter on Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space, for this one.

The same as the link below, only this is for all of the subways/light rail/etc. for North America.

http://www.radicalcartography.net/?subways

However, they're obviously not to scale to the size of North America (for some reason, it took me a little bit to realize that.) OTOH, it's in GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOR! :-)

World Subways, Presented By Scale

Check it out... it's very cool and lets you get a better feel for city size.

Subway systems of the world, presented on the same scale.

(And on a total aside, sometimes I come across content in the strangest way.

I work at a bookstore. I use LibraryThing, both professionally and personally. So I read their development blog. Well, LibraryThingforLibraries is finally in a library. So I go over to the personal blog of the person who instituted it in the 1st library. And I came across the above gem.)