Sound Transit announced an overhaul of how it names and illustrates its transit lines.
Instead of how the agency uses names for each type of service, such as Link, Tacoma Link, etc., next year, the agency will begin naming the lines with numbers and/or letters.
The new lineup is as follows:
When the system is complete in 2041, Link light-rail will have five lines (1, 2, 3, 4 and T), Sounder will have two lines (N and S) and Stride bus rapid transit will have three lines (S1, S2 and S3).
Sound Transit says it recognizes it is building a system in a region that already has a wide variety of established transit lines, including RapidRide, Swift and other individuals bus routes across eight agencies. Sound Transit says it carefully chose the new line names to follow global best practices while fitting in with current service offered by partner agencies.
In selecting numbers for the new line names, the agency aims to have its system be intuitive and easy to use, especially for riders who do not ready or speak English, who have color vision deficiencies and/or are riding for the first time.
Since 2012, the agency’s plan has been to switch to line color names for light-rail lines. In fall 2019, it began using the Red Line for Link and the Orange Line for Tacoma Link and planned to launch East Link as part of a new Blue Line in 2023.
However, the community informed the agency that the use of the Red Line name was insensitive to the history of redlining in the region, where banks and insurance companies regularly denied loans or insurance to people of color based on where they lived.
Sound Transit says that even though there are agencies worldwide that use a Red Line in their systems, it agrees that in English and in North America, the term unavoidably carriers the weight of a racist legacy.
Removing the Red Line name gave the agency an opportunity to think about the system as a whole and design something better, saying numbered and lettered lines can more easily grow with the system.
Sound Transit says it is excited to roll out the new line names beginning next year when the agency opens three new 1-Line stations at Northgate, Roosevelt and the U District. With 28 new light-rail stations and 24 bus rapid transit stations opening in the next five years, the agency says the new line names will provide a simple, easy to use system that connects the region with fast, reliable transit.
