paved with good intentions

People like metals, and they particularly like the coinage metals, namely copper, silver, and gold, or Group Eleven of the periodic table. Wikipedia helpfully points out that the newly minted metal roentgenium belongs to the same group and should thus be considered coinage as well. Its stablest isotope only exists for 3.6 seconds, so this seems unlikely to cause problems. It also observes that many other metals have been used to strike coins, without accession to the elitist group. Like country clubs and fraternities, this is an organization that values the patina of tradition.

This may help explain the profusion of metallic names in rapid transit names. Nor are these names given to any old track, but instead are reserved for projects demanding of that extra little semiotic oomph that a precious metal provides. Thus when Boston debuted its very first rapid bus transit system in 2004, it designated its project the Silver Line. Bostonians, accustomed to their legacy subway and light rail system, and shellshocked by decades of the Big Dig transforming their surface streets into a barely navigable quagmire, were understandably wary of forgoing their safe subways for the vagaries of a bus. The Boston Metro's (MBTA) site disagrees, stating that “The Silver Line earned its color designation because it will deliver fast service using the world's most advanced Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) technology. From race cars to rockets, its use symbolizes speed and high performance.” As master practitioners of bullshit, we can assure you that the foregoing is an unadulterated load. They just like how it sounds.

Nor has the MBTA's chicanery with nomenclature gone unnoticed by the vulgar masses. No less a lobby group than the Sierra Club observes pithily that “no matter what color you paint a bus, it still gets stuck in traffic.” To give fair shrift to the Club's complaints, they make some good points: busways may be less expensive to build, but they're significantly more polluting than light rail, and incur greater maintenance costs over time. All in all, busways are more of a short-term or stopgap solution than a long-term answer. Perhaps the MBTA is painting the busses silver to conceal how dirty they are.

Also employing this nasty little trick is one of the many activist groups in Los Angeles militating for an expansion of its light rail system. These Friends of the Silver Line advocate building a roughly east-west segment of rail from Hollywood Boulevard past Dodger Stadium, through downtown, and ultimate east past CalState Los Angeles to El Monte and its Metrolink (i.e. commuter rail) station. The plan has recently gained the attention of city councilman and mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa based mostly on internet advocacy, no doubt because of the sparkling sheen of their proposed rail cars. We're pretty sure that they would have called their proposal the Gold Line, since gold generally trumps silver—except that the L.A. Metro had the temerity to have built a Gold Line already. (Meanwhile, another advocacy group is pushing for an extension of the Gold Line, capitalizing on its powerful name recognition.)

We should note, for the record, that there seem to be no Copper Lines. Or, for that matter, Roentgenium Lines.

posted by citizen sunshine @ 2:30 AM