Several improvements to Link station signage are in development. Numbered exit signs will be piloted at downtown Seattle stations next week, and other enhancements will be rolled out with system expansions in future years. The changes were introduced at a meeting of the System Expansion Committee on Thursday as the Committee approved a contract for sign services. At the same meeting, CEO Peter Rogoff indicated Sound Transit would drop the term “Red Line” and perhaps color-coded lines generally.
Exits will be numbered and paired with directories. The first signs will be piloted in downtown stations next week and the pilot will continue through 2020. Overhead number signs will direct riders to exits. Nearby wall-mounted directories will explain which numbers correspond to which streets or nearby destinations. The directories will include pictures of popular destinations nearby. Labelled exits were identified as a best practice in other systems, and are particularly useful for visitors, first-time users, non-native speakers, and high-functioning illiterate users.
Current station line maps show the entire line and the same map is used across stations. Future station maps will be location-relevant. They will confirm the direction of travel, highlight the current location and connecting routes, and grey out the ‘traveled’ portion of the route. The new maps will be deployed with the Northgate Link opening in 2021.
New dynamic signs will be deployed in stations and in vehicles with the East Link opening in 2023. The East Link opening will be riders’ first experience with transferring between rail lines.
Few details were shared about the dynamic signage. Vehicle and station signs are managed under separate contracts. Standards for consistency across all signage will be integrated through the Passenger Information Management (PIMS) project for station information. Vehicle signs will be rolled out with the ST2 Siemens vehicles.
Sound Transit is dropping the “Red Line” name for the Link rail line through downtown. Adopted in 2012, Sound Transit has used the name more extensively in recent months as it prepares to open new lines. Stakeholder organizations (identified in the Seattle Times as Transportation Choices Coalition and Puget Sound Sage) asked for a different name, drawing attention to the association with historic “redlining” by banks. Redlining was a set of practices that discriminated against geographic communities, frequently on racial grounds. At Thursday’s committee meeting, Peter Rogoff indicated that changing the name of the Red Line would mean changing names for other lines, and hinted that color-coded lines would be discontinued generally. A decision on the new naming scheme is targeted by March so Sound Transit can proceed with other signage development ahead of Northgate opening.
Also discontinued is the “regional T”. You may have forgotten this one as surveys indicated most customers did not recognize the icons and were more likely to follow signs with mode images. It will be going away as new signs are rolled out. Expect new signs to more prominently feature the mode icons.
I always got lost leaving four-way stations at the DC Metro. On a more recent trip, I could navigate with a smart phone and Google Maps. I stopped using that once I got confident about leaving the station, and used the wrong exit. Logical navigation signs in the station are important.
I think Sound Transits should color code the direction of the light rail system. For example heading North use Green, South use Red, East Use Blue that way just looking at Entrance you know if your on the right platform or not.
Does this signage example mean that the Red Line is becoming the “O-Orange” Line?
If ST is going to use letters, I think that they really should use two letters (like WMWTA does with “BL”) so it doesn’t get confused with RapidRide. At least ST avoids color confusion with RapidRide by dropping the red.
I suggested this a while back to ST’s branding manager, since the then-Red Line and Rapidride R-Rainier would have the same red (R) bullet and intersect at various locations. They said they’d think about it, although I guess the problem goes away if there’s no Red Line.
Some authorities argue that numbers or letters are the more universally recognizable than colors or names. Usually the lines still have distinct colors but aren’t called that. Neither Moscow, London, New York, or San Francisco officially use colors, but non-native speakers use the colors anyway to find the right line. Color-blind users can’t reliably use the colors, and there are several different kinds of color blindness. DC’s two-letter abbreviations are actually the first two letters of the color, so that won’t work if the goal is to avoid the social connotations of Red (redlining) and Blue (police brutality).
I think using colors as branding is suboptimal, like Mike points out.
Colors also fade over the years — with different tones at different rates. Think of a color printer with different cartridges that run out at different times — and imagine that each tone gets lighter as the cartridge gets lower.
I really like the common German scheme of letter+number (like L1 and L2) because it could be used for the two Sounder train lines (T1 and T2) and three future STRide lines (S1, S2 and S3) as well as Link.
The German/Russian system would be great. Stride and Swift could be merged into S. RapidRide could be R, as could PT’s 1S successor. That would distinguish between limited-stop and full-stop lines. Metro is already planning a “Rapid, Frequent, Express, Local” scheme, so it could use R, F, E or X, and L for that. Metro’s Express could be merged with ST Express under X. It would also avoid the dilemma of Link colors, Swift colors, RapidRide letters, PT one-digit routes, etc. An opportunity has opened up now that ST is considering changing its Link-color scheme. ST at least could adopt the letter-number system Al S suggested. That would avoid the immediate problem of Link colors and Swift colors.
Jason Lu encouraged the Executive Committee of the ST Board back in February 2012 to consider an alphanumeric German-style naming scheme with an 8-page proposal. Perhaps it’s time to dust it off and reconsider it. I posted it on Twitter.
“Peter Rogoff indicated that changing the name of the Red Line would mean changing names for other lines, and hinted that color-coded lines would be discontinued generally. A decision on the new naming scheme is targeted by March…”
Lol. Well that was a fun experiment. Man, the ways this 25+ year-old agency will waste time and resources really shouldn’t surprise me anymore.
I second Oran’s suggestion above.
Planning costs much less than instruction, and ST budgeted for deciding an ST2 branding anyway. So it’s not that much money. And if ST replaces the signs gradually as they’re being updated anyway rather than all at once, it will cost even less.
Maybe we could call the them the Puce, Mauve and Beige lines. Completely inoffensive names, and certainly able to confuse the tourist, if not the locals. Besides, what are puce and mauve, anyway? Sounds like dog barf.
They should adopt something more German – a letter followed by a number, e.g. U1, S3, etc. This will differentiate against the rapidride letter scheme.
The letter+number system would also give contrast to the numbered exit system shown here. A rider would see that L2 is a train while a mere 2 is an exit!
@AlS
Orange is already taken by Tacoma Link:)
Entrance/exit signage definitely needs to improve.
Good to know that University Station name will change.
I’m glad the blue-gold “T” is stored away. Most subways that use a “T” use a plain black letter usually on a white background. The lack of such a contrast made those signs disappear in the Seattle urban street landscape. Transit signs should be visually distinct rather than blend in with the surroundings.
It’s hard to recognize as a T or transfer point if you haven’t been told what it is. I’ve always blamed it on the lines and shape rather than the background. A proper T is longer vertically. When all three sides are the same it looks more like a Greek cross or + sign, and the lines in the left segment make it even less recognizable, so it just looks like abstract art.
One thing I like about NYC exit signage is that it tells you the side of the street or corner of the intersection — that way I can figure out, while I’m still walking out of the station, which way I need to turn from the exit. This proposed signage, like our current signage, doesn’t give that at all.
Numbering station exits and including wayfinding is a huge improvement. Subway and train systems in countries like Japan, China, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan do this extensively and it works really well. Kudos to Sound Transit for identifying and implementing this substantive wayfinding improvement.
Agreed wholeheartedly. When you can still find your way around easily without even knowing/understanding the local language/character set, something has been done right. I’ve certainly mentioned that several times over the years.
Hopefully the stations will appear on Google/Bing/Apple maps at such a granular level that you can zoom in and see the exit numbers on the station diagram. Seoul’s Kakao map app does this quite well* and, again, it’s easy to use. Add that to the fact that local businesses advertise their locations using station exit numbers – something I’d expect to see here as well – and it’s just a good practice. Well done, ST!
(* as mentioned by Eric just below)
Great! Now the next step is for the exit numbers to be displayed in Google/Apple Maps. Apple Maps already does a great job of this in Japan, but the best implementation I’ve seen so far is Kakao Maps in Korea.
Google maps also does this in Paris.
This way to 5th and Pine. That way to Pine and 5th.
Yeah, is that how they are going to distinguish the two sides? (Actually there’s only one entrance on Pine between 5th and 6th so I don’t know what the other one is…. the elevator?)
And it’s a bit nitpicky but I do hope they use full names of all roads with suffixes and directionals. So here, “Pine St”, further down the line “S Jackson St” etc.
The best way I’ve seen is how they do it in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois: name the corner by the direction, such as “Fourth and Armory, SE corner.” It’d get a little tougher in downtown Seattle with its diagonal street grid, but it’s still not quite at a 45-degree angle, so “Third and Union, NW corner” would probably still be unambiguous.
I’m assuming that 5th and Pine is the staircase from street level that can either take you down to the train or up to the monorail.
But that raises another issue. In the transit world, when 2 streets are named the first street is the road you are on, and the second street is the road you are crossing or will be crossing at the next intersection.
Except I don’t know anyone who uses that language colloquially. Instead of “Pine and 5th” they would say “on Pine between 5th and 6th” or “on Pine by 5th”. Is there an easy way to clearly indicate which road the exit is actually on? See also in sports, the subtle but important distinction between “Seattle vs Los Angeles” and “Seattle at Los Angeles”.
Pittsburgh’s transit system uses prepositions like ‘at’ and ‘opposite’ in their stop names. For example:
Fifth Ave at Seneca St, Virginia Ave opp Shop-N-Save
Singapore does something similar, also using abbreviated versions of ‘before’, ‘after’, and ‘between’.
In most major cities I’ve been to, if you’re in the metro, and there’s a sign with a number or letter and an arrow, it means what transit line is in that direction, not what exit. Exits are named for their street, intersection, or major landmark. I can imagine this would be very confusing for visitors.
(Paris,Barcelona,Berlin,Munich,Budapest,NewYork, etc)
Agreed. For me personally I’d much rather have the station navigation signs overhead direct me to exits by use of the street /intersection names instead of by numbers that I need to cross reference on a nearby sign or use an app for. The only issue I’ve ever had was when I used the subway growing up in NY and suddenly ran into a closed street exit, which often seemed to occur pretty randomly back in those days. Other than that, whether I was catching the subway in Chicago, Boston, Paris, wherever, following those so-marked overhead/wall signs got me out to the street/intersection I wanted. (Even if I accidentally ended up on the wrong side of the street, it wasn’t a big deal.)
I’m concerned about that too. That sign with the numbers in squares looks like metro lines or bus routes, not entrance numbers.
I like the layout of the overhead pictograms, it looks more like New York. But again the numbers look like subway lines, not entrances.
What can ST use instead to identify entrances? Well, there’s letters. Or put a word with the number, like “Entrance 1” and “Entrance 2”. Or name the entrances, “John Street entrance”.
It’s good that ST keeps trying new ideas, but some of them are so bad you’re afraid they might get adopted. Like “R” for Red, “G” for Green, “B” for Blue. No!!!!! Those look like lettered lines. They raise the question, “Where are lines A and C?” If you must use color initials, use two letters as in DC (“GR = Green”).
Taipei uses numbered exits, but they put the word exit right next to each number so it’s more clear. Maybe that can work here.
Most major Asian systems give their stations and exits an (alpha)numeric code. Often the signs also have a text description with the code. It’s very helpful when you can’t read the language or remember an unfamiliar name.
Much simpler to communicate “Station N4, Exit 2”.
Minor stations use just numbers — the adjustment period should be short, especially when people coming in to the stations realize they’ve come from a certain entrance number. In through exit 3, out through exit 3 — job done.
Green as a color for “exit” signage is an international standard: hard to fault ST for trying to match best practices around the world.
As for line names, the London (and some of Japan) approach doesn’t formally use colors but whole descriptive names, often honorific or historical in name rather than geographic. We could definitely work with this and there are loads of options: the Salish Line, the Cascade Line, the Tahoma line, the Lake line, the Chinook line, the Hendrix line — take your pick of locally-relevant universally-recognizable (and least-likely-to-offend) imagery.
Japan’s system of alphanumeric station designators could be useful in both visual signage and audio announcements: “Now arriving at South Lake Union, station S6.” “This is a Salish line train to Ballard. Next stop, Seattle Center, station S7”.
That’s only confusing if the lines have numbers that could be confused with exit numbers. If that isn’t the case, nobody would be looking for a “Line 2” to begin with. London would be a great example of this as the lines have names and (informally, but readily understood) colors – if you saw a “2” and a “5” on signs with an arrow you would not start looking for Lines 2 and 5 – they don’t exist and nothing else in the system’s maps or signage would lead you to believe that they did. If ST is using letters or colors or some other combination not involving numbers, then numbering exits makes perfect sense.
Conversely, as you note, if lines are numbered then numbering exits wouldn’t work well (and New York with its numbered lines, lettered lines, and double-lettered lines – vestiges of the old IRT, BRT, and IND lines that were run by different authorities – would have an even greater problem with this!).
This seems helpful, though it doesn’t address my 2 most common issues with navigating Link.
1 – finding station entrances. Say I’m connecting from a bus to a train downtown. The bus drops me off near the corner of 3rd and Union. I know there’s a “University Street” station. But is the station entrance at the corner of 3rd and University – and if so, which corner? On 3rd midblock between Union and University – and if so, which side of the street? University between 3rd and 4th? Google Maps just shows 1 icon with the average location of the station, not individual entrances. I haven’t had this problem as much in other cities – I think ST needs to make the signage “pop” more. Currently the station entrances blend in to other storefronts or parking garages. In London, the red/blue color and giant signs make it easy. In NYC, the staircases are in the sidewalk so also hard to miss.
2 – Orienting myself when leaving a station. There’s no visual cues underground. And it’s worse if climbing up involves a spiral staircase or escalators in different directions. I leave Westlake Station heading for Pike Place Market. Do I turn left or right? Uphill or downhill? Do I need to turn at the next corner? I’ve had this problem in practically every single city I’ve been in, so I don’t think there’s an easy solution.
On #2, one possible solution is “heads up mapping” that is orienting the top of the map to the direction you are facing instead of north.
I found this incredibly useful in navigating Japanese cities as most of their streets are unnamed so I have to rely on landmarks, counting blocks, and left/right instructions. London also does this. So you would have such local area maps at the exits and signs pointing in the direction of landmarks.
The Capitol Hill Station exits look identical: they both have the airplanes mobile and gray walls at the top of the stairs. The only way I can tell them apart is the “John Street” and “Denny Way” signs, but you have to look at the opposite one to figure out your direction, and they aren’t visible from some positions without going out of your way. I wish ST would put something memorably different on one side.
Re: 1,
If you zoom in to SeaTac/Airport station on Google Maps, the station layout and escalators/elevators are shown. This is similar to other buildings, such as the Westlake Center and Swedish Hospital, that have provided their floor plans to Google. It shouldn’t be too hard for Sound Transit to do this for the rest of their stations, at least the underground ones.
Also, if you go to NYC in Google Maps and turn the transit overlay on, it shows the outline of the subway platforms and entrances/exits in red.
I don’t like it. Not just the type font, which carries message of “You’re old. Get Used to It. Die.” Bad enough this edition of “Ride the Wave” is going to be last one where I’ve got something on paper to read.
But problem is that this system leaves something missing in my mind’s own requirement for “wayfinding”: I need to see a map and words with my very first glance. So I can immediately start plotting my course with my first step.
Illustration here shows no maps at all. Just add some and we’ll talk. As for line colors, understand about color-blindness, so my rule would be “whatever works” in the industry’s own experience.
Glenn, what ever happened to Portland’s program of assigning each route its little “pictogram” of things like acorns, cute animals, and leaves?
Mark Dublin
Link is dropping the ” Red Line” designation because of the unrelated racist practice of redlining. This sort of “reasoning” makes my brain hurt.
Just because somebody thinks Red Line connotes redlining doesn’t make it a valid reason to change the scheme. On the other hand, the color scheme has other problems including color blindness and overlap with other schemes in Pugetopolis. So if this is the catalyst that gets ST to find a better scheme, it may do some good. But I don’t want want overexcessive political correctness and identity politics taking over the rest of the liberal/progressive/Democratic side it hasn’t infected yet.
I think the question to ask is why is it an issue now?
The color scheme was adopted seven years ago! That suggests to me that ST did a very poor job of involving the public on the matter and did not do a proper evaluation of naming conventions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Red_Line_(painting)
https://www.patriotwood.com/blogs/news/83224135-what-does-the-thin-red-line-mean-for-firefighters
Mike, this historic factor is why what’s called Liberal Arts need to be re-instated in public education, along with seriously augmented history and the ability to actually run a government. Average Founder would’ve taught it in preschool, as should we.
Like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton (who really did consider everybody else including his fellow Founders a financial cretin) the “Age of Reason” birthed our country into a (sadly temporary) period when it was EVERYBODY’s duty to have more than one skilled trade and speak Greek.
And Latin, so we’d never forget The Emoluments Clause. Which we’ve never needed worse.
Directly opposed to concept of aristocracy, whose chief tenet was that worst smell on Earth was the scent of one’s own perspiration. And that the only proper means of acquiring income included rental property, inheritance, gambling, borrowing (collecting a debt was an insult to a gentleman) or marriage.
And of course proceeds of slavery. Which for our own present survival, across our political spectrum we had better stop pretending we’re not still doing. Want to “whack” political correctness? Write it into State law that any employer demanding a life-time of debt for a college degree must prove that its possession is an employment necessity.
Certainly transit design needs to keep an eye on popular political culture, but mainly understand what works for keeping passengers moving, like attracting attention of different intensity and affecting viewer’s mood. Red- very likely from fresh blood- tends to mean “max alert”. Blue, calming, like a clear sky or peaceful water.
The transit whose bells I loved at age eight, walls of the passenger compartments were usually the pale green associated with spring-time. Bet there’s testable proof it improves passenger behavior to this day.
But. Whatever my own politics, individually and collectively, I believe that all of our personal freedom depends on the presence of intelligent, wise, brave, kindly and superbly-trained police officers. Any other kind, that’s what only good policing at every level can prevent.
But really critical “blue line” reference: We need a national campaign to bring the signature color of a peace officer’s uniform sharply away from the present near-universal tidal trend to black. Only a shrinking few of us remember the uniforms of enemies’ WW II worst .
But it means something that as yet, America still wants to call the police line “blue.” Which in spirit can cover green, gray, or tan. Like Star Fleet’s excellently conclusive command:
“Make it so!” Though come to think if it, didn’t the beloved Old Republic have slaves? Damn. How do we make that one No Longer Be So!!!
Mark Dublin
When I look at the sign pictured above, a part of my brain tries really hard to read, Redmond in 8 minutes, Technology in 12, as opposed to two different trains going to the same place (which happens to actually be Microsoft, which has solved many UI problems like this.) The same confusion would recur all over with this layout. This is a design fail, like the butterfly ballot. The people who will be most confused are the visitors and newcomers who are most dependent on the signs.
The comments about station entrances and exits are spot on. Today you pretty much have to find these through exploration, like a mouse in a maze. By the time we actually roll out the new signs in 2023, a lot of folks around here will be sporting AR glasses that guide them better than any signs are able to do, but of course we’ll still need them.
Thurston County going to no fares on all buses January 1, 2020!
https://www.theolympian.com/news/local/article237257744.html
“Those fares net less than 2 percent of IT’s operating revenue.”
IT has a much different funding system than Metro has. Metro’s fare-recovery goal is 20%-30% or thereabouts. Whenever it gets to the bottom of the window, the county raises the fare. Of course, fare-recovery ratios are abitrary. The only levels related to an external-world reality levels are 0% and 100%. Otherwise it’s just agency policy and voter expectations.
The budgeting/math is always the first consideration in my mind, which is all the more reason it’s been confusing for many transit systems to charge fares.
As far as I can tell this would be by far the largest fare-free system in the USA, and larger than all but a couple of fare-free systems in the world:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport
Don’t want to overdramatize, but maybe a precedent for the rest of WA and USA.
Going fare free may be reasonable for small/semi-rural agencies, but I don’t think it makes sense for an entity the size of King County. Losing 20-30% of operating revenue would lead to massive service cuts, and the same time that the extra demand from free service would increase demand. The result would be overcrowded buses and passengers getting passed up. It is also worth pointing out that a good chunk of the fare revenue comes from large corporations who purchase transit passes on behalf of their employees – it would be utterly foolish to give this money up.
Thurston County doesn’t really have this problem – even if the fares are free, transit demand is low enough that the buses will still not fill up.
I was wrong below, this change would make Intercity Transit the largest jurisdiction with completely fare-free transit in the world (as far as i can tell given my limited research/knowledge).
https://www.intercitytransit.com/zerofare
What I really want to see from Olympia, though, is not so much free fares, but a timed connection with the 594 at Tacoma Dome Station. No 20-minute slog through downtown Tacoma. No 20-minute wait. Just hop off one bus and on another.
Maybe the Red line should more appropriately end in Redmond? Blue line to Redmond would be confusing.
Day before yesterday, rode on Intercity Transit’s longest local route, the east-west Route 62A. Upon return trip, before taking one of several long diversions, the one through Lacey Transit Center, our driver spotted the non-stop Route 1 and suggested that those of us headed straight Downtown transfer. Major difference.
Given the amount of traffic around Olympia now, it’s very good to see the measures Intercity Transit is taking to encourage ridership. But probably most promising thing about the new non-stop is the blocks past its zones where the One gets its own lane.
As is pretty much standard, would be good to pre-empt more traffic signals. Sorry I haven’t been keeping better serious records on comparative ridership over the time I’ve been here, but let’s just say I’m sensing same changed ridership situation IT seems to see. May not be time for a vote to join ST yet, but won’t be never.
And chief positive agent will ultimately be the car itself. When nobody can move due to traffic itself, people at least start thinking about changes. Only question is, what year?
Getting back to Seattle: I forget. Does the DSTT have a distinctive logo to make a brightly lit sign out of for every single entrance to the Tunnel? Something of a size, color, and lighting pattern to out-attract all other signage in would-be passenger’s field of vision?
During DSTT design, the system seemed to be kind of reticent, maybe about being “garish”, or lacking in “taste”. Always hoped it wasn’t really somebody’s attempt to save themselves work by limiting number of passengers the signs attracted. If so, definitely time for a more active, positive vision.
Not sure how it would go down with The Downtown Seattle Association, but stroller-driving parents have told me that every station entrance they pass, their little passengers would notice train bells and start pointing enthusiastically.
Cheating, maybe, but rather than make the bells louder, just have station speaker system transmit bell tones from a trackside “mike” to a “speaker” at every entrance.
Mark Dublin
I Just watched the Capital Committee, err, excuse me, the System Expansion Committee hearing from this past Thursday.
There were three staff members from the Capital Signage team to present a typically dull ST Powerpoint presentation. Geesh. Another slow day at the office I guess. I have to wonder what exactly a “program manager” in this department does for eight hours a day, five days a week.
I have asked over 20 people so far what they think about Seattle Redlining and the Red lLine. I asked all of them in downtown Seattle. Only 4 of them knew what it Redlining was. Two of those 4 were not white. Nobody of those 23 people connected redlining to the Red Line. Most of them did not know anything about naming light rail lines at all. One of them did not know we had a light rail line. She has lived here 3 years. I have friends who have lived in the CD and Rainier Valley all their lives. 35-45yrs. They also did not know of the issue. But when I brought up redlining, most of them said they were to young to remember it. But 3 of them got pissed due to gentrification. They believe it has screwed their communities by rich white people in the last 20 years. But as far as the Link Red Line, all I saw was rolling eyes. I guess it is who you know, how long you have lived here and how easily you are offended. But over 20 random bus riders and 3 lifelong non white friends were my only perspective.
I will say in defense of the issue that when I when I explained the history one of my eye rolling friends said he understood it. But he also said he was not offended by a train. He was pissed they put it on the street instead of elevating the line. I guess function must be more important than a name.
Someone suggested “Salmon Line” and I loved the idea. It reminds me of how Portland used local iconography to mark off parts of their bus network. The only problem I had with that is they probably had too many generic icons so they were hard to remember if you weren’t an everyday rider. In Seattle we could try to make them more memorable. We could use Salmon instead of red, Evergreen instead of green, and maybe Azure instead of blue (since it goes to Microsoft) or if that’s too commercial maybe something like Aqua since it’s the only line that crosses the lake. In this way the maps could still use colors, which people are used to having.
This is part of living in a great city, that you have distinctive place names. If you’re traveling in, say New York, and tell someone you were on the Salmon Line, they might just be able to guess which city you are talking about.
The Seattle Subway folks could probably think of similar names for future lines on the vision map.
A lot of transit users have never eaten salmon or used a Pantone book, and never written a heraldic blazon or deployed cloud services. How well do you think they’re going to distinguish between Salmon and Azure on a route map?
Evergreen is a great name for a line though.