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The problem with that setup would be that someone boarding your south-bound blue line train at Columbia Heights may believe that she can ride that same train to Foggy Bottom-- and she can't.

Likewise someone boarding your east-bound blue line train at Courthouse may believe that he has a one-seat ride to Crystal City-- and he doesn't.

This would be even worse for customers at L'Enfant Plaza, where the blue line would call at three platforms on two levels.

Likewise, patrons would not always be able to take a round-trip on the same line. Currently, while it isn't always in the patrons best interest to take the same line coming and going, every single trip can be repeated in reverse-- no small detail for novice riders.

That would not always be the case in your proposed arrangement. I would expect that there would be some tourist sitting at Chinatown all day, waiting for that blue line train to take him back to Columbia Heights.

All passengers really need to know two details: what color line calls at their origin station (at the time of travel), and what color line calls at their destination station. If those colors aren't the same, some passengers also need to know where they can transfer between lines.

Finally, most passengers need to know the final destination of their train, but only for purposes of directionality: a passenger arriving at a station needs to know if he should board trains calling at platforms to his left or right, for instance.

If the current terminus station names are too unwieldy, we can switch to a Singapore-style method (every possible terminus has it's own number), but that doesn't mean that we should change the current line color scheme.

by Steven H on May 26, 2012 12:03 pm • link • report