• Atlanta’s MARTA has gotten itself into hot water by re-naming the train line that travels into the heart of the city’s Asian community the “yellow line.” The move angered Asian-American activists, who are meeting with the transit agency’s chief on Friday. (AJC)
• The stimulus money spent on transportation projects is being examined by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which found that 9,241 projects totaling $20.6 billion, or 60 percent of the stimulus funds, have been started, and 3,148 projects have been completed, thereby creating/saving 280,000 jobs. (Reuters)[SButtonZ button="digg"]
• So what of green jobs? A new report by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University’s School of Communication found that nearly 80 percent of the $2 billion in stimulus money designated for wind power has gone to foreign manufacturers of wind turbines. (ABC News)
• Um, turns out the Burj Khalifa wasn’t just “unexpectedly closed” — it shut down suddenly, stranding tourists on the 124th-floor observatory deck. (Cityscapes)
• And finally, a gallery of the 19 most terrifying roads in the world. Jeremy Clarkson, take note. (Waze)
Tags: public transit, Stimulus Funds
Oh come on. The people calling MARTA racist are belittling the people who experienced ACTUAL racism.
Also, according to my Atlantan (?) friends, people joke that MARTA stands for Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta. Just a random comment.
That’s ridiculous.
This smacks more of utter ham handedness on MARTA’s part. Have they not heard of the color orange?
@Omri
As a member of the Oompa Loompa community, I find your suggestion offensive. Oh, wait, no, that’s your knee-jerk, pseudo-intellectual, and completely predictable musings. Jackass.
The Chicago Transit Authority had a contest in 2007 to choose a new color for a branch of the Blue Line that would be spun off into its own line. The contest was for elementary school children only. The color Pink was selected. For a year, people made fun of it (but I don’t think anyone tried to claim how it would be derogatory to any group, like GLBTQ). Now, no one could care less about the color choice.
A little background:
The ‘Yellow’ line has always been yellow in color, although not in name. This was before there even was a significant Asian population in Northeast Atlanta to speak of.
MARTA recently changed the names of the lines to reflect the colors that have been displayed on the maps since its inception, for what reason I do not know. I’m guessing it’s a PR move to make the transit system seem more ‘word-class.’
Anyways, the name change has absolutely nothing to do with the extant Asian population; it’s just a color that’s been associated with the Northeast line forever.
The MBTA Red Line goes to Cambridge, Mass. because they are all Communists.
the simpsons are yellow and they are not asian
Naming rail line by color is kind of stupid in general anyway… it’s fine as a secondary visual device on the map but transit operators should never name their service by color. Naming trains by color and inevitably you will run into problems like this… Back when Los Angeles MTA started using colors for rail lines, they drew up a bunch of future proposed line, including one “Brown” line. The proposed “Brown” line runs through South LA and the Crenshaw district (largely Black and Latino areas)… Now it is just called “Crenshaw” line – for very obvious reason! Why did MTA bother to assign a color in the first place? Who knows… The name “Crenshaw” line works much better anyway. Ditto “Expo” line that is close to opening next year. For years, MTA waxed over whether to call it “Aqua” or “Teal” line (I’m not kidding!) but thankfully, enough smart people asked: What’s wrong with “Expo”? (Expo being the name of the street that “Aqua” line is running parallel to for the most part)
Ironically, another proposed subway line in LA is being dubbed the “Pink” line by advocates in West Hollywood… it is not the official name for the line (MTA has said that it is getting rid of the color names – starting with Expo). Now I wonder why the subway boosters in WeHo choose pink? lol…
Erik G: in Boston the colors have meaning, but there’s no connection between the Red Line and communism. It’s called red because it serves Harvard, whose official color is crimson.
Paul: There was no yellow previously; perhaps you mistook the orange. Please don’t post your musings as “background.”
http://web.archive.org/web/19981205204247/itsmarta.com/systemmap.html