“Asian-American activists offended that MARTA re-named the train line into the heart of Atlanta’s Asian community the “yellow line” will take their objections to the transit agency’s chief on Friday. ‘Yellow,’ as a term for skin color, carries a generally negative, racist connotation among Asians.” [AJC]
Well How Would You Feel If the Transit Authority Called the Subway Running Thru Chelsea “The Pink Line”?
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rayy
Oh brother. Is that the reasoning behind it or is it just random? There’s only so many colors in the rainbow, you know, unless you want to end up with beige, fuchsia, puce, sage, etc.
Richard in DC
They should be more offended that the train swerves all over the place, and frequently travels the wrong way on a one way track.
Alfonzo
I bet my people in the Bronx would be overjoyed to have a brown line.
Lukas P.
We have a yellow line, a brown one, a pink one, a purple line and a red one, etc. here in Chicago. Interestingly, the names almost never connect to the neighborhoods they intersect: i.e. The yellow line doesn’t run through the Asian neighborhoods, and the pink/purple lines won’t get you to Boystown or the “Lesbian” section of town. Seems pretty arbitrary but I’ve not lived here long enough to know the histpry of the names.
B
No. 1 · rayy wrote, “Oh brother. Is that the reasoning behind it or is it just random?”
Where some of the other lines already named after colors? If so, they may have picked yellow because that was what was left – it’s confusing to people if you move the name of one line to another line. Check the history of how they named things to tell.
I’m not sure why a pink line going to a gay area would be offensive given the large pink triangle they put up in San Francisco for Gay Pride (put there by volunteers as a tradition, not officially by the city).
terrwill
@Lukas P.: I think maybe the people naming those lines in your new home town were doing white lines…. : P
JAW
Silly queerty…. everyone knows that the subwyas in New York are either numbers or letters… I think it would be great to take the Q train to Chelsea… and the 69 train to the Village
Sam
@Lukas P.: I grew up in Chicago, and calling the lines by their colors on the map is a relatively new phenomenon. I left for college in 1995, and up until that point, each line had a name (e.g. Howard line, Douglas line, Ravenswood line, etc.). In fact, I think some of the lines were different colors on the map back then.
Caitlin
Why in the flying fuck is this on Queerty?
scott ny'er
@terrwill: Ooooh. Man, I love that song. “(Ahhh) Higher, baby
(Ahhh) Get higher, baby!
(Ahhh) Get higher, baby!
And don’t ever come down! (Freebase!)”
on topic:
well, if the other lines are named colors, then I think it might be an over-sensitive type of thing here. But I can see how it might be taken the wrong way.
terrwill
@scott ny’er: Tonite is a perfect nite, cause tommorow is a perfect day to sleep in all day with the storm and all……….jus’ sayin’…….. : P
fbloss
There’s been a Pink Line in Chicago for years. No ballyhoo about that! By the way, it is the line that services Midway airport, primarily utilized by a very gay-friendly (and affordable) Southwest Airlines. Sooooo…what’s to be said about THAT?
hyhybt
@rayy: As I understand it, they redrew the maps and renamed all the lines for their color at the same time. It’s the sort of thing that, if pointed out early enough, could be fixed by swapping colors with another line, but that would only confuse things now. If it were up to me, I’d change it to orange; it’s not currently used, and is close enough to yellow not to confuse people with yet another all-out change.
@Richard in DC: What are you talking about?
@Lukas P.: That may be deliberate; if one line’s color relates to where it goes, they’ll try to get all of them to. It’s also an argument against changing the yellow line: as it is, the colors are arbitrary, but if you change them whenever someone finds a reason to complain you’ll never get a map drawn, especially when it’s time to add to the system.
chuclav
I’m do not know anything about the metro in Atlanta and do not much care. As to whether the yellow line for an Asian community is appropriate, I suppose they will have to settle that themselves. Here in New Orleans some of us in the gay community designate St. Ann street as the Lavender Line to denote that most of the gay bars are below (north, it’s a NO thing) St. Ann. When we owned our shop on Bourbon we would hand out maps on which we would highlight St. Ann in Lavender and dot the other gay areas of interest with Lavender. I suppose the fact that we made this distinction ourselves does make a difference.
bobito
If trains run properly on an efficient schedule and are reasonably clean, then I really don’t care one way or the other about the color of the line.
Gold Line
The Asian American community is suggesting the Gold line.
Lukas P.
@hyhybt: @Sam: @terrwill: Wait, y’all, wait! Don’t tell me that I rode the freaking GREEN line looking for Martians for 2 hours TO NO AVAIL??!
This is as pathetic as the time I rode the Orange line with a spray tan and *nobody* got the irony of it all.
.
If “gold line” works for the Asian communities, great. Go for the Gold, but just TRY printing a map on paper with metalics and see how much that costs. Sans the metal goo in the ink, it’s hard to distinguish gold from yellow or orange.
GaryBob
I know that the Los Angeles Metro has long considered a “Pink Line” to run through West Hollywood, which would join the Red Line and the proposed expansion of the Purple Line (The Subway to the Sea!). However, judging from how effing long it takes people in this city to make a move on decent public transportation, it may never happen.