Rail Transit Identification and Neighbourhood Identity. Exploring the Potential for ‘Community-Supportive Transit’

Abstract

The preservation and promotion of neighbourhood identity is important in contemporary cities. Los Angeles, long known for its lack of both effective mass transit and, separately, local identity and cohesion among its neighbourhoods, is currently working to address each of these issues, yet little attention has been paid to the possibility that the two can be directly related. This paper investigates how rail transit line identification and station-naming decisions are not only important to community members but can have an impact on the neighbourhood identity. After introducing these ideas with the case of the identification of the Metro ‘Expo Line’ in LA, the paper turns to a comparison of naming logics for other local institutions and other major transit systems, arguing that cities could benefit from considering ‘community supportive’ transit design that promotes local identity in addition to more pragmatic wayfinding concerns.

Notes

1. This paper defines the L.A. Metro Rail system (henceforth simply the Metro) in accordance with the MTA's standard Rail System Map, including the 79-mile, 70-station subway and light rail system, but not the Orange Line ‘fixed-guideway Metro Liner’ service or other bus ‘transitway lines’. Nor does it include the hundreds of regular Local, Rapid and Express buses, other municipal services, or the Metrolink commuter rail service. The exclusion of bus service is not to disregard the great importance of the system that is the real backbone of mass transit in LA and most cities. While there is much value in the exploration of community-supportive design in bus systems, this paper's focus is restricted to rail rapid transit which is, as argued below, particularly well-suited for the promotion of neighbourhood identity.

2. The entire urban rail transit system run by Transport for London also includes the Docklands Light Rail (38 stations), the Tramlink street tram service (39 stations), and London Overground commuter trains (55 stations). For the limited scope of this study, these three additional services are not considered among the data for London, although it should be noted that they follow much the same eclectic naming pattern for stations and stops.