LOCAL NEWS I'm Thinking Pink
Whether you know it or not, over the weekend the CTA opened a brand new train line: the Pink line. The Pink line was named by a local middle school which is, as far as I can tell, an all girls school. There are some ads up on other trains (i.e. the Brown Line) that supposedly show why Pink was picked. The reasons include that Pink is happy; that Pink should be said more often; and that I am a middle-school aged girl and have no grasp of how hard it would be for a college-aged boy to get his drunk ass home from the Cubs game via the "Pink" line. Perhaps the worst thing about the Pink line is the fact that it runs along an already established line (the Blue 54/Cermak)... it's just going to be more frequent than the Blue line to those stops.
I suppose, as stupid as I think naming a train "Pink" is... I honestly can't come up with a better color. Keeping in mind that Yellow, Purple, Red, Blue, Green, Brown, and Orange are already taken, honestly what's left? I mean, also factoring in the Political Correctness inability to name a line White or Black... and the fact that you want the color to be a one- or two-syllable word which is easy to say and is a color distinct enough that when visitors from other countries visit Chicago they can easily distinguish between the lines... what's left? Chelsey came up with one: The Silver line. The trains are already Silver, she said... why not name the line Silver? I honestly don't know why not... Silver is better than any other color I can think of. Pink is actually a little to derivative (of the Red line) to be better than Silver. But if we are doing derivative colors, wouldn't one that's more like Blue be better for a line that's replacing Blue line service?
In addition to the Pink line service, the CTA also did some minor tweaking over the weekend. All of the system maps have been replaced (to include Pink line service), and the train voice-overs have been modified. Now the train polietly asks people to be courtious when talking on a cell phone or listening to music playing devices. Now the train warns that soliciting and GAMBLING are prohibitited on CTA trains. And, the worst change of all, what used to be my favorite stop "This is Chicago"... is now "This is Chicago and Franklin." Not as cool... and there goes my one idea for a movie!