WMATA’s recent service change, branded as Rush Plus (probably over-promising things just a bit as “rush hour reinvented”), involved deviating from Metro’s fairly straightforward delineation of lines and services via color.  Metro’s increasingly complicated service pattern is getting to the point of requiring a similarly robust nomenclature for services.

When a rider speaks of the Red Line, they refer not just to a set of tracks but also the service that operates on them.  Even this wasn’t perfect, as many Red Line trains wouldn’t operate for the full line – they would short-turn at Grosvenor or Silver Spring.  GGW’s Metro Map contest identified each of the separate services Metro regularly runs, counting ten current services, plus the future Silver Line.  Ten services is obviously more than the five colors on Metro’s map.

More problematic is the fact that color and line terminus are no longer paired.  Yellow line trains can terminate at both Franconia-Springfield and Huntington; Orange line trains can terminate at both Largo and New Carrollton.

When devising a new map to show these service changes and to prepare for the introduction of the Silver Line, Metro opted to keep the map (and service nomenclature) that riders know well the same.  However, the increasingly complex service pattern demands nomenclature to match.

WMATA’s move towards using colored bullets to help identify train services helps:

However, those bullets still only identify the all-day services, not the ‘Rush Plus’ services.  WMATA’s in-station signage uses something else:

YL Rush Only service bullet, GR bullet. CC image from justgrimes.

The striping within the bullet matches the pattern for such services on Metro’s new map, but it just doesn’t read well on in-station signage:

Rush Plus signage at Gallery Place-Chinatown. Photo by author.

From afar (or in the above case, just standing at the platform), you can’t tell the difference between the rush-only YL bullet and the regular service YL bullet.  Which means that the bullet isn’t useful for wayfinding if the rider still needs to focus on their terminal destination.  A different rush-only YL bullet adds nothing.

One potential solution would be to take a lesson from a system that has lots of different services, operating on different lines (both are distinct concepts) – New York.  Differentiation among similarly routed services can be accomplished via graphical means.

For some rush-only, peak-direction-only services, New York’s diamond bullets might work as an example for Metro’s rush-only services. Regular Orange Line trains [identified as (OR) in shorthand] would go to New Carrollton, while rush-only trains [identified with a diamond <OR> bullet] would go to Largo.

This wouldn’t solve all of Metro’s service naming challenges – the fact that some rush-only services bring new service to places (like more trains to Largo) while other services do not (how most Yellow trains at the peak end at Mount Vernon Square, not the ‘regular’ listed terminus of Fort Totten) and that some service patterns are not rush-only (short-turning trains on the Red Line at Grosvenor and Silver Spring) makes a simple switch difficult. Still, there’s a need to change.

This isn’t the first time this issue has popped up, and so long as Metro’s services are getting more (and not less) complex, it won’t be going away anytime soon.