Despite some resentment about yesterday's fare hikes and attitude from some that Metro has failed this city, they continue to win awards. Today, the San Fernando Business Journal announces that Metro has won a top honor from The Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD):

The Washington, D.C.-based organization chose Metro because of its new paint schemes for the bus fleet, new building façade for the Wilshire Customer Center and new signage and identification for bus stations, rail stations and more.

The SEDG [sic] judging panel praised Metro “for its ability to create a strong graphic brand and a world-class system. Every graphic element—color, typography and color placement—was considered for its ability to communicate information concisely and consistently.”

On branding, agreed. Graphic elements, agreed. And all that truly does "communicate information concisely and consistently." Is that a red bus in the distance? Okay, that's a rapid. Is that an orange bus? That's a local service bus. Easy enough.

Next steps should be to communicate that no more busses or trains are coming late at night in a "concise and consistent" manner. You know, when you are sitting down in a red line station at 12:31 a.m. with 15 other people and the only person who tells you no more trains are coming is the security guard locking the place up. Yeah, that.

How about some audio announcements? Heck, throw in those "next train coming in 6-minutes" ones too. People would be less stressed out. The murder rate would probably go down too.

Photo by Salim Virji via Flickr.