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County Supervisor and Metro Board Member Gloria Molina wants to offiicially rename the Edward R. Roybal Gold Line Eastside Extension to its direct Spanish translation: la linea de oro, Edward R. Roybal. That's because the communities it serves are more than 95% Latino. The Metro board will vote on the matter today, a couple months short of the line's expected grand opening.
Gold Line Eastside Extenion: Let's Call it la Linea de Oro
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last time I checked English was printed on every Sign for the Metro... good luck!
MattJack,
So Sierra Madre Villa is not Spanish enough for you?
How about Del Mar, Maravilla, San Pedro La Ciénega and El Segundo?
Do You Call the City by the Sea Saint Monica?
Just wondering.......
In all fairness most of those are city names. I'm not saying it isn't a good idea, just saying it wont happen since the people who are voting are likely the other 5%...
The La Brea tar pits are officially named, Rancho La Brea (la brea in Spanish means "tar".)
You will not find a single person calling it Rancho La Brea. They call it the La Brea tar pits (which is probably redundant "tar tar").
Let them officially name it la linea de Oro. Everyone will end up calling it the Gold Line, since they are already used to that name.
"That's because the communities it serves are more than 95% Latino."
and not to mention the name itself is AWESOME.
This seems more than a little dumb to me.
The funniest part about this is that the Metro site includes the following text:
"With eight new stations serving diverse LA neighborhoods"
I guess they are not diverse enough. LOL
If the demographics of the population defines the naming convention, does that mean that "Palos Verdes" will be renamed to "Green Trees?"
Silly.
I'm ambivalent about the name. Most people will end up calling it something between Gold Line/Linea Dorada/el metro/el tren, so the public name doesn't matter much to me. Official documents, that's another story. The name should stay in English because, like I said, it's gonna be called one of many things by Spanish speakers.
When you're in NYC, you travel through all sorts of neighborhoods and guess what, the train line name remains the same. I would appreciate MTA consistency vs. honoring various sections of the city.
I'm not remotely upset by what Gloria is proposing, I get it, but for the sake of consistency, my vote is no.
Well if there going to be two Gold lines there should be some kind of way for riders to know whether they are on the one heading to Pasedena or the one to East L.A. La linea de Oro makes sense to me.
And yea, English only in L.A. would not only suck, it would be very boring. (not to mention I wouldn't know where anything was any more)
I would like it called the "Jonathan Gold Line."
I don't really see why there is a need to re-name the line. And, it wouldn't make sense to call it "Linea de Oro" anyway....bcs I think it would imply that it was the "Line of Gold"... wouldn't it just be "Linea Oro"?
Do you all realize that these are not the same lines?
One goes to Pasedena and the other runs south of the original Gold line and goes to East L.A.. Similar to the way the Red Line and the Purple Line split off. If they name both of them "The Gold Line" I predict a lot of confusion among first time riders.
Do you all realize that these are not the same lines?
One goes to Pasedena and the other runs south of the original Gold line and goes to East L.A.. Similar to the way the Red Line and the Purple Line split off. If they name both of them "The Gold Line" I predict a lot of confusion among first time riders.
I actually did NOT realize that, and in that case it would seem that both the proposed names are a little confusing. Perhaps a different color alltogether would be more appropriate.
Honestly, naming the wing of the Gold Line that goes through a mostly Latino neighborhood the spanish word for 'gold' actually seems little condescending and odd. I mean it's not like they can't understand unless it's translated, and as a gesture I'm not really sure what the point is, as LA is already majority Latino.
Like #6 said, people are going to call it what they want (and in more languages than English and Spanish, duh), so let's just pick one language and stick with it. I don't care if it's French or Farsi, but let's be consistant.
Which is why I hope, if the Downtown Connector is completed, that the naming system will be fixed to make travel easier. North-south (Long Beach to Pasadena/wherever the current Gold Line will be expanded to) be known as the Blue Line and the Gold Line be the current Expo Line & the Gold Line Eastside extension. Makes the system somewhat easier, I think.
If it's all about the demographics, I'm still waiting for them to build a Wishes There Was A Way to Eat a Burger and A Taco at the Same Time line, straight through my living room.
Didn't Bernard Parks get all up in Metro's face about the name/color for the Rose, but they call it Expo, line? Don't these pols have any more pressing city-county issues to deal with? Wondering if anyone has asked what additional costs changing the name will add to the project...
I think people are reading way too much into this. In operation no one will call this anything but what color the line is on the pretty chart. The names are just symbolic.
I'm sure it will never happen, but I like to imagine when the downtown connector allows the blue line to flow through to the gold line, that it would become the bold line, and be marked with a thicker line on the map..
Hindinwood, and anyone else interested, here is a map of current and future metro rail projects...
http://www.metro.net/projects_studies/eastside/images/rail_map_future.pdf
You will note that that the east side extention, (gold dotted line), is actually a totally different section of rail that splits off and go in totally different direction from the Pasedena Gold line.
Historical fact;
They used to call both the NoHo Red Line and the Wilshire/Western Purple line, "The Red Line" until too many people got confused by that and they changed Wil/Wes to The Purple Line.
So I wonder why they're doing this again? They'll have to change it eventually when too many people get confused, end up in the wrong place, and bitch about it.
Another brain fart from Metro.
What the hell are you talking about? The Gold Line Eastside Extension is just that, an extension of the Gold Line. It does not split off from the Gold Line. It's the same line.
"They used to call both the NoHo Red Line and the Wilshire/Western Purple line, "The Red Line" until too many people got confused by that and they changed Wil/Wes to The Purple Line."
Yes, because that's a corridor where two routes actually split off from each other. That's not happening with the Gold Line.
You looked at the map?
You will notice that they both converge at Union Station. One goes north and east to Pasedena, one goes south and east to east L.A.
Traffic wise how many riders are goping to be traveling from Pasedena to east L.A. and vise versa? Most are going to be traveling to and from east L.A. and Union Station and to and from Pasedena and Union Station.
To me this makes them two seperate lines. Having them the same name and/or color will be confusing to a lot of people.
jrb, the Gold line extension is just that... an extension of the existing Gold line to Pasadena. In July you'll be able to take a single train ride from the Sierra Madre station in East Pasadena to Atlantic Blvd in East Los Angeles, without having to transfer to another train. That constitutes one line, not two.
But they won't shoo you off the train at Union Station (well, during pre-revenue testing they might). It's one line. The southern terminus is not Union Station anymore, it's Atlantic Station.
You're right in that few people will probably take Atlantic Station to Sierra Madre, but I can see the first few stations of the Eastside Extension seeing boardings that go to Del Mar and Memorial Park.
In any case, the Gold Line is one complete line. Call it whatever the hell you want, but give it one standard name. Gold Line / Spanish equivalent / Klingon equivalent / Who Cares.
OK you both make valid points, but I still think it's going to be confusing, especially to tourists and first time riders.
I don't know about you, but when I take public transit, I meet a lot of people from out of town, most of whom are tourists from out of country. I think it's good for LA's image and our economy to make it as easy as possible for our out of town guests to use our public transit system.
JMO
Take a look at a NYC subway map (or DC, or Paris, or 'Frisco)... lots of single lines go from one suburb, through center city, and out to another suburb, and back again. This is a common type of route layout for a single line).
The Eastside has long been home to aspiring low-income immigrant ethnic populations.
As one young girl hauntingly wrote in a school essay about its history, "This is a place where everyone comes, but no one stays."
The Eastside's history includes substantial populations of Italian, Japanese, Russian, Yugoslav, and Eastern European Jewish ancestry.
I'm not sure it's the best idea to name long-term civic facilities in the native language of whatever happens to be the currently dominant ethnic group. What will tomorrow's opportunity-seeking immigrants think if they come from a place where Spanish isn't the native language?
Does this honor an ethnic group, or ghettoize it?
Yes, ethnic names are part of the historic fabric of the city, but there's a difference between naming things after prominent citizens of the area (like Edward Roybal) and insisting that the entire facilty name must be in the language of the 'old country' of the current immigrants.
I confess I'm not heavily invested in this - in fact, I'm fairly ambivalent about it - it just struck me as odd.
But then, in El Pueblo de La Reina de Los Angeles, odd is sometimes what you get.
The proper full name is El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de la Porciúncula.
Does everything need a translation? My name is James but I don't go around saying James to English speakers and Jaime to Spanish speakers. I don't call someone named Carlos, "Carl".
Pick a name (english or spanish, it doesn't matter) and use it.
Technically, James = Diego in Spanish.
This is a petty issue not worthy of public officials time and resources. The fact is we live in America where the official language is English, and this is an extension of an existing line already called 'Gold Line'. To me it doesn't honor the local residents by translating the name of the segment to Spanish, it almost makes a mockery of them and the line. Leave it alone already. California can't pass a budget but they have time to consider petty crap like this. What a joke.
The official language of the United States is not English. There is no official language.
The official language of California is English as specified by our state constitution, but that only means that materials must be at least in English. It doesn't preclude anybody from using a Spanish translation after an English name.
I think it's good branding. Maybe get Cheech Marin to do a couple commercials and turn East L.A. into a cultural experience destination. That would def improve the economy there.
It's less about language and more about branding. Translating an existing brand doesn't make sense. Honestly, being a public transit user where I see people who speak all different languages all the time, colors and numbers work as well as it can. If it was such a big deal and problem, why didn't we change everything before?