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

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. Like the dwelling, which may be typical of the way millions were sheltered, something as basic as a railroad or streetcar system changes the quality of everyday life in the urban landscape, while marking the terrain. (Dolores Hayden, 1995, p. 22)