Or maybe the problem is just that kids aren't the only ones who have favorite colors.
Consider that a new light rail line is to be called the Aqua Line. Transit officials like that color because of its dreamy oceanside connotations. Plus, it makes just as much sense in Spanish as English. But some USC partisans are complaining that Aqua is too close to rival UCLA's colors. The line should be colored "cardinal" instead, they argue.
New bus lines in L.A. are slated to be called Silver and Bronze. Those are nice enough names -- except that any Olympics fan might assume they're second- and third-best to the Gold Line light rail to Pasadena.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is pushing an extension of the Red Line subway, seems amenable to the idea of changing that segment's color to purple. "I love the color," Villaraigosa says. "My mother's favorite color was lavender, it's a variation. We can decide about color when we have money."
Meanwhile, as the L.A. Times points out, some colors in L.A. are taboo because of race:
In multicultural Los Angeles, naming transit lines after colors is a sensitive task. Transit officials privately said it would be inappropriate to call the Exposition Boulevard line -- which runs through both African American and Latino neighborhoods -- the "Black Line" or "Brown Line."
And, of course, the "White Line" would never show up clearly on a map.
