Branding release might be delayed, as I believe the consultants were told to go back to the drawing board after the first round of options dropped.
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Did they say at all about why they got dropped? I know American transit artists aren’t that imaginative, but it surely couldn’t have been that bad?
I hate the idea of giving BRT a separate brand.
Leverage the BRT coming online as a way to elevate the image of buses overall - don’t try to create a distinct brand identity for BRT separate from (and better than) the humble City Bus. We should be working on implementing busways, good shelters, offboard ticketing, frequent service, etc everywhere in our system, as fast as we can - Not just a shiny fancy rapid transit system for those lucky enough to live near it, and measly dirty buses for the rest of the unwashed masses.
As for branding: The “Go” brand is fantastic, actually. No need to go above and beyond that.
TL;DR: BRT should be viewed, branded, and marketed as a program to “Make buses better” rather than an effort to “Make something better than buses”
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I think I’m with you on this. I was hoping to see the same “GO” branding, but with a different color and the title GoWake or something. Still sets it apart a little, but keeps it clear that this is the same system with the same fares. Promotes the system as a whole, not just specific lines.
I would like to see the lines labeled though. Colors or directions… something simple but distinct enough that you know it’s BRT, kind of like IndyGo’s Red Line or LA Metro’s Orange Line. Both examples are still clearly a part of the broader system, but do stand out a bit. Maybe I just want this because I want to see these lines emphasized on a map and make it seem like we have a more robust system. As good as Pittsburgh’s MLK Busway is, it drives me nuts that the P2/P3 doesn’t stand out a bit from the rest of the bus lines.
I’m currently realizing that these two paragraphs show a conflict of interest, so I guess I’m asking for a balance. Some form of distinction, but not two seemingly separate systems.
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I am with y’all on this. Too many brands make it confusing. A unified brand, with clear color or letter demarcations, make it way easier for the uninitiated or casual user to get comfortable with the system. One of the things that makes Rome’s subways so easy to use is there are only 2 lines, A & B, so you only need to know the end stop for the direction. Its nearly, though not impossible, to get lost and makes it darn easy for visitors. I’ve never ridden the NYC subway because I took one look at the map outside a midtown stop and said “what? I am too hung over to figure this out.” So I walked.
If you want new people to start using they system, make it as simple as possible.
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Why not GoRaleigh Rapid (or GRR lol). Even branding as Go Rapid Transit (GRT) so it’s usable for GoRaleigh, GoCary, GoTriangle, GoDurham will be good.
I’m ok with numbers as it’s common for bus routes to have numbers. NYC uses numbers for bus routes and the subway.
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I like @orulz’s suggestion too but I do think there has to be something to set it apart. How about the direction of travel? E.g., GoEast for the New Bern line, GoWest for Western Blvd, and so forth.
However, if the system continued to expand that naming system might prove inadequate. What about colours? GoRed, GoBlue, GoGreen, etc. I’m curious about what they’ll come up with, and desperately hope it’s not something super generic-sounding.
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I like the “rapid” idea. GoWake Rapid maybe? I don’t know. This is why I don’t make a living doing this stuff.
But I swear, if they come up with something weird like C-Tran’s “The Vine” in Vancouver, WA (which isn’t even really BRT, by the way), I’m gonna be super annoyed.
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I think something like “GoRaleigh Rapid” suggested by @wanderer is probably a best case scenario. It’s still clearly part of the GoRaleigh brand, but the name clearly indicates that it’s been improved.
I am fine with each direction getting its own distinct color, but I am not a fan of labeling lines after colors. It’s way, way overdone. We have too many bus routes to give each one a distinct color-name after all, and the color itself says absolutely nothing about where it goes.
Name it after the street it runs on, or failing that, after the cardinal direction it heads in.
“GoRaleigh Rapid New Bern Avenue Line”
“GoRaleigh Rapid East Line”
etc.
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How bout just ‘GoRaleigh BRT’
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I remember seeing a couple of PowerPoint slides from GoTriangle in 2017 or 2018 that used “GoRapid” to group together the Durham-Garner commuter rail, Durham-Chapel Hill light rail, Chapel Hill BRT etc. …I’m having a hard time finding it, though. I think it’d be cool if this ends up becoming a thing.
Anyways, when did the BRT study ever say they are not using the GoTransit brand family? Neither @Kevin nor anyone else has said that’s what’s happening.
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GoRaleigh Rapid, or GoRaleigh Rapid Transit!!! Perhaps it does have to have a distinctive brand from the other bus services!!!
No it is it’s just sideway of the road, with right of way!!! Part of our BRT will be this!!!
My one concern with labeling it “GoRaleigh” anything is that the system will enter Cary and Garner. Granted, we already have several GoRaleigh branded lines that extend into other jurisdictions, but future expansion of the BRT system could include lines that don’t enter Raleigh at all, or perhaps only run through a small portion of Raleigh. CAMPO is already talking about designating a BRT corridor that runs from RTP to Clayton via Morrisville, Cary, Raleigh, and Garner (and including the Western and Southern BRT corridors as part of the routing). That doesn’t really make it a “Raleigh” system anymore.
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I mean to me “Rapid” is less of a distinctive brand than it is a service type. Like Express vs. Local.
I don’t want people saying “I’m going to take The GoRaleigh™” or “Let’s go ride The Rapid™”. That is trying to separate the BRT as something better than buses, which could actually backfire by making regular city buses look worse.
I want people saying “I’m going to take the bus”, and the operator of the bus is GoRaleigh and the name of the route is the New Bern Avenue Rapid. For this to work, whatever benefit BRT brings to the image of transit, we should try as we can to spread that aura to regular city buses as well, not cast a message of “You may be too good for city buses, but you’re not too good for The Rapid™!”
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For a route that crosses municipal boundaries, use the GoTriangle brand, then. Nothing wrong with that.
Works for me. GoTriangle has been super hands off on this, though (by design). Wonder if the brand could still be implemented in that case. Still don’t fully understand who is ultimately in charge of how the “GO” branding is used.
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I don’t think anyone really is. There’s a short video made by the City of Durham in 2015 to explain this rebranding, and it sounds like the idea is to have a unified template, and each agency comes up with their own versions of brands based on that common source.
EDIT: It turns out GoDurham is actually operated by GoTriangle, though major service changes and budget stuff have to get a thumbs-up from Durham City Council. This makes it slightly easier for GoTriangle to take charge in (re)branding efforts, but my main point still stands.
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I just posed the branding question to my wife. She said that several of her customers already have BRT, and typically their BRT lines use the same branding as the agency, so most likely it’ll just be called “Go Raleigh BRT” or maybe “Go Raleigh Rapid” or something. It’s possible Raleigh might choose to handle it differently, but that was her best guess.
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This doesn’t directly refer to any BRT branding updates, but I found some historical context that could be nice to keep in mind. According to this N&O article from 2014, as well as the list of agenda attachments for the Durham City Council meeting it mentions, the GoTransit brand is intentionally designed to be flexible for local needs without deferring to some central authority.
Here’s the slide deck used by the consultants (with details explained in this memo):
Just show me the good stuff. (click here!)
Each agency in the Triangle helped write the NCDoT grant to do this study. But since the result won’t be enforced by a central entity, each agency gets to decide for themselves if/when they’ll adopt this rebranding. Interestingly, this includes Chapel Hill; I never noticed any discussions about this rebrand in Chapel Hill Transit’s public records, but this means they could just switch over whenever they feel like it.
On the other hand, a couple of places changed or expanded the GoTransit brand beyond the original scope. For starters, Cary ended up deviating from the design in this proposal by flipping their logo color (green triangles are on the top of the logo) and making the gray-teal color into a bright blue:
There’s other variants of the GoTransit brand that this study didn’t consider. For example, there’s Wake County’s door-to-door transit service GoWake Access,…
…and GoTriangle’s (honestly, mysterious) nonprofit fundraising arm, GoTransit Partners:
Here’s the important thing: different “Go___” brands have been made for each agency, not each service. I’m having a hard time imagining that it’ll be anything other than a subset of the GoRaleigh brand or something else entirely. And, again, we have no clue if the BRT will stick to the GoTransit brand.
If you assume it will, then I think what @daviddonovan said makes sense, and BRT/commuteer rail logos could look kinda like this.
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