Until now, even major Muni stops are sometimes marked by nothing more than numbers stenciled on a nearby pole. They aren’t in Muni’s brand color, don’t include a logo, or even go to the effort of adding the four extra letting to says it’s a “Muni” stop.
With the Muni Foward service and branding changes going into effect, the SFMTA is will also replace every stop being marked now by just the graffiti wtih true signs, using the same color-coding system being introduced in the new system map.
Limited line will be rebranded as “Rapid” and shown in red along with Muni Metro light-rail, with peak service every 10 minutes.
Local and express busses will be labeled in blue. On the map the thickness and shade indicating frquency. The darkest lines will mark the lines running ever 10 minutes or less, what the SFMTA is categorizing as “frequent local” service, and will be shown in the same thickness as Muni Metro and the “rapid” lines. On the signs there will be only one shade of blue for all bus lines.
Historic streetcars and cable cars are shown in yellow on the signs, with yellow and maroon lines on the map. Thickness will again indicate frequency, with the F-line the same width of other 10 minutes or less lines.
There’s policy behind this new rapid network which prioritizes Muni along the most heavily ridden lines and on major transit corridors for speed and service improvements.
Muni is finally – and thankfully – in a position where increasing service on heavily-ridden lines doesn’t have to come at the expense of lower-ridership and community connector lines. Most of the expansion tomorrow will be on those key lines and extending hours, without any service cuts.
From the sample renderings it looks as if the top of the sign will be branded from the most freqent service at that stop. The signs are to have solar powered lights to make them easy to find even at night.
Along with this, individual colors for the Metro lines will going away and they will all be shown in red. We’ve already seen the orange stickers on the J-Church shelters replaced with red ones.
It should also clear up some confusion in the shared subway stations downtown, where both BART and Muni Metro use and overlapping set of colors on their maps, but neither refers to the route by the color. BART will switch to color names (such as the “Orange Line” rather than a “Richmond-Fremont train”) once they phased in the new fleet of trains and upgraded the computer control system along with them.
