Commentary: Seattle's new transit wayfinding system is 'more confusing than clarifying'

New wayfinding signage installed by Sound Transit is confusing some travelers, writes Erica C. Barnett in PubliCola.

Although the agency made changes that it said are in line with "international standards," in part to make them easier to understand for international travelers visiting for the World Cup, "some of the new features, such as the addition of station numbers to route maps and the removal of location information from station exits, are more confusing than clarifying."

According to Barnett, "State law requires some kind of station identifier that people with limited English proficiency can easily remember. Previously, Sound Transit used a series of baffling pictograms; these included two types of bird, two types of boat, and both a moose and a deer. Unfortunately, the three-digit system seems like a marginal improvement, at best, over the twee old silhouette-style images."

Barnett notes that Sound Transit also duplicates station numbers, making it easy to confuse two stations on different lines for one another. "The potential for rider confusion is only compounded by the fact that Sound Transit now uses the terminal station for each line to identify which direction a train is going, rather than simple directions (north/south, east/west) or common destinations ('downtown Seattle'/'Airport'). Thus, a rider going downtown from Beacon Hill has to decide whether to stand on the side of the station that’s bound for 'Lynnwood City Center' or 'Downtown Federal Way,' with no obvious indication where these two non-destination cities are located geographically."

For Barnett, "Sound Transit’s wayfinding system seems—perhaps not without reason—like a series of well-intentioned choices made by people who don’t actually use transit regularly."