CTA to Include All Colors of the Gay Rainbow (Minus the Brown)

By Alicia Dorr in News on Mar 30, 2006 8:40PM

The CTA has apparently gave up trying to be a viable agency altogether, begging off on making a decision and putting a significant choice in the capable hands of schoolchildren.

The result proved once again that there's always something so funny in the world that you couldn't have written it if you tried: The newest CTA branch of the L will officially be called the Pink Line.

Unofficially, it will be called crude names ... and oh-so-much more.

Here's the details, so we can get them out of the way: The CTA let an essay competition among schoolchildren from kindergarten to 8th grade determine the name of the line, which will go east from 54th in Cicero along the same course as the Cermak Blue Line branch. However, where that line goes into the Loop at Polk, the new line will stay above ground and connect with the Green Line at Lake St.

The whole thing seems like an early April Fool's Day joke, like the time we were sort of duped by that fake BBC story about real zombies in Laos. But the fact that it's not a joke makes it funnier. Like the fact that right now it's a "century old" service track that hasn't been operational for years, which the CTA "renovated" (read: a bunch of workers in yellow vests reminiscent of high school gym class dodgeball tournaments shooting the shit and kicking the tracks occassionally, saying, "Whelp, looks like it will work.") And the fact that it will be a 180-day "experiment" (read: The CTA actually found a new way to waste money it doesn't have.)

West Siders have been unhappy with the project from the get-go, and that makes sense since the project ends up cutting service to things CTA officials don't think are important, like hospitals and airports. Oh wait—they think airports are important when they can connect them to totally empty blocks with no promise of development.

All we can say is it must've been one hell of an essay that sold the wizards at the CTA on the idea for the Pink Line when there were several other, less foppish primary colors available. In order to make the Pink Line seem tougher, we've decided to make fun of it in the raunchiest way possible instead of going for the easy jokes about little girls being commissioned to paint rainbows and unicorns on the cars. Among these disgusting jokes will be the phrase, "some pink in the wink that stinks," the really gross pop star Pink (and all of her Lady Marmalade counterparts that look like they'd be sticky if we touched them) and much, much more.

Bottom line (sorry)? If the "Poop" Brown and "Pantywaist" Purple Lines were people, they would be wiping the sweat off their brows in relief because they won't be the most embarrassing lines in the city anymore.