In other news, it’s interesting that two transportation oriented organizations have decided to rebrand themselves recently: TransLink the Bay Area’s regional transit fare card will change itself to Clipper (http://2cu2.sl.pt ; see also the post by the Bay Area’s Akit) through a $500,000 rebranding campaign; and the UC Berkeley Traffic Safety Center will become SafeTREC, the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center. (http://www.safetrec.berkeley.edu/)

Both names are about as interesting as the iPad; would not have been my choices since one sounds like people are riding trains like pirates and the other big Vulcans fans who walk around saying ‘live long and prosper.’  Both still have great things going for them but in an era of fiscal crisis, it makes me wonder if rebranding transportation is responsible?  It doesn’t seem to address or be the solution to ridership or research issues.  It is money well-spent on changing transportation mode shift or doing good transportation research?