So-called “Brisbane Metro” is a really good system and a fantastic improvement to our public transportation system.

But it’s not a metro. It’s bus rapid transit. The author suggests taking a page out of San Francisco’s playbook and calling our system BERT (theirs is BART—Bay Area Rapid Transit), short for Busway Electric Rapid Transit or Brisbane Electric Rapid Transit. The vehicles would then be BERTies. According to RAIL Back on Track’s Robert Dow:

a few of the PR guys around town, they actually thought the BERT was quite good, because it describes what it actually is and it’s a catchy name

It’s a catchy name that people would have liked. You can imagine BERTies coming across as endearing and having people think of it with almost a personality. Plus, it would have allowed people to talk about the actual benefits of the system, instead of most of the conversation being about how “it’s not actually a metro”.

I say we should just all start calling it BERT. Ignore and refuse to acknowledge the official name. Just make BERT a thing.

What’s to be embarrassed about? the system works.

Who should be embarrassed? Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. They have a metro they call LRT. Its reliability is so bad people wish they had an app to tell riders if it’s running or not. The city doesn’t want to make one or even post the status of the system. You only find out via news and social media.