Khan renames Overground in homage to multiculturalism

Sadiq Khan has been accused of “victory signaling nonsense” after renaming London Overground lines in honor of multiculturalism and feminism.

The Mayor of London announced on Thursday that the network’s 103 miles of interconnected overground tracks, currently marked in orange on transport maps, would be split into six new identities.

The new names for the lines are Lioness, Windrush, Suffragette, Weaver, Liberty and Mildmay – the last in tribute to the specialist HIV hospital in Shoreditch.

As well as paying tribute to the England women’s football team, the Caribbean passenger ship Empire Windrush and the 1920s movement for women’s suffrage, the new lines also commemorate lesser-known aspects of the capital’s history.

The Weaver Line is named after “areas of London known for the textile trade”, passing through Liverpool Street, Spitalfields and Bethnal Green, while the Freedom Line celebrates the east London borough of Havering, “which was more self-governing he has historically by being. royal freedom”, according to TfL.

New colors will be used as the Overground is divided into separately designated networks. Each will have a white line running through the middle to distinguish them from Tube lines, which use solid colors.

The rebranding exercise, which is expected to cost £6.3 million, is intended to make the above-ground network easier to navigate, but critics say Mr Khan is engaging in a “pointless gimmick”.

Mr Khan described the renaming of the lines as “a very exciting moment”.

“In re-imagining the London Tube map, we are honoring and celebrating different parts of London’s unique local history and culture,” he said.

However, critics branded the move as “victory signaling”, “patronage” and a “meaningless gimmick”.

Susan Hall, the Conservative candidate for the London mayoral elections later this year, said the rebranding was “victory signaling nonsense” and said: “The only surprise from today’s announcement is that the He named Sadiq Line as one of them.”

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Lord Frost said: “Tradition in London is that public transport lines are given a name that has a royal connection or a name related to the geography of the line.

“Giving them political names is a break with that tradition, whether one agrees with the politics or not. It is part of the general coercive politics of so many aspects of our daily lives today.

“Obviously one would expect nothing better from Sadiq Khan and his appalling management of TfL and London.”

Mark Francois, the former minister, recalled Mrs Hall’s praise of Sadiq Line and said, tongue in cheek, that her tagline should be “unreliable, extremely expensive and going completely out of nowhere”.

“This is classic Sadiq; another gimmick that’s not worth making up for with his stuck fingers,” said Mr Francois, the Islington-born Conservative MP.

Keith Prince, City Hall’s Conservative transport spokesman, said the mayor had wasted a “significant” opportunity to generate much-needed cash for Transport for London (TfL).

“Sadiq Khan and TfL could earn thousands of pounds by offering naming rights to Overland train lines,” he said.

Meanwhile, Robert Colvile, director of the Center for Policy Studies think tank, described the exercise as “patronising, patronizing and just plain weird”.

Professor Jeremy Black, University of Exeter, accused Mr Khan of politicizing the railways.

“Khan is politicizing history in a way that is not desirable,” said the professor.

“Why is a railway line called Windrush? The Windrush Empire was a ship. It’s bonkers,” he said.

“What’s the point of using the word suffragette? Is he arguing that this is to show that violent suffragette movements were acceptable? What point is he trying to make?”

Transport for London said: “This significant change, which will include a major update to London’s world-renowned Tube map, will make it easier for customers to navigate London’s transport network while celebrating make the city’s diverse culture and history.”

The Overground network was created in 2007 when TfL took over the privatized Silverlink Metro train operation over four suburban lines around the capital. It has slowly expanded since then to what some have called “the mass of orange spaghetti”, comprising 112 stations in a ring around the capital.

John Bull, editor of transport website London Reconnections, said giving the lines names and colors was “overdue change”.

He said: “One of the real advantages of the Overland is the ability to drive traffic that is not local to interesting locations in Zone 2, Zone 3 and beyond.

“But if it’s not a common trip, you can’t just say: ‘I’m going to go on the orange line’. You have to know how they interconnect.”