Four O'Clock Factoid: Trunk Colors

Four O'Clock Factoid is a daily feature on Track Twenty-Nine helping to get you through the workday with a bit of useless knowledge.

New York City's massive subway system uses letters and numbers to identify routes. But colors are important too: they indicate which Manhattan trunk line the route uses, with the exception of the IND Crosstown Line, which does not enter Manhattan, and shuttles, which are all colored dark gray. This color scheme has been in place since 1979 and was proposed by R. Raleigh D'Adamo in a contest held by the transit agency in 1964.