Is TriMet Secretly “Calming” Commuters With Its Pink Lighting?

There is indeed a shade, Baker-Miller pink, which is believed to have calming properties.

I've noticed TriMet uses pink lighting in certain sections of its buses. We all know prisons paint walls pink to calm inmates. Is TriMet secretly "calming" commuters? —MK Ultron

There is indeed a shade, Baker-Miller pink, which is believed to have calming properties. The idea was summarized in a 1985 paper by Alexander Schauss, director of the American Institute for Biosocial Research. According to Schauss, a few minutes' exposure to this Pepto-Bismol-like color would lower blood pressure, reduce aggression, even curb one's appetite.

Mind you, the whole thing is probably bullshit. I read the paper, and it's terrible. Most of the "experiments" lack a control (in some, Schauss himself is the sole test subject), and there's no quantitative data of any kind—it's all anecdotal.

One wonders how it got published at all. Perhaps it's because the Journal of Biosocial Research was published by the AIBR, Schauss' firm*, and edited by Schauss. Peer review, schmeer review!

Anyway, none of that has kept B-M pink from sweeping the nation. These days, prisons swear it keeps their charges docile, Kendall Jenner has a Baker-Miller pink wall to help with her diet, and college sports teams use it in opponents' locker rooms, hoping to weaken them.

I present all this as an object lesson in how pseudoscience can permeate the popular imagination—apparently none of the many news outlets that have cited the theory over the years ever bothered to check the source.

That said, none of this has anything to do with TriMet's pink lights, which turn out to be just another boring old safety feature.

Obviously, the driver needs to be able to see the road at night without being blinded by the bus's interior lights. Red wavelengths are less prone than blue or green ones to dazzle the eye (this is why you see soldiers in movies using red lights to read maps at night), so the pinkish color is probably a bit safer.

*The AIBR is still around, doing clinical research for the squeaky-clean dietary supplement industry.

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