Should Sarasota's Bus System Be SMART Or Just Full Of SCAT?

Sarasota probably has one of the most unfortunate names for its transit system right behind a Seattle cable car line.

The Sarasota County Area Transit system, is often shortened for a general term for dung, poo, excrement—whatever you want to call it, and it's perhaps only a marginable upgrade over the South Lake Union Trolley.

Seattle though, embraced the nickname, and there's even a website promoting the service and T-shirts to "Ride The S.L.U.T."

Now, I highly doubt that Sarasota would ever fully embrace SCAT and committ a multi-million marketing campaign to come up with a catchy slogan like "Take a Load Off on the SCAT," "Gotta Go? Take a SCAT" or "SCAT: We'll Dump You Off."

The latest discussion of the name change came through an email exchange in the County Commission's office where Commissioner Jon Thaxton reacted to comments in a ThisWeekInSarasota article where Graham Smith broached a SCAT change.

Thaxton wrote to TWIS Publisher Matt Orr that he tried to get the name changed for 12 years, would love to have two more votes for a switch and even has a name in mind: 

"I like SMART Sarasota Metro Area Regional Transit -- Anything but SCAT, especially sin[c]e Manatee County is M Cat," Thaxton wrote.

Herald-Tribune county government reporter Carrie Wells has ran across this issue as well, as she blogged about the name debate:

"I was told once the acronym is supposed to be pronounced “ESS CAT” and was not inspired by animal excrement."

County Administrator Randall Reid, who is still getting the feel for the county, has even ran into the awful acronyms:

"I was just in a meeting with new staff questioning, as I personally have wondered, why  we choose demeaning or less than inspiring self descriptions for county facilities and projects such as BOB, Little BOB and SCAT.  My meetings with employees at both indicate that these are not terms of endearment by longer term staff as well."

Thaxton also points out that SCAT is a jazz term, but I don't think anybody in the county is jiving with that tune—except that it's time for some improvisation and improvement.

What would you name the Sarasota bus system?