Boston T Train Googly Eyes: Demonstrators marched to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s Boston headquarters in April with a single, deeply researched demand.
Put googly eyes on some trains, they said. Two months later, their demands have been met – at least until the decals come off.
The campaign was organized by two recent college graduates, who sought to improve the sentiments of commuters and promote empathy for the metal scraps that transport them.
“When T trains are delayed, people can at least look into the eyes of the train when it arrives, and feel some love and understanding in their hearts.” The organizers wrote before marching to the headquarters of the Transportation Authority.
“T doesn’t want to be late,” they wrote. “Feels bad for being late.”
Organizers said the transportation authority also has a “responsibility to improve the lives of Bostonians.”
If city trains can’t be reliable, they wrote, at least they can bring smiles to riders. system An average of about 766,000 riders on weekdays.
To make things easier for officials, the About 20 demonstrators Those who participated in the march brought their googly eyes.
Philip Enge, the authority’s chief executive, said in an interview that he accepted their demand but saw a safety concern: Googly eyes could fall in transit.
The solution? Stick-on decals.
On June 14, Ryan Kohlon, the authority’s chief of operations, grabbed a set of googly eyes decals and headed to a nearby maintenance facility with a colleague. Mr. Cohol stuck the first set of decals on the front of a Green Line train.
“We gave a few more and said, ‘Let’s make these trains googly,'” Mr. Kohlon said.
Workers looked at five trains, including four on the Green Line. It wasn’t long before Bostonians started seeing googly-eyed trains and posting photos on social media.
March co-organizer Ariel Locke, Shared a photo of a trainAlong with a screenshot of an email from the Transportation Authority announcing her win.
“Today, the @MBTA and we saw eye to eye,” Ms. Locke wrote.
Ms. Locke, who moved from Canada to the United States after her recent college graduation, told Boston.com That inspired her The public transportation system in his hometown, Vancouver.
During the Christmas season, buses there are decorated with red noses to represent Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. Naak instilled an enthusiasm in the Vancouver Raiders that she felt was missing in Boston.
Ms Locke did not immediately respond to inquiries on Saturday. The co-organizer, John Sanchez, could not be reached for comment.
Ms. Locke’s idea for googly-eyed trains, she wrote, was just one on a list of more than 100 “different ideas to do” that she maintains. she began Lettuce head eating contest At his university in Canada, for example.
Once Boston authorities figured out a way to prevent googly eyes from falling off a moving train, Mr. Eng and Mr. Kohl saw no harm in decals, an easy way to brighten a commuter’s day.
Mr. Coholon said the cost of printing the nine-inch decals was “two of every dollar.”
“And the beauty of the round decal is that I can point the eyes any way I want,” he said. “He doesn’t rely on a train rumbling around to blink.”
It’s unclear how long the eyes will stick around. The agency said it had no set plans for their future.
But Mr. Coholon said there were six other sets of eyes inside an envelope in his office, waiting to greet Boston commuters one day.
Boston T Train Googly Eyes