“Dot your eyes, cross your Ts, googly eyes on T trains please,” protestors will soon chant
1 hour ago
- A pair of Massachusetts residents don’t want their public transit network to be better, they just want it to be more likeable.
- Arielle Lok and John Sanchez plan to march to the MTBA offices to demand that googly eyes be installed on trains.
- They say it’s a cost-effective way to make commuters happier.
Getting commuters to their destination is thankless work. When public transit systems are down for even a few minutes, customers complain loudly. But what if those customers could empathize with the train that has disappointed them?
That’s the hair brain scheme that two Massachusetts residents have come up with to fix the MTBA, the public transit system that serves the Greater Boston area. Rather than spending billions to actually fix the network, the residents want to stick googly eyes on the front of the trains to make them more likeable.
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“If the trains can’t be reliable, at least they can be fun and bring a smile to the faces of over a million people per day,” write Arielle Lok and John Sanchez, the people who came up with this idea. And they’re ready to march about it.
On Monday, April 29, the pair plan to march from the Park Street MBTA station to the MBTA offices at Park Plaza to gain attention for their cause. They’re inviting others to join in, too, and hope that at least 100 people will join them in demanding googly eyes for trains.
“We’re 1,000% serious about this,” Lok told Boston.com. “This is a serious march for a serious cause.”
spotted… a march happening next monday (april 29th) for giant googly eyes on the T. 👀🚉👀
the QR code goes here: https://t.co/X6f7r7iWYn@BostonGlobe @OnlyInBOS @BostonDotCom @bostonherald @MBTA @MassDOT @BostonTweet @universalhub @Vanyaland617 @NBC10Boston pic.twitter.com/UzcRcdrqhS
— ariloo 🌱 (@ariellelok) April 23, 2024
Lok is originally from Canada, and says she got the idea for the googly eyes from her home city of Vancouver. Every year, the city sticks red noses on the front of its buses, in honor of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and the adorable transit vehicles have garnered a lot of positive attention. In fact, there’s an X community dedicated to “celebrating the joy” the red noses bring into peoples’ lives.
“People used to get so hyped to see them in the wild, and I just didn’t really feel that energy in Boston,” said Lok, who admits that she considered sticking the eyes on herself. However, she decided that “this is a new vision for the T — which is giving the T vision.”
According to Sanchez, this is a movement about silliness, and they’re armed with the most powerful weapon protestors can wield: catchy chants. On Monday, Lok and Sanchez plan to deploy those weapons, demanding that the MTBA “Dot your eyes, cross your Ts, googly eyes on T trains please,” and that it, “Bring some joy into our lives, give the Green Line googly eyes.”
looking for a sponsor/grant of $500 for 300 BIIIIG googly eyes. it will go a huge way and may impact boston’s transit system for the years to come (100% serious, please dm)
— ariloo 🌱 (@ariellelok) April 24, 2024