October 15, 2008
T Starts Etiquette Campaign, Boston Suddenly Sweet
The MBTA officials must really be dreaming. Besides implementing a fantastical $1.2 billion "Little Dig" project, our public transportation system is also trying to get Bostonians to be nice. Say what now? Yes, it's true--the T thinks some adorable little signs will help us nasty Boston folk learn to ride the rails in a way that doesn't ruin everyone's day. Unfortunately, the MBTA marketing masterminds seem to have forgotten the #1 rule of public transportation: when someone makes your commute crappy, throw some bad behavior right back at 'em. There's the passive-aggressive bag bump, the oblivious failure to move into an empty car, the backpack-on-the-seat dis, the oops-I-spilled-my-Dunkin-on-you, and--our favorite--the perpetually perturbing stand-square-in-front-of-an-open-seat move. All of these tactics are based on one principle: being wholly indifferent to others' needs. It's not that we don't know what to do, it's that we just don't care.
So can signs make us sweeter? The new "courtesy counts" signs include slogans like "Don't Dash without Your Trash," apparently intended to guilt folks into cleaning up after themselves, "Don't Be a Lout, Let Others Out," (which will never work, as T riders flock to subway doors like moths to flame), and "Don't You Dare Not Pay Your Fare." Really? Even if the T driver is waving me through? C'mon, MBTA, let's be consistent here. Get the employees on board with fare collection before marketing manners with funds you should be saving for the silver line.
If you start seeing folks behave humanely on the T soon, maybe the signs have something to do with it. Or maybe their hearts just grew three sizes that day.
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I've seen 3 different bus drivers in the last 10 days flippin the bird out the bus window at pedestrians or other vehicle drivers and one yelled out the window for a person in the cross walk to get the $%#* out of his way. Maybe the MBTA should start with their own employees. I think their setting a bad example for the rest of us. I know that since watching their behavior over the last week I've given the finger to the back or a co-worker, and three times to presidential and vice-presidential canidates while they were on TV and unable to defend themselves.
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These would be a lot more effective and less patronizing if they didn't rhyme.