Two months later, they got their wish: On Wednesday, the agency emailed campaign organizers informing them that the T, Boston’s public transportation system, had granted their only demand.
Facing public pressure, the MBTA has installed large, cartoon-style moving eyes on the front of some of its trains.
“We just wanted one little thing, and we came together for it, and we got it,” Ariel Locke, one of the organizers of the March for Moving Eyes on the T, told The Washington Post.
MBTA General Manager and CEO Philip Eng said the march’s demands were unexpected and unique, but easy to agree to.
“When something like this happened and it was a little opportunity to bring a little joy to the day, people welcomed it,” Eng said. “I think we’re all a little surprised that it’s garnered so much attention.”
Rock and co-organizer John Sanchez, both 22, said the campaign started out as just a lighthearted plan to bring a little whimsy to Boston commuters. Reindeer themed decorations She ran the campaign on buses around Christmas in Vancouver, where she previously lived, so could she and Sanchez convince the MBTA to run a similar campaign?
“I thought, ‘How fun would it be to do that?'” Locke says.
“We wanted to have a march and bring together the people of Boston for this noble cause,” Sanchez said.
Rock and Sanchez are colleagues at an environmental startup. web page In April, he explained why Boston trains were getting big, cartoony eyes: “It instantly makes your day 10 times better. The T train is your friend. It has personality. It cares about you. It watches out for you.”
The joke could have ended there. But about a week before the scheduled march, when only Roque and Sanchez had RSVP’d, they enlisted friends to help them put up posters around Boston and in their dorms promoting the event, pitched a story to the local newspaper, and sent out links to subreddits and community forums. Interest was piqued.
“Two wonderful people contacted me. [donate] “They spent hundreds of dollars on poster equipment because they grew up in Boston and wanted to see this happen,” Locke said. “It was a really cool moment for people to come together and see this silly event.”
At noon on April 29, about 30 people gathered to hear Roque and Sanchez’s appeal. The two handed out placards with slogans like: “Give the T a vision,” “Believe in the MBTA,” “The T will see you home.” The crowd jumped up and down, waving the googly-eyed pupils on the posters. Sanchez chanted through a bullhorn: “Dot the I’s, cross the T’s. Give the T train googly eyes!”
Roque and Sanchez said they were surprised by the turnout, some of whom were strangers who found out about the event after it was shared on social media accounts run by public transport enthusiasts, and some who brought their own signs and moving eyes.
“There was a lot of energy,” said Francisco Turbiate, a computer science student at Boston University who found out about the march in a group chat. “Everyone seemed really excited to get started, and there was a lot of laughter.”
The protest ended at MBTA headquarters a few blocks south, where Roque and Sanchez said several amused employees returning from their lunch break stopped to chat with the protesters.
“We gave them a firm handshake and big googly eyes,” Sanchez said.
This caught the attention of CEO Eng, who said a staff member who had been caught catching eyeballs in the crowd told Eng about the demonstration later that day.
“I called my chief operating officer and said, ‘Let’s just play around with this,'” Eng said.
Eng and MBTA Chief Operating Officer Ryan Coholan decided they couldn’t decorate all of the MBTA’s railcars, but they did place large plastic eye stickers on the fronts of five train cars (four on the green light rail line and one on an MBTA commuter rail car) on June 14. Sightings of the wide-eyed trains, smiling at passengers like cartoon characters, began circulating on social media.
The “moving eye” train is still a rare surprise on a network that operates hundreds of trains a day. Roque and Sanchez said MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo announced the move last week. I emailed them a photo of the newly decorated train.
“John and I were in the same office and I ran up the stairs screaming,” Locke said with a laugh. “I was like, ‘John, I did it! There’s attention on T.’
Locke and Sanchez are still searching for a working Boston train. They both commute to work on the Boston Train, and are thrilled that their tongue-in-cheek campaign was a success. They still have time to keep searching. The MBTA has no timetable or immediate plans to remove the decorations, Eng said.
“I think every government agency is trying to do some things to make people’s lives easier and more enjoyable,” Eng said. “This was an easy thing to do, so I’m glad we were able to be a part of it.”
Messrs. Roque and Sanchez said the campaign is like a campus prank — if a campus prank were to be successful enough to upset the leaders of a vast public institution — and they’re considering what to do next.
“There’s nothing better than putting your all into something like this,” Sanchez said, “and bringing people together for it, and doing something for the ridiculousness of it all.”