new MTA advertising

this appeared at one of my heavily commuted subway stations early this past monday. as i and the rest of the new york masses were deftly trying to avoid each other (especially the ones who come in the opposite direction not in their lane, and you know who you are) we were all surprised. each one of us did a split second stutter step as if in a bizarrely choreographed flashmob.

i understand the advertising dollars, as subway advertising properties have increased, but two things i have to say to the MTA:

#1, red means stop. i know h&m’s colors are red, but even in that split second the mind registers don’t go and danger. new yorkers want to avoid subways as much as possible. i won’t go into the myriad of reasons, you can the read the post for that. but you don’t have to bathe the turnstiles in red to make us think that there’s something wrong. we already think there is.

#2, i can see these new plastic sleeves on the metal turnstiles breaking and causing problems to the turnstiles; requiring closing them down to repair. unless you had the samsonite gorilla testing them… c’mon this is new york. i’ve seen the homeless shove entire shopping carts through there. that’s the other thing we don’t need, delays (of any sort) trying to get in/out of places we don’t want to be in anyway - especially with the fares going up.

just one more reason for MTA #fail.