MBTA’s Bizarre Green Line Safety Video Highlights All the Ways Trolleys Can Kill You
We’ll say this up front: We understand the MBTA had good intentions when it put out its Green Line safety video, in which lemming-like animated characters pay attention to their smartphones rather than the trolley lines—and pay with their lives. Having above-ground trolleys rolling around Boston can be very dangerous and we all should be careful when walking near, driving near, or riding on said trolleys.
But what in the world are we supposed to think after watching three digital Bostonians lose literal battles with the Green Line in those exact three scenarios?
Is it really fair to compare us to the characters here? Of course they met their maker. Sure, being distracted by their phones may have played a role, but they don’t have ears to hear oncoming trains, or feet to smoothly descend the trolley’s stairs, or even hands to steer their cars properly! Our poor driver probably swerved because he suddenly realized he had absolutely no control over his vehicle. Demise was inevitable for these poor, potato-like creatures.
We humans are better than that, and we cannot possibly be expected to stop using our phones. Too many of people spend their commute checking the delusion arrival times on their favorite MBTA app and tweeting about the latest #MBTAFail they’ve been forced to endure. And you can bet that the Green Line is often bad enough that people will continue to do so, even under the threat of train-related death.
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