Courtesy of the MTA
A few weeks ago, Rolando Pujol of amNew York posted to twitter a photo of the MTA’s new garbage decals. I scoured the system looking for them but didn’t see them with my own two eyes until last night when I was waiting for a train at 96th St. Coincidentally, Michael Grynbaum wrote his Monday column on the new decal.
He talks of its design and origins:
The decal’s modern, stripped-down look is a stark departure from the agency’s previous approach to the school of informational trash can aesthetics. Close observers of the subway ecosystem will recall the last batch of garbage-related posters featured the rhyming instruction “Can It for a Greener Planet!” above a haiku-like poem: “Your City / Your Subway / Your Station / Your Litter.”
Now, poetry is out; clean, uncluttered design is in. The new poster takes advantage of the two-tiered structure of the average subway garbage can, or “trash receptacles,” as they are known in in-house M.T.A. parlance. The slogan, printed in large white-on-black letters on the top rim of the can, is easily spotted by straphangers; it is also the only three words on the entire poster, which depends on visuals rather than text.
To that end, the poster’s body has a simple pictogram of male and female stick figures depositing objects that look like coffee-cups into a trash bin. (The previous poster portrayed only a male stick figure.) The background is entirely black; the previous poster, with white and green colors, had a penchant for getting smudged and dirty.
The new stickers, designed in-house, first popped at Bowling Green and Whitehall, and 5000 garbage cans will sport the new look by the end of 2011. I do appreciate the design and how it mimics the overall look of the MTA’s rebranding campaign, but whether straphangers will make use of the garbage cans, new decal or not, remains to be seen.
8 comments
Considering the number of languages spoken in NY, a poster that places more emphasis on a clearly readable graphic and less on the words is a good thing, I think.
I think I first saw that decal at 96th St (on the West Side IRT) too.
There are also a couple on the IRT Lex. Ave platform at Grand Central-42 Street.
No one is going to respect this no more than they respect some other MTA rules. At least with walking between the cars the number of people doing it slowed to a minimum and that’s because financial consequences was added to the act. If you were spotted doing it you were going to have to stand and take your ticket.
There is no consequence for littering. I can do it in front of a NYPD transit division officer and I would be the most unluckiest person in the world if I were issued a ticket because they just aren’t in that business.
I still say the MTA shouldn’t be in the business of collecting trash. People don’t use recepticals now so just take them out of the stations. Eliminate trash collection along with eating and ticket the hell out of littering. If bring it, you leave with it.
I rather see less decals and more garbage cans. One can per platform doesn’t cut it considering the amount of slobs that ride the train every day.
My platform has three and three is not cutting it. People are nasty and people will always be nasty. The MTA has to start treating them that way. I remember when the MTA used to get tough on certain issues.
This is the perfect time to get tough with people even if it’s not popular with the majority kind of the same way they got tough with walking between the cars. It wasn’t popular with the majority of people but they did it anyway.
One problem is that not only are the cans not utilized, but in many places, they are in the way! So now you have these big, fat, round empty cans in the middle of a narrow island platform. Instead, MTA should look to put smaller, rectangular cans out of the way and yet visible, by a column for example. Hey, add those dandy blue lights from Help Point above the cans to attract more depositors!
For me, the problem isn’t that people don’t use the trash cans, but that the trash cans are hard to find and when I do find one, it’s often full. An overflowing trash can sends the wrong message (and combined with these new decals, contradicts itself–clearly trash is not stopping here).
Really!?! An agency facing a multi-million dollar budget gap is spending money on new stickers for trash cans? Who gives a what the sicker looks like, its a frickin’ trash can!