R46 subway cars

don’t even get me started on the absolute travesty of phasing these out. the warm lighting and seat colors, the conversation pit, the window seats…i could cry. why would anyone trade rolling stock so cozy for the fuckass bright blue gyno office lighting and gray bench cars they’re giving us. also, the switch from the colorful metrocard to the black and white omni ?? in this essay i will explore the early to mid 2020s shift away from the warm end of the color spectrum in public transit’s built environment and fare collection materials to a more austere aesthetic and how it coincided with the era’s zeitgeist of post-Covid, Tr*mp era, late stage capitalist doom.