Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, But When The Times Interviews You Try Not To Be Such A Douche

Shut yer trap, undergrad — this is serious:

So the idea yesterday was to ask passengers on the No. 7 and L lines what they would do if they were put in charge.

On the No. 7, several passengers said they would order bigger cars. Never mind that subway-line managers’ check-writing authority may not be as big as the passengers’ imagination might want.

. . .

On the L, Jeffrey Griffith said he would redesign the cars. “In Japan,” he said, “all the seats on trains flip up. The conductor latches the seats up so at rush hour there is standing room only.”

He also said he would move the poles away from the doors because “people get packed in around the poles — it causes congestion.”

Other passengers on the L said they would put a priority on bringing reality to signs that are supposed to tell riders how long before a train is due. Passengers complained that the signs sometimes say a train will arrive in one minute. They said 15 minutes can tick by before the white eyes of a train appear in the darkness beyond the platform.

. . .

Other passengers said they would put a premium on different kinds of communication.

Travis Moe, a New York University student, said that if he ran the L line, he would order “unexpected things” — like having the conductors recite poems as well as deliver their announcements.

Iambic pentameter or heroic couplets? How would Emily Dickinson say, “Watch the closing doors,” anyway? Mr. Moe did not say.

“The thing about subway culture, if you can call it that, is that people don’t talk, they stare at the floor,” he said, adding that presenting “poems instead of information” would change that.