Something came to mind this afternoon while riding the Riverside line into town... Shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attack, the Boston police requested or required that any ad wraps on MBTA equipment leave the windows clear so first responders could see inside in the event of an incident. That no longer seems to be the case since today I had to avoid a fully wrapped Type 7 in favor of its un-wrapped Type 8 partner (I like to look out when I'm riding rather than staring into a small electronic device). Has the T's window wrap policy changed?
I noticed that as well, Mr. Nelligan. All of the newly wrapped Green Line cars I've seen lately (all have ads for Lyft presently) on both Type 7s and Type 8s are full wraps. There are some of those rubber-tired things we don't like to talk about here with full ad wraps too. On the other hand, the recent wraps on Red Line cars have tended to keep the windows unobstructed, so maybe the policy change is quite recent.
Much as I hate ad wraps, the T does seem to choose rail cars to wrap according to their need of new paint, in an effort to make them look "better" (YMMV)... in which case they should wrap the entire Orange Line #12 fleet as soon as they can. I do hope they hold off wrapping any of the rebuilt Type 7s - the paint on them is holding up quite well so far.
