Priorities

  This morning I spent three hours riding the subway in search of photos. After the morning rush subsides you're given a much better over all view on what it's like to ride the subway. Today I concentrated on it's atmosphere and just how screwed up it is.

   Since the pandemic ended you see hardly any graffiti. That's because as soon as some is put up, it's almost immediately removed and today was no different. I watched two Septa workers remove two small tags, nothing overwhelming, and not interfering with the average rider who has their face planted in their phone. How is graffiti removal a priority when there are so many real things wrong with the subway?

  I was zipping along on the Market Street Line pondering the presumed threat of graffiti. The car I was riding in at the time was no different than the half a dozen other cars today. It reeked of piss and shit, there were people smoking cigarettes and weed, seats taken up by passed out junkies with used needles on the ground, the homeless occupying entire rows with trash around them, watching fare evaders at each stop squeeze thru the turnstiles and quickly boarding the train to avoid detection, and this was only some of what I witnessed. 

  Then you have have the entitled and uneducated subway riders who take one step in the door and stop, causing a back up both boarding and exiting the train, because they're either too scared to venture further into the train or they want to be the first off. These same people don't realize that every station platform isn't on the same side of the subway car.

  So how is graffiti a priority compared to all this? Graffiti, doesn't steal, it doesn't smell, it doesn't block the door, and it doesn't leave dangerous needles behind. Graffiti always seems to be the first thing targeted, but it's the least offensive thing in the subway.

  Graffiti has adapted in the subway by being scratched into the glass. To me this serves two immediate purposes. The first is to block me from seeing the Septa booth worker watching videos or playing games on his phones. The second is, it gives me something to read besides the horrible advertisements which are the real crimes on the subway station walls.