"We know that children on the spectrum are some of our biggest fans."

April 27, 2023 5:09 PM

'Enjoy Your Ride!': Kids With Autism Have a Message for Transit Riders Children on the autism spectrum were invited to record public service messages for a number of the biggest transit systems in the US for Autism Awareness Month, and I for one am here for it.

I've read this story half a dozen times since yesterday and it keeps making me smile. I love the transit employees' clear fondness for these sweet little transit stans, and of course the fact that the kids will go to their graves still happy about having gotten to do this. Imagine hearing your own voice on your favorite train!! The dream!!

posted by potrzebie (14 comments total)

I had a delightful ride home from the airport once, on a bus with a teenage boy who was sitting at the very front and talking shop with the driver. From what I heard, it sounded like he rode the bus along the entire length of its route on a regular basis, just for his own enjoyment/edification.
posted by mbrubeck at 5:43 PM on April 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm reminded that William James Sidis collected streetcar transfers and even wrote a treatise on them; he invented the term "peridromophile" for people with the same interest. See also: railfan.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:17 PM on April 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Gated NYT article.
posted by davel at 6:24 PM on April 27, 2023

Hopefully this will work? It's a "gift this article" link.
posted by queensissy at 6:37 PM on April 27, 2023 [11 favorites]

PS - Have a nice chicken day! This made my evening about 1000 times better. Thanks, potrzebie.
posted by queensissy at 6:37 PM on April 27, 2023

Imagine hearing your own voice on your favorite train!! The dream!!

Tickled pink, as my grandpa used to say.
posted by praemunire at 6:39 PM on April 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

This is absolutely delightful.

I'm autistic, and I was never into planes or trains as a kid, but announcements, catchphrases, jingles, and oft-repeated phrases have always given me joy and stuck in my head, so I totally get the appeal!
posted by fire, water, earth, air at 6:49 PM on April 27, 2023 [8 favorites]

This is the most delightful thing I've read in months, and I love that they included links to hear the announcements.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:05 PM on April 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

Thank you so much for posting this—it brought a smile to my face at the end of a long day. I loved that we could listen to the kids’ announcements!
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:31 PM on April 27, 2023

This is so cool! And mixing up the service announcements might make the riders pay more attention? I could see having the same voice for a decade straight would make your brain just filter it out as noise.
posted by Harald74 at 10:47 PM on April 27, 2023

Damn. Dusty in here.
posted by that's candlepin at 6:19 AM on April 28, 2023

Oh my gosh, I love this article so much. And thanks for posting the gift link where you can hear the audio - Mr. Chicken Wing and the other kids are an absolute delight!

When my own somewhere-on-the-spectrum kid was 5, he screamed at me to turn the car around during a drive through a nearby neighborhood. I had no idea what he was freaking out about, but I circled the block, and he pointed at a street sign that was “WRONG, Mom.” In south Minneapolis, all east-west streets on east side of Nicollet Ave are “E #st Street,” and everything on the west side is “W #st Street.” We got out of the car, and he pointed up at the E 49th Street sign and told me that since we were west of Nicollet, the sign should read W 49th Street. The dude had noticed the error when we drove through the intersection.

So we submitted an online 311 complaint, and the sign was fixed within 48 hours. In the complaint I uploaded a picture of my kid pointing at the sign and wrote that he would happily give the incorrect sign a new home, but they did not take us up on our offer. I hope that at least some people in the city public works department got a kick out of a 311 ticket from their biggest 5-year-old fan. (I also hope that we did not ruin things for a different autistic person who knew about and was perhaps delighted by the old sign.)
posted by Maarika at 7:49 AM on April 28, 2023 [8 favorites]

I live in a smallish city, and it's actually a friend of mine who is the recorded voice on all of our city-wide bus announcements. She's doing an announcery version of her usual voice, and I didn't recognise her until she posted about it online one day and then as soon as I listened it was obvious. I really love hearing her, makes the city feel like a village.

My favourite time was one day I was on the bus travelling to a theatre rehearsal where I was going to be doing a scene with her. I was running my lines on the bus, and her voice kept piping up over my shoulder, only announcing the stops instead of reading her part :)
posted by penguin pie at 9:24 AM on April 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

It’s sentimental, and it’s a start! My autism and I are spending a long weekend with my husband, his autism, and a load of their fellows volunteering on a humongous preserved railway. I have a stinking cold, and I spent two hours sitting in a wagon train, pulled one way by steam and the way back by gravity, while the beautiful North Welsh countryside rolled by in the glorious sunshine. How many autistic kids will hear a voice that sounds like theirs (and not a goddamn hyper polished Tik Tok influencer’s) as they get on the subway train? And not as a head pat, but as part of the beautiful system which they love. It’s a start!
posted by The Last Sockpuppet at 4:09 AM on April 30, 2023 [2 favorites]