Looking to travel to Budapest? You needn't go any farther than your basic schlubby Times Square shuttle train. The cars have gone transatlantic -- thanks to Delta Airlines and some top-to-bottom interior design work. The normally silver walls have been wrapped in massive images of Budapest's historic buildings and street scenes. The usually yellow and orange seats are now blue.
And Delta's campaign to promote its foreign destinations doesn't stop in the cars. Straphangers stepping onto the Times Square platform are greeted with tile walls plastered with ads. Even the columns get the colorful wrap treatment. 
It's the latest such campaign to hit the shuttle trains. For instance, HBO brought the Old West to the cars with immersive "Deadwood" ads.
The whole notion of an advertiser buying out every advertising-sustaining inch may be the wave of the future. Single advertisers already routinely purchase every ad slot on trains, so extending that to the walls and seats all throughout the system's cars isn't unthinkable.
And what may be a boon to MTA finances is a loss to riders. One of the things that is so pleasurable about taking the subway is the motley jumble of ads competing for your gaze. A single advertiser, however cool and immersive the experience it provides, strips straphangers of one of the little joys of riding the subway. After all, it's hard to imagine Dr. Zizmor buying out a fleet of cars.
-- Rolando Pujol
