After exiting the train and walking to the stairs, Mr. Robo-Announcer told me:
Bing! We are currently experiencing delays due to a police investigation.Well thanks, but I'm already at Porter Square. Then, walking up the stairs to the inbound level:
Bing! The next Red Line train to Braintree is now arriving.Ok. Fair Enough. But then riding up the long escalator to the mezzanine I heard:
Bing! Hello. This is Andrew Ference of the Boston Bruins. When I need to get on the ice at the TD Banknorth Garden, I take the T. The MBTA is a great way to see all this wonderful city has to offer. Blah blah blah...What?!?! As I tried to comprehend this I was interrupted:
Bing! Hello. This is Dan Grabouskas. Blah blah blah...And now, I'm stuck on the escalator, and the onslaught begins:
Bing! Se habla espanol. Uno, dos, tres, .....Sorry, I don't speak Span.....
Bing! The next Red Line train to Braintree is now arriving.Well, that's nice....
Bing! Hello. This is Andrew Ference of the Boston Bruins....Ok, who is this player again?
Bing! The next Red Line train to Alewife is now approaching.Finally, I arrived at the mezzanine and I boarded the final escalator:
Bing! Hello. This is Dan Grabouskas....
Bing! Yo Quiero Taco Bell...
Bing! Hello. This is Andrew Ference of the Boston Bruins....Please. Get me out of the station!!
Bing! The next Red Line train to Alewife is now arriving...Whew! Finally out of the station. Talk about announcement overload! I think the most interesting part of this experience is that I'm not even sure my Porter Square co-commuters even heard the onslaught. While riding the 30 mile escalator to sunlight, I looked around at other folks, with a big smile -- I was trying to find someone else who thought this was funny. The trouble is, either everyone had their headphones cranked, wasn't paying attention to the announcements, or was just too afraid to look around.
Did anyone else experience this episode of the Twilight Zone at Porter Square?
4 comments:
first it's nice to see you blogging again!!
second I have heard that previously and I was so annoyed. (can you even imagine I rode the T ;P)
The announcements about incoming trains were helpful, but the commercials wanted to make me rip my hair out. I can bombarded by commercials ALL DAY LONG - can't people get a break while waiting for the train? Apparently not. Bus wraps and billboards all over the station and inside the cars wasn't enough - they need to broadcast it as well.
If I was there, I would have thought it was funny.
Being a T traveler to and from work every day, all I hear from Harvard Square to Boston is "Bing!"
The approaching and arriving announcements are... interesting, for lack of a better word. I was at Park Street station earlier this week, and the Ashmont train they announced as arriving was already there. (Although it does allow me to see if I have enough time to by a coffee at Dunkins or not.)
But I'm one of the few Bruins fans out there, so I don't mind the Andrew Ference thing.
Andrew Ference has a reasonably pleasant sounding voice, but the announcement suffers from the fact that his message was not coached by a professional (or it sounds that way), because the words are run together and not enunciated properly. Another aspect of the announcements is they are very base heavy making them both iritating to listen to and sometimes hard to understand - more than likely accentuated by the large space they are broadcast in - giving low frequency soundwaves an ideal environment to propagate and echo - like what happens in a church or cathedral when a choir or pipe organ performs.
Not only are the announcements annoying, they are impossible to understand at certain stations. The approaching/arriving announcements are clear at Davis but any other "important" announcements are just plain garbled.
I appreciate the "approaching" announcements because it means I know to start running if my train is coming. I don't know if the "arriving" announcement is necessary because I can see that the train is arriving. Maybe this is for the hard-of-seeing or for the "mystery" unlabeled trains ... in that case, I'm all for it.
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