"Attention Passengers": not for Signs

December 6th, 2022
transit
On the MBTA, when a train is coming you get an announcement like:

Attention passengers, the next red line train to Ashmont is now arriving.

As with all the announcements, there's a text version:

I like that they have the signs, both for general accessibility reasons and because you're often in a place where you can read the sign but not hear the announcement. But I don't like that they include "attention passengers".

Including those words in the audio version I understand: you need to catch peoples attention before you start giving them the information. On a sign, however, it's not adding anything. What makes it worse here is that the critical information, which direction the arriving train is traveling, is pushed onto the second screen. Someone who could have enough time to catch the train if they started hustling when the announcement first came up, might well not have enough time if they need to wait for the second screen about ten seconds later.

This isn't a problem for me anymore, now that I've set up my phone so that checking train arrivals is low-friction but it was minorly frustrating for years.

I suspect all it would take to fix this is editing some tiny file that stores the announcement text...

Referenced in:

Comment via: facebook, lesswrong, mastodon, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Raffles

I think that raffles are kind of silly, because when you enter a raffle and you don't know what you're going to get, or if you're going to get anything, what's the point? If you pay for your raffle ticket, and you could pay the same amount…

via Anna Wise's Blog Posts September 13, 2026

Air Filters in Schools

My dad went to a conference recently, and when I asked him about what happened there he said it was a conference for people in biosecurity. When I asked him about the different kinds of biosecurity stuff that the different groups did, he said one did air f…

via Lily Wise's Blog Posts September 12, 2026

The One That I Want Another Sister

I want a baby sister or brother. Because I want to play with another kid, and I don't want to play with Josie because she is in preschool and I won't play with her very often. So I want to play with someone very often who is not just two people. …

via Nora Wise's Blog Posts September 5, 2026

more     (via openring)