Neither of the subway lines at my station were running this morning so I had to go to the nearest subway, take that two stops and then transfer to another station. It was at that station that the acoustics were particularly unfriendly. Basically it was so echoey that it took me three tries before I got the gist of what they were saying. Basically they were saying that there was no Q or B service in between two stations of which I only recognized one making the announcement effectively useless for me.
I either didn’t know the other station or just plain didn’t hear it correctly, but regardless the point is that it was unclear. What they SHOULD say is “There is no Q or B service at this station” and then they can do their whole rigamarole about what stations have weird service and how to transfer to their sardine packed buses they’re using as a substitute. So finally after the ten minutes it took for me to realize that me and all the other people on the platform weren’t going anywhere trying to catch an Q or a B, I went to another line and managed to get to work only fifteen minutes late.
I can understand the terrible acoustics of subway stations, but what I can’t understand is how no effort is made to effectively communicate something that could be simplified to a point that even if only half of it is heard that it’s still useful to the people using the subway.
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