{"id":146833,"date":"2026-02-27T01:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T01:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/146833\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T01:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T01:07:07","slug":"mta-ad-madness-strips-riders-of-any-hope-for-a-smidge-of-peace-and-quiet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/146833\/","title":{"rendered":"MTA ad madness strips riders of any hope for a smidge of peace and quiet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If your subway ride wasn\u2019t annoying enough today \u2014 between delays, packed cars, \u201cShowtime!\u201d dancers and homeless people who plague the system \u2014 get ready for ads blaring at you on the platform while you wait for your train.<\/p>\n<p>Even as so many service announcements over those same public-address systems are completely incomprehensible.<\/p>\n<p>If you thought a fare hike would mean a calmer commute, you must have forgotten what city you live or work in. In the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/09\/02\/opinion\/after-a-miserable-summer-for-riders-mta-leaders-need-to-stop-dodging\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MTA\u2019s New York<\/a>, you pay more to ride and then to suffer more, with the coming \u201cprivilege\u201d of inescapable advertising.<\/p>\n<p>The agency promises that the ads will be pitched at a gentle 75 decibels \u2014 hearing loss only kicks in at a sustained 80 to 90 decibels \u2014 but in 2021 The Post measured a pilot platform ad at a deafening 99 decibels, which is basically like having a straight-piped motorcycle rev nearby, or standing next to a construction site.<\/p>\n<p>Before the MTA bigs choose to <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/03\/19\/opinion\/mta-insults-burning-cash-on-pointless-experiments-as-they-demand-billions\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sell riders\u2019 ears to the highest bidder,<\/a> couldn\u2019t they at least get their equipment in working order? <\/p>\n<p>Per the NYC Transit \u201c20 Year Needs Assessment,\u201d an astounding 52% of station public-address systems are in \u201cpoor\/marginal condition.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>But don\u2019t worry: The agency wants to \u201caward projects to upgrade PA systems\u201d in 244 stations . . . by 2030.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s bad enough trying to decipher garbled service updates blasting through speakers that are being unhinged by their own vibrations; now we get to strain our ears only to realize it\u2019s another ad for \u201cWicked\u201d or the Knicks.<\/p>\n<p>Well, whaddya <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2024\/12\/22\/opinion\/the-mta-wont-quit-squeezing-new-yorkers-for-cash-even-as-it-shells-out-billions\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">want for three bucks, dignity<\/a>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If your subway ride wasn\u2019t annoying enough today \u2014 between delays, packed cars, \u201cShowtime!\u201d dancers and homeless people&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[763,304,141,9,24,55,54,13920,56,1210,299,1687],"class_list":{"0":"post-146833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-advertising","9":"tag-editorial","10":"tag-mta","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-city-news","15":"tag-noise","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-nyc-transit","18":"tag-opinion","19":"tag-subways"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}